Over the past several decades, power plants have curtailed their emissions of harmful pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, soot and mercury. This has saved lives, cleaned rivers and lakes and created tens of thousands of jobs in clean-technology industries. But power plants have continued to pump unlimited amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, with disastrous consequences. That pollution has been warming the climate, leading to an increase in deadly and destructive storms, droughts, floods and wildfires. Cutting dangerous carbon pollution now is imperative to protect public health.
It's also — as cutting pollution has proved to be in the past — a good way to create jobs.
President Obama's new plan to combat climate change will at last set limits on carbon pollution from power plants, the biggest source of carbon emissions in the country. Energy efficiency will play a key role in the president's plan: it cuts energy waste and reduces carbon pollution; it lowers energy bills; and it also drives job growth. In fact, according to a new NRDC analysis, cutting U.S. power plant pollution 26 percent by 2020 could net 210,000 new jobs, mostly in the energy-efficiency sector.
via news.yahoo.com
I'm struggling to understand how new technologies can result in a NET increase in jobs. Maybe in the short run the demand for new jobs in the 'energy-efficiency' sector will increase, with no change in jobs in the 'energy-inefficient' sector, but those people are going to come from somewhere (which other sector is going to lose jobs?). Over-time, the 'energy-inefficient' sector will lose jobs due to the increased costs of production. Is the 'energy-efficient' sector that much more labor intensive than the 'energy-inefficient' sector that we will get a net increase in jobs?
I'm confused.
As usual.
