A story in the Community College Times notes that creating new training programs for clean energy jobs isn't always an easy path. As budgets tighten, school-to-school collaborations like the one at Laramie Community College for wind training, which also includes students from Delta College and Pueblo Community College, help to ease the strain. 

The story notes, "Given the high start-up costs for wind energy programs, Schmidt said he thought LCCC’s resources could be more fully utilized to help other colleges. The collaboration with Delta and PCC, which have well-established industrial maintenance and engineering technology programs, is the demonstration test. Beginning in June 2010, LCCC will offer intense, month-long wind technology courses to Delta and PCC students. The students will stay in LCCC dorms and will likely pay out-of-state tuition, though this is among the details still being worked out by the colleges. The students’ degree programs will require them to return to LCCC for a second intense session the following summer."

Michael Schmidt, program director of wind energy technology at LCCC, says that the school's partnership could help to reduce the burden of teaching new curriculum, but adds, "It’s an immature industry. We’re not really sure how things are going to develop over the next several years."

Over 300 young people and students showed up at Lansing last weekend for Power Shift Michigan, an event intended to give activists, students, and community members a chance to take action on climate issues. Power Shift events are also taking place in other states this fall, such as Virginia and Missouri, all following up from the national Power Shift conference and rally that took place at the beginning of the year and brought more than 12,000 young people to the U.S. Capitol.

During a rally on Sunday, October 11th, Michigan students marched to the state capitol, carrying banners which said, “Senators Stabenow and Levin: We Want Bold Climate Action Now” and “Michigan wants Green Jobs Now.” Participants also signed hundreds of post cards and wrote letters to the two Senators, telling them that the youth of Michigan want strong, comprehensive climate legislation in 2009.

Not content with carrying signs, students also incorporated community service projects into the weekend's activities: 

• A bike co-op was started for the City of Lansing: two days after the conference the Power Shift committee was told that people have already begun to use the co-op for alternative transportation methods
• An urban garden was planted that the Michigan State University students will help maintain
• GreenNation was launched to address social equity through the green movement

Power Shift Michigan was covered by The Collegiate, Central Michigan Life, BusinessLansing, The State News, WLNS, and The Detroit News. The Power Shift Michigan site also has video uploads and blog entries about the event. 

Day two of the Butte annual sustainability conference opened with a special keynote featuring Ken Grossman, Owner and President of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company – a very popular company with the Butte crowd! Grossman, an alumni of Butte, gave an impressive overview of all the sustainability practices in place at the Brewery, such as the recycling or reusing of almost all waste (99% of waste is diverted from the landfill), using motion sensor lights throughout the buildings, a 10,000 plus panel (solar) structure, and a cattle partnership with Chico State University where the cows are fed spent grain, spent yeast, and even spent beer from the brewing process. The Brewery also captures CO₂ emissions, compressing and cleaning them and using the carbon dioxide as fuel in the dispensing process. Sierra Nevada also has two sustainability coordinators to monitor practices and look for new opportunities.

A second presentation by Dr. Randal Beeman from Bakersfield College, a professor of history, talked about the role of the government in sustainability in history. Dr. Beeman highlighted a couple of ecological crises from the past – the dust bowl and the flooding of the Mississippi and Tennessee river valley in the 30’s. He says the U.S. has always reacted to crisis, instead of preparing for a crisis. The message? Let’s prepare for the warming climate by building a sustainable society –- sustainable homes, campuses and communities with sustainable practices. He emphasized that sustainability, specifically sustainable agriculture, needs to sustain both people and the land and support their regeneration.

Yvonne Christopher, faculty member for construction inspection at Butte College, shared her plans for a 12-building scenario village that will break ground this fall. This village will be built with green features and used for training purposes for local fireman and police, as well as Butte students interested in green building careers and construction.

Butte currently offers courses in energy efficiency and renewable energy, green building technologies and practices, and a green building and LEED certification course.

