Solar Now Provides Twice As Many Jobs As the Coal Industry, Co.Exist
While the coal industry faces a sharp decline, solar power is growing at record levels — adding jobs at a rate 17 times faster than the overall workforce. The industry is also a more lucrative option for people without higher education. As one advocate puts it, “This is just an incredible example of the opportunities that exist for people that need these opportunities the most.”
Building Trust Cuts Violence. Cash Also Helps. The New York Times
A radical approach to gun violence has helped reduce the homicide rate by nearly 60 percent in Richmond, Calif., formerly one of the nation’s most dangerous cities. Spearheaded by DeVone Boggan, a NationSwell Council member, the program identifies those most likely to be involved in violent crimes and pays them a stipend to turn their lives around. Aside from the cash benefits, participants receive mentoring from “neighborhood change agents” who have come out of lives of crime themselves.
Iceland Knows How to Stop Teen Substance Abuse but the Rest of the World Isn’t Listening, Mosaic Science
In the last two decades, Iceland has implemented an ambitious social program that’s nearly eliminated substance abuse among teens. After research showed that young people were becoming addicted to the changes in brain chemistry brought on by drugs and alcohol, experts decided to “orchestrate a social movement around natural highs,” offering extensive after-school programs in sports, dance, music — anything that could replicate the rush of drugs. This, coupled with stricter laws and closer ties between parents and schools, led to a huge societal makeover. Proponents of the program hope to recreate it in the U.S., but funding and public opinion remain obstacles.
Continue reading “Solar Trumps Coal When It Comes to Jobs, Cash Handouts Deter Crime in California and More”
Tag: Solar Industry
When Low-Income People Can’t Afford Solar Energy, This Organization Helps Out
What nonprofit asks low-income people to don hard hats and safety harnesses and scramble up on roofs?
GRID Alternatives does.
The organization not only provides solar energy to low-income neighborhoods, it also teaches residents how to install the panels themselves — helping them gain experience for potential jobs in the solar industry.
Low-income people are more likely to live in polluted neighborhoods, and they definitely can use the break on energy bills that solar panels provide — but most can’t afford to have them installed. That’s where GRID Alternatives steps in. According to the nonprofit’s website, its solar installation efforts have prevented “the release of 340,000 tons of greenhouse gasses over the systems’ lifetimes and provid[ed] more than $110 million in energy cost savings.”
One hundred and fifty volunteers turned up recently to help install solar panels on 10 Habitat for Humanity homes in a low-income Washington D.C. neighborhood, according to Katherine Ling of E&E. The installation celebrated the grand opening of the Oakland-based nonprofit’s D.C. office, which joins branches in California, Colorado, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.
The D.C. installation event also gave 10 “solar trainees” from a local organization for at-risk youth the chance to gain some valuable job skills and learn about an industry that might eventually provide them with a career.
GRID Alternatives has been able to expand its mission recently due to a $2 million grant from Wells Fargo, as well as equipment donations from Enphase Energy Inc., Sun Edison LLC and SunPower Corp.
The group also sponsors SolarCorps Fellowships, a one-year volunteer training period that qualifies participants for employment in the solar industry. The nonprofit is especially interested in providing jobs to low-income people, minorities and women. To that end, it hosts “women builds” as a part of its National Women in Solar initiative.
Ling visited a woman-only solar installation project in Los Angeles, where SolarCorps construction fellow Ilana Feingold declared, “We love power tools!”
We’re sure they love the energy savings and the jobs that come along with it, too.
MORE: For Those Most In Need of Low Utility Bills, There’s Solar Energy
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