In the political-economic geography of congressional districts and
states, is anyone looking at placement of green industry and employment
that would succeed the old fossil fuel jobs, without incurring massive
migration to seek new work?
Every time I have browsed the economies of congressional districts or
more broadly a home state, I have found huge economic components for
voters, not just a few big donors. Surely some climate hawk strategist
has seen this as well.
One example is that Speaker John Boehner is from Ohio which produces
about 5% of the coal mined in the US. Boehner’s 8th district isn’t on
top of the coal, yet it is a largely urban population that has felt the
recession. Does someone know more about green jobs development there?
This is not a cynical buy-out proposal, we really need to have green jobs that don’t require an immediate migration.
One of the rather creepy legacies of the Cold War is that military industries and installations are still found sprinkled among many of the old configurations of congressional districts, more or less guaranteeing that workers at the sites would press their congresspersons to keep those projects going. Our egregiously large military budget has been a jobs-generator, but not openly discussed as such. Why not re-configure that employment strategy towards a more peaceful outcome?
Instead of vilifying the politicians, let’s find a better solution for their constituents.
Updated January 29, 2013.
Earlier version was cross posted, pre-edits, at Climate Progress
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/22/1476881/gop-declares-war-on-democratic-senators-who-wont-betray-our-children-and-future-generations/#comment-675361
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