‘Green jobs’ focus of union, environment talks

In addition to helping the environment, an economy driven by clean energy would create hundreds of thousands of "green collar" jobs and help revitalize U.S. manufacturing, proponents said as they gathered at a conference of union organizers and environmental activists.

The growth of renewable energy should produce some 850,000 new jobs at existing U.S. companies alone, said David Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance, a group formed by the United Steelworkers union and the Sierra Club.

"We're talking about reinvigorating the manufacturing economy that we've got by putting it to environmental purposes." - David Foster, BGA executive director