London’s Mayor Wants Unemployed to be Trained as Energy Efficiency Advisors
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY 
on 01. 8.09
photo: Bruno Girin
Floppy haired London mayor Boris Johnson wants to improve the energy efficiency of buildings in the city and wants to train unemployed Londoners to do it. The Guardian is reporting that the mayor of London has proposed creating a “retrofitting academy” so that new energy efficiency advisors can be trained. Johnson said that such a program,
...would be a huge benefit to this city at a time when we expect people to be joining the ranks of unemployment. They will need retraining and they will be retrained in an industry which has a huge potential for growth.
Green Jobs = A Way Out of Recession, Towards a Lower Carbon Future
While The Guardian piece goes into the politics surrounding the announcement, and the Green500 program (started by Johnson’s predecessor Ken Livingstone), the real thing that caught my attention in this is simply the recognition of the need to create green job training programs, especially in times of recession.
Green jobs are widely cited as being able to provide lasting jobs that can’t be outsourced (or at least are more difficult to be...); energy efficiency in particular is the most cost-effective way of lower energy costs and reducing carbon emissions related to energy; but people will need to be trained to do these jobs. What better way to create this workforce than setting up programs, both for employed people wanting to switch jobs and the unemployed, to give people the necessary skills?
More: The Guardian
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Odd how Uncle Sam, the US icon, is preferred to Lord Kitchener, who played the same function in the UK. As a US cultural imperialist, I am overjoyed.
This is a great way to put unemployed people to work, to invest public money in a way that actually benefits the public, and to teach the people who are most in need of the knowledge that oftentimes the best way to save money is to spend more up front.
Sounds like a job that requires proficiency in physics,
not the kind of job that any unemployed person can be trained into.
Why not treat it as a normal job instead?
If you want it to be done properly, don't just treat it as "something to give to the unemployed".