Whatever Happened to ‘Green Jobs’?
That same spring, the Dow Jones Industrial Average crashed, and unemployment soared. No wonder, then, that the White House—in a strategy allegedly designed by then senior adviser David Axelrod—decided to sell climate action as an economic positive. Not only did the frame seem a good fit for the times; it also had the benefit of leapfrogging past often bewildering fights over the science of climate change. After the “ClimateGate” pseudo-scandal hit later that year, unleashing unprecedented attacks on climate researchers, the economic message must have seemed like a pretty wise idea.
After Solyndra, the “green jobs” message could be met with counter-claims about corruption and government waste.
Alas, the White House’s favored cap-and-trade bill—pitched, economically, as the “American Clean Energy and Security Act”—died in the Senate in 2010. Meanwhile, the clean energy message fell under attack from political conservatives who went looking for scandal in government-supported clean energy projects, and eventually came upon the solar cell manufacturer Solyndra, which had received a large government loan guarantee but went bankrupt in late 2011. From a communications standpoint, the accuracy of the right’s allegations about Solyndra—which have since been disproved—doesn’t really matter. What counts is that the “green jobs” message could now be met with counter-claims about corruption and government waste.
By the end of 2011, then, climate change looked like a political loser, and “green jobs” had tumbled into the maw of political polarization.