Above, an ad from our new campaign for the American Wind Energy Association, highlighting the contribution wind power can make to a new economy. The people featured in the ad, and in the longer videos after the jump, work for companies like Cardinal Fastener, who makes the bolts for the turbines, and Gamesa, a re-tasked steel plant, now building the turbines themselves. They have the kind of quality manufacturing jobs that help blue collar workers get into, and stay in, the middle class. Sure, wind power means using less coal and it means a fighting chance for all of us against climate change, but it also means good jobs for real people.
Right now, Congress is debating the American Climate and Energy Security (ACES) Act. The bill is a big step towards a new direction on climate change and energy policy in this country, but that doesn’t mean that it’s perfect. In particular, while a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) is part of it, there’s a chance it will get watered down in the horse-trading that accompanies big pieces of legislation. And that would be a disaster– the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that a 25% by 2025 RES would create 297,000 jobs, and anything less than 12% by 2012 would actually mean losing jobs. We just can’t afford that right now.
Renewable energy is a huge growth industry around the world, with 37 countries, including China already having firm RES in place. Standing up for the climate, and the American worker, means doing the same here at home. You can learn more about RES at PowerofWind.com. After the jump, a couple longer videos we did highlighting the stories of some of the workers from the ad.
Something happened on November 4, 2008—on that much we can all agree. Americans went to the polls in record numbers and elected a candidate whose most consistent message over the nearly two-year long campaign was as simple as it was clear: Change.
But what kind of change? How fast, and in what directions? Now that we’re being heard, how do we want to set the agenda? These aren’t idle questions, particularly for Underground and our clients, many of whom have spent the past eight years fighting a rearguard action against policies that were an unmitigated disaster for the environment, human rights, and the very idea of using science to fashion solutions to the immense problems we face. So where do we start, and how do we begin?
The session, along with several like it that took place in other cities, brought together some very smart people from government, academia, entertainment, and communications to talk about what’s gone wrong with the way our country is perceived abroad, and what can be done to change it. It was a little intimidating looking around the table that day, to be sure, but I did my best to speak up for the non-profits we work with, which have such a vital role to play in shaping our society, and how we’re perceived around the world.
Specifically, there was a lot of discussion about the creation of private-public partnership– what that might look like, who should be involved, and where the pitfalls of something like that might lie. It was an absolutely fascinating conversation, and the end result (at least for now) is a report called Voices of America: U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century. Rebuilding our image overseas is going to be a key challenge over the next four years, and it’s good to know that such smart people are thinking about how we can all contribute to that.
Telling American Stories is something of a side project, but it seems like the kind of thing people who are viewing this site would be interested in, so here goes.
I’ve been working on this project for the past several years, creating a workshop, an essay, and now a web site to talk about how traditional American narratives inform the frames people have about the work that many of us do, and how progressive values intersect with what many call traditional American values. I started working on Telling American Stories because I was frustrated that so many organizations and issues that I cared deeply about were being defined as somehow outside of what’s really “American.” I didn’t see anyone making the argument that I wanted to make about how progressive causes have just as much (and probably even more) right to frame their struggle in terms of our shared history as conservative ones. So I created a workshop. Then wrote it up.
If that sounds interesting, why not check it out? And then leave a comment, because I’d love to know what you think of it.
Say you’re a presidential candidate who wants to reach a nontraditional audience– maybe young men who aren’t engaged in the political process. How do you do it? Well, if you’re Barack Obama, you advertise in the XBox racing game Burnout Paradise.
And if you’re John McCain? You probably just yell at them to get off your lawn. (via Talking Points Memo)