Kristy Jones is reporting from the 3rd Annual Butte College Sustainability Conference, in Oroville, California.

Former President Bill Clinton, at the third annual meeting of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in Chicago today, shared valuable perspectives on investing in large-scale building retrofits for efficiency and clean energy on campuses, including the possibility of significantly contributing to the creation of the new, green jobs needed to revive the U.S. economy.

Efficiency retrofits and clean energy on campus, he noted, will create significantly more new jobs than comparable spending on fossil fuels in coming years. A single campus, such as Cornell University, may invest up to a gross $150 million over the next 30 years to achieve its greenhouse gas reduction goals, according to Joseph Grasso, Cornell’s assistant dean for finance and administration. Using the U.S. government’s job creation estimate of $92,000 per job created, Cornell’s investment will not only achieve a net energy savings over time, especially when new regulations require internalizing the cost of carbon emissions, but could create more than 1,500 new jobs in the region.

If all 650 signatories to the ACUPCC agreement invested only 1/3 as much as Cornell, the ACUPCC signatories would collectively represent a $30 billion jobs creation powerhouse, while reducing net energy costs and pollution on campuses and in surrounding community.

How to finance such investments? A new guide to be released soon by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) will detail a range of financing strategies for energy efficiency retrofits and clean energy projects on campuses.

Last week, President Obama announced the creation of the American Graduation Initiative, which is expected to funnel $12 billion to community colleges to educate underemployed or unemployed workers in preparation for the day when the economy swings upwards again.

"..[T]he hard truth is that some of the jobs that have been lost in the auto industry and elsewhere won’t be coming back," said Obama. "They are casualties of a changing economy. And that only underscores the importance of generating new businesses and industries to replace the ones we’ve lost, and of preparing our workers to fill the jobs they create." 

The plan calls for an additional 5 million community college graduates by 2020--about 6 million are currently attending--and provides those students with a pathway to completing a four-year degree, if they so choose. About $9 billion will go towards two grant programs intended to better track promising strategies for teaching and learning and increase completion rates. Some money will also go towards renovating facilities, providing more guidance to students exiting high school, and expanding online educational opportunities.

So, is this good news for green jobs education and training, which we've talked about here, here, and here? Maybe.

While clean energy is a platform of the Obama administration, the $12 billion, which would be disbursed over the next ten years, hasn't been specifically dedicated to green jobs training. Until the budget committee makes its allocations, the focus on renewable energy training won't be clear, but so far it looks as if the program is making immediate employment, not clean energy, its primary concern.

However, the shift towards training workers for careers in sustainability may not need federal support, simply because it's already inevitable. A recent UN report predicted the creation of more than 20 million jobs worldwide in clean energy and other green fields by 2030, and many of those jobs are what's termed "middle-skilled," requiring a level of education that is greater than high school but less than a Bachelor's degree. (Job opportunities in health care are also expected to rise.)

Community colleges are expected to take on the bulk of this training because they are typically more agile and diverse than liberal arts schools, and have access to different populations of students. These schools also tend to be very connected to local employers, and have good data on the jobs available to their graduates, which means that in many regions, they are expanding their clean energy programs in response to demand. So, the AGI funds that go to those schools may help to support green jobs by default, though it's not yet the explicit support that advocates, including National Wildlife Federation, hope for.

We'll watch as the allocations are made in the next few months, and see where this goes.

Curious about the finer points of the clean energy grid? Looking for new ideas on campus low-impact farming or biomass plants? Just need to relax by watching students throw paint on each other in the name of art?

YouTube's new higher education site might have you covered. Already, more than 20,000 videos have been uploaded from universities like Wesleyan, Harvard, Dartmouth, UNC-Chapel Hill, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Minnesota and Virginia Tech. Topics cover everything from quantum physics to curing kleptomania, in a variety of formats, such as full-length lectures, short interviews, or webcam anecdotes.

