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Blue Green Alliance Teams with Vice President Al Gore to create Green Jobs and Solve the Climate Crisis
Steelworkers and Sierra Club will educate members, promote global warming solutions and push for investment in green economy
For Immediate Release: March 31, 2008
PITTSBURGH - The Blue Green Alliance (BGA), a strategic partnership of the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club, today joined the Alliance for Climate Protection, the nonprofit organization founded by Vice President Al Gore, as part of its rapidly expanding coalition of organizations taking steps to solve the climate crisis.
The BGA and the 850,000-member United Steelworkers will work jointly with the Alliance for Climate Protection to educate its members about global warming and activate them behind solutions that can promote economic prosperity. The member-to-member program will be the first of its kind to build a blue collar constituency for global warming solutions, highlighting the opportunities for high-paying domestic jobs in renewable energy, clean technology, and “green” manufacturing while also explaining the environmental and economic risks associated with accelerating climate change.
“We are looking towards a future—a very near future—in which good, high paying American jobs will be created with the onset of a green economy,” said Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers. “Developing, manufacturing, installing and maintaining new technologies to fuel our homes and businesses will create a whole new industry that will translate into millions of new jobs.”
According to David Foster, Executive Director of the BGA, the United States is approaching an historic moment when thinking green will soon become our new “common sense”—and the norm in the business world.
“We believe a renewable energy strategy can get our economy moving again and create a new generation of domestic manufacturing jobs while solving global warming ,” Foster said. “During World War II we built more than 50 planes a day. We should be able to build a renewable energy plant a week to protect our environment, end our addiction to foreign oil and lead to new industries that will create thousands of real jobs.”
The BGA will join other new Alliance for Climate Protection partners, including Girl Scouts of the USA, the Audubon Society, and the Earth Day Network
Earlier this month, the BGA coordinated Good Jobs, Green Jobs, the first national green jobs conference. Convened by more than 70 organizations, the event took place in Pittsburgh and drew more than 1,000 leaders from the environmental, civil rights and labor movements, as well as academic, business and government institutions.
Also this month, the BGA, Steelworkers and Sierra Club launched the “Green Jobs for America!” campaign which will focus on defining global warming and clean renewable energy solutions as key economic opportunities for rebuilding America’s manufacturing infrastructure and creating a broader green economic renaissance.
“The Blue Green Alliance is honored to partner with Vice President Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection,” said Foster. “We look forward to bringing the voices of working Americans into this critical national discussion.”
For more information, please visit www.bluegreenalliance.org or www.wecansolveit.org.
Founded in 2006, the Blue Green Alliance is a strategic partnership of the United Steelworkers, North America’s largest manufacturing union, and the 1.3 million members and supporters of the Sierra Club, the nation’s largest grassroots environmental organization.
Contacts: David Foster, 612-419-9101
Jim Young, 917-597-9129
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2008 RELEASES AND ADVISORIES
