Efforts to create a greener world require measures to make that world more just. And that’s not something that looks like happening any time soon.<\/p>\n
Michael Renner of the US-based Worldwatch Institute, commenting in his \u2018green economy\u2019 blog<\/a>, notes: \u201cIn the United States, and maybe elsewhere as well, full-cost pricing and current socio-economic trends seem to be on a collision course.\u201d<\/p>\n Renner points out that while blatant wealth inequalities exist,\u00a0making our purchases kinder to the environment will not provide the road map to a greener world. He adds that\u00a0in recent decades the gap between rich and poor has widened dramatically. \u201cFrom a perspective of simple economic justice, wages should be on a par with productivity gains \u2014 something that has not been the case in the United States for at least 20 years now.\u201d<\/p>\n The is a theme taken up by Les Leopold, author of The Looting of America<\/a> and a founder of the New York-based Labor Institute. In the 2009 book he notes starting in the mid-1970s: \u201cProductivity and wages, American workers discovered, weren\u2019t inextricably linked after all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0The money didn\u2019t disappear. When the \u2018iron law\u2019 linking productivity and wages broke down the wealth generated by spiralling productivity went to different hands \u2013 and not the ones making the products and generating the profits. <\/p>\n \u201cNearly all of it was snatched by the owners of capital – the wealthiest of the \u2018investment class\u2019,\u201d writes Leopold.<\/p>\n Both Leopold and Renner say this rising inequality must be addressed. Renner notes that \u201cenvironmental sustainability requires social sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n He adds: \u201cPeople who don\u2019t have to constantly worry about making ends meet will be more likely to accept that prices should tell the ecological truth.<\/p>\n \u201cEnvironmentalists need to be as aware of the social dimensions of sustainability\u2014well-versed in issues like living wages or occupational health and safety \u2014 as labour representatives are mindful of the environmental dimensions.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cLuckily, there are indications of growing recognition of mutual concerns, as well as cooperative efforts, from the Apollo Alliance<\/a> and the Blue-Green Alliance<\/a> to the very well-attended \u2018Good Jobs Green Jobs\u2019<\/a> conferences in Pittsburgh (2008) and Washington, DC (2009).\u201d<\/p>\n Appealing to the goodwill of those who are nabbing a large and growing share of the wealth created by those doing jobs of green, blue and other hues, would be a strategy destined for failure.<\/p>\n It will take strength or numbers as well as strength of argument to crowbar either economic justice or environmental justice from their grasping hands\u00a0– and that means effective and energetic union organisation with as many environmental allies as its can muster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Efforts to create a greener world require measures to make that world more just. And that’s not something that looks like happening any time soon. Michael Renner of the US-based Worldwatch Institute, commenting in his \u2018green economy\u2019 blog, notes: \u201cIn the United States, and maybe elsewhere as well, full-cost pricing and current socio-economic trends seem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[27,23,26,25,24,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hazards.org\/greenjobs\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}