The site offers to extend the reach of the university beyond traditional students, which sounds like a good idea to us, especially when it comes to keeping up with the latest research on renewable energy and sustainability. In fact, even though the site was only launched a few weeks ago, 85 results come up for the term 'clean energy,' and 'sustainability' pulls almost 300.

Our own Xarissa Holdaway has a story at WorldChanging that describes how some California community colleges are experimenting with green-collar training programs.

In many regions, early reports suggest there are not enough workers to meet demand for wind, solar and geothermal projects, while some states find the opposite: that there are more trained professionals than there are jobs. A report from the National Council on Workforce Education states,

"[M]any jobs that are currently, or predicted to be, in demand are ‘middle-skilled’ jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree. It is important to note that although there will be a growing number of new green occupations requiring new knowledge, skills, and abilities, it is expected that the majority will be transformed from existing jobs, requiring a redefinition of skill sets, methods, and occupational profiles."

To more accurately predict when and where workers will be required, not to mention training these workers, she reports that community colleges are turning to local organizations and pioneering a new collaborative model that can "respond to trends in clean and green technology." One such project, the New Energy Workforce (NEW) Initiative, a partnership between Bay Area community colleges and regional workforce investment boards, is able to conduct courses, research employment opportunities, and share successful curricula between schools. 

Kitty O'Doherty, convener of the NEW project, says, "This is a call for new levels of collaboration. We convened the Workforce Investment Boards and the colleges in our region in February, and both groups are extremely committed. They [WIBs] are going to have the funding to place people in these jobs, and we're going to have the training. The common mission of preparing individuals for meaningful careers and creating a well-qualified workforce for our region is a very compelling motivator."

A new article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (sub. req.) profiles a minority trend that could, if economic conditions persist, become a majority problem.

Scott Carlson reports that "about 25 percent of the colleges that should have turned in their greenhouse-gas reports in September are still delinquent. Of the colleges that had a deadline in January, nearly half have yet to file."

The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which has more than 600 signatories, commits schools to working towards climate neutrality, and the first step in that process is creating a public greenhouse gas inventory. As Carlson points out, it is a difficult requirement, but an easier one than those following, which include creating an emissions reduction plan, carrying it out, and integrating sustainability education into the university's curriculum.

However, between budget shortfalls and shifting priorities, many schools have failed to create or publish their emissions report, and some, like the College of Alameda in California, seem to have forgotten entirely. Many of the delinquent schools are small institutions with fewer resources or shrinking enrollments, for whom large investments in sustainability were always a stretch:

"Mr. King says Cabrillo [College] may have to postpone plans for some renewable-energy projects, like solar panels, that require upfront investment. The college has plans for a new building that would be certified platinum in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, but budget concerns may require the college to shoot for a lower certification instead."

Many of the schools that have yet to create an inventory report that their philosophy remains unchanged, and that sustainability remains an important part of the agenda, even in difficult times. The article also notes that supporting organizations, such as Clean Air -- Cool Planet and AASHE, are continuing to reach out to schools that are lagging and provide resources.

But what of the other 75%, who have reported their emissions and are now (presumably) writing their climate action plans? The Chronicle notes in a different story that Butte College, a small, two-year institution in Northern California, has just added three new solar arrays to its existing panels from 2005. The beefed-up system will generate 2.7 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, and is expected to save the school $32.6 million on utility bills in the next 20 years.

The final event of Power Shift, which took place on a snowy, below-freezing day in Washington, DC, drew thousands of students to the Capitol for pre-scheduled visits to members of Congress.

Christopher Applegate, a Missouri transplant now attending the University of Oklahoma, said that his state has been underrepresented, so he came with a group of ten people to speak with Senator Coburn and Senator Inhofe.

"The biggest issue we’re facing is that they’re trying to get some nuclear energy and some coal plants put up, but Oklahoma already has 708 MW of wind energy and another 126 going on the grid this year, so we're looking for ways to transition to more of that," said Applegate. "Oklahoma has already voted down one coal plant and through grassroots organizing we got rid of another one." He noted that the University of Oklahoma has announced that it will be completely powered by wind energy by 2013.

Lindsay Randall, a graduate of Purchase College in NY who now works as the school's Environmental and Sustainability Coordinator, said, "“It’s incredible, there are 12,000 people here at Power Shift, and that’s just the people who could afford tickets, who could take the time off school. It’s just a fraction of the people who wanted to be here."

The 11 students who came with Randall, most in environmental studies, art and business, went to a meeting with Senator Gillibrand's environmental staffer, Ben Rosenbaum. "When she was Congresswomen, she was a co-sponsor of the state climate act, so we look forward to working with her. I think she’ll be supportive, and that we’re going to be able to make some good progress with her," she said.

Purchase College, a signatory of the President's Climate Commitment, recently completed its greenhous gas inventory. "We're looking at reductions right now," said Randall. "The students are going to be more involved. They learned skills here to organize on campus, and we’re going to do a lot more activism and awareness of federal legislation. We have a really strong non-violent action group on campus, and they’re going to do more."

After the rally and visits were over, many left not for home, but for a protest that ended up at the Capitol coal plant. Carrying signs advocating everything from a no-coal economy to green jobs, students from Power Shift joined groups from Greenpeace, the Chesapeake Climate Action network and other organizations. As they walked, the group of more than 2,500 protestors passed a rival protest from coal supporters that had attracted fewer than 20 people.

Several days earlier, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had announced that the U.S. Capitol Power Plant would be switched to burn only natural gas, a transition that will require significant retrofitting to the equipment that produces 35% of the plant's output from coal. No timeline for this transition has been determined.

Power Shift, a conference and lobby event that aimed to bring 10,000 young people to the Capitol to take action on climate change and environmental degradation, took a turn for the socially-aware at last night's opening keynote speeches.

Almost 12,000 t-shirted twenty-somethings filed into the hall, sometimes breaking out into spontaneous cheers or songs. About 2,000 more people had registered than Jessy Tolkan and other members of the Energy Action Coalition had hoped, and they filled the room to capacity. Buses were unloading more groups from colleges and youth groups all over the country until just before the session opened. The event is being cited as the largest gathering on climate change and clean energy in the history of the US; more people are in attendance here than were at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007.

For a group that considers itself the most tolerant and most diverse environmental movement in the nation, it was no surprise that opening speakers didn't restrict their remarks to increasing atmospheric CO2 or ocean acidification. Instead, Lisa Jackson of the EPA, Ken Salazar of the Department of the Interior, Majora Carter, Mayor Rocky Anderson, Van Jones, Clayton Thomas-Muller and others elaborated on the idea that environmental work cannot be delegated to any one group, nationality or ethnicity.

Majora Carter, an environmental activist from the South Bronx who has spent years on a "Greening the Ghetto' campaign, told stories of the pollution in the neighborhoods where she grew up, and the diabetes, asthma, and other health problems caused by manufacturing and energy plants in the Bronx. "Our pollution-based economy is built on the subsidies on the health of poor people," she said. She urged the audience to put a stop to mountaintop coal removal and other community-harming sources of fuel, to meet opponents with love and companionship, and find safe, fair work for those currently employed in coal or other industries. "Environmental justice," she said, "is civil rights for the 21st century."

Overwhelmingly, the crowd signaled their commitment to working with government and other organizations to find solutions to climate problems. One of the loudest cheers of the night went to Ken Salazar, who promised that the Department of the Interior would "appoint thousands of young people to restore America. We'll have the best youth conservation corp the world has ever seen!"

Van Jones also noted the importance of "adding to the world" rather than taking things out of it. "If all we do is take away the dirty powers in the system and stick a solar panel on it, but don't deal with our water, or the way we treat each other, we'll have biofueled bombers, and be fighting over lithium for the batteries," he said. "We can be locusts or we can be honeybees," he finished. "Will our work be a scourge on this planet or a blessing on this generation?"