Buried in the controversy over whether to get the H1N1 vaccination (or
even where to find one), is that one of the best ways to ward off any
flu is to build up your overall immunity. Dave Grotto, author of 101 Foods That Could Save Your Life, reveals 10 foods that provide top doses of the vitamins and nutrients you need to protect and defend against illness.

(Photo: Paul Poplis / Getty Images)

Dark chocolate

Nutrition experts agree that dark chocolate deserves a place in healthy diets, and a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition
says it can boost your immunity, too. High doses of cocoa support
T-helper cells, which increase the immune system’s ability to defend
against infection. Sweet!

Strawberries

Even though vitamin C-rich foods (hello oranges!) are probably the
first thing you think of when you feel a cold coming, Grotto says the
illness-preventing power of the antioxidant is debatable.
That said, some studies show it can reduce the intensity and duration
of cold and flu, so it’s worth a try. One cup of strawberries provides
160 percent of your daily needs.

Fresh garlic

Strong smelling foods like garlic can stink out sickness thanks to the phytochemical allicin, an antimicrobial compound. A British study found
that people taking allicin supplements suffered 46 percent fewer colds
and recovered faster from the ones they did get. So start cooking with
it daily — experts recommend two fresh cloves a day.

Oysters

Zinc
is critical for the immune system — it rallies the troupes, or white
blood cells, to attack bacteria and viruses like a flu or cold. One
medium oyster provides nearly all of the zinc you need for a day, while
a portion of six gives you over five times the recommended amount.

Almonds

Heart-healthy almonds boast immune-boosting antioxidant vitamin E,
which can reduce your chance of catching colds and developing
respiratory infections according to researchers at Tufts University.
You’ll need more than a serving of almonds for your daily dose though,
so try fortified cereals, sunflower seeds, turnip greens, and wheat
germ, too.

(Photo: Foodcollection /
Getty Images)

Wild-caught salmon

In a recent study,
participants with the lowest levels of vitamin D were about 40 percent
more likely to report a recent respiratory infection than those with
higher levels of vitamin D. Increase your intake with salmon, a
3.5-ounce serving provides 360 IU — some experts recommend as much as
800 to 1000 IU each day.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms used to get overlooked as a health food, but they possess two
big weapons you need this flu season: selenium, which helps white blood
cells produce cytokines that clear sickness, and beta glucan, an
antimicrobial type of fiber, which helps activate “superhero” cells
that find and destroy infections.

Tea

Researchers at Harvard University found that drinking five cups of
black tea a day quadrupled the body’s immune defense system after two
weeks, probably because of theanine. Tea
also contains catechins, including ECGC, which act like a cleanup crew
against free radicals. Grotto suggests drinking one to three cups of
black, green, or white tea every day.

Yogurt

The digestive tract is one of your biggest immune organs, so keep
disease-causing germs out with probiotics and prebiotics, found in
naturally fermented foods like yogurt. One serving a day labeled with
“live and active cultures” will enhance immune function according to a
study from the University of Vienna in Austria.

Sweet potatoes

Beta-carotene
improves your body’s defenses. It’s instrumental in the growth and
development of immune system cells and helps neutralize harmful toxins.
Sweet potatoes and other orange foods like carrots, squash, pumpkin,
egg yolks, and cantaloupe are top sources.

Julie Knapp is a regular contributor to Mother Nature Network, where a version of this post originally appeared.

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• Obama girls get swine flu shots
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Check out Yahoo! Green on Twitter and Facebook.

It was Mahatma Gandhi who said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” The issues we face may seem daunting and individual efforts may not appear to have much impact, however collectively each of us can play a significant role in the effort to conserve our resources.

Here are five actions you can take that will help to preserve and protect the planet and your budget.

Drive Less

• Transportation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and the largest end-use source of CO2.¹ (EPA) Walk, bike, carpool and use public transportation more often for heart-healthy, stress-reducing alternatives that preserve precious energy reserves and save money.

• A study by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) found that families who use public transportation reduce their household expenses by as much as $6,200 annually. That’s more than the average U.S. household spends on food every year!²

Eat Responsibly

• Eat organic, plant-based meals as often as possible. Go vegan to lighten your ecological footprint.³  Plant-based meals are healthful, delicious and far more cost effective than a meat and dairy-based regimen. Livestock occupies 30 percent of the earth’s surface, and 33 percent of farmland worldwide produces animal feed. Each plant-based meal you eat saves 280 gallons of water and protects up to 50 square feet of land from overgrazing and deforestation.⁴

• Support local farmers. Locally grown food requires less fuel to move the food you eat from farm to table, reducing energy consumption, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Conserve Energy

• 75 percent of the electricity that powers home electronics is consumed while they are turned off. Use power strips to cut all power to “phantom load” appliances, such as computers, TVs, DVD players, cell phone chargers and coffee makers.

• Use cold water rather than hot wherever practical. Weather-strip doors and windows. Install blinds to prevent heat loss during the winter and Air Conditioning during the summer. Turn down the thermostat before bedtime and every degree will save you five percent on your heating bill.

Use Less Water

• The earth is a water-rich planet, however most of it is salt water and much is tied up in icecaps and glaciers; 99.7% of all the water on earth is not available.⁵  Turn off water while brushing your teeth to save three gallons of water a day. Cut two minutes off your shower to save five gallons of water per day

• Repair leaky faucets, which can waste up to 20 gallons of water a day. Run clothes washers and automatic dishwashers when they are fully loaded or set the water level for the size of the load to save up to 1,000 gallons of water a month.

Replace Light bulbs

• Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) have a distinctive swirl, fit into the standard socket and are available everywhere light bulbs are sold. Most labels do not say CFL; GE calls its bulbs Energy Savers and in some cases the telltale twist is encased in frosted glass.

• CFLs cost three to five times more than incandescent bulbs, use 75 percent less energy and last about ten times longer. Energy Star compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) will save about $30 over its lifetime and pay for itself in about 6 months. Because a CFL bulb contains 5 mg of mercury, do not toss them into the regular trash.

Marie Oser is a best-selling author, writer/producer and host of VegTV, Follow Marie on Twitter: http://twitter.com/vegtv

Click here to learn more about your Carbon Footprint.

Sources:

1. Greenhouse-Gas Emissions from the U.S. Transportation Sector: 1990-2003
   http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420r06003.pdf
2. Public Transportation and Petroleum Savings in the U.S.: Reducing Dependence on Oil, ICF International, January 2007
3. Eshel, G., and P.A. Martin, 2006: Diet, Energy, and Global Warming. Earth Interactions, 10, 1–17
4. H. Steinfeld, P. Gerber, T. Wassenaar, V. Castel, M. Rosales, C. de Haan. Livestock’s long shadow, Environmental issues and options. 2006, 390 pp
5. Dr. Allan R. Hoffman, Senior Analyst, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) http://www.waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/world-water-6.htm

More from ecomii:

• Donate or recycle old electronics
• Reduce, reuse, and recycle to lower carbon emissions
• Catch energy vampires
• Breaking down the 5 big energy hogs in your home
• Save money by going solar

Q. Dear Umbra,

I am worried that your hotness may be contributing to global warming. I’m not sure what can be done to fix this.

O Zone

A. Dearest O,

You are making me blush. But I am using your letter as a springboard to report some exciting news: In an effort to make my operations more energy-efficient, I am combining my previous twice-weekly column into one weekly, multi-question column. Experts say the shift will result in 26 fewer milligrams of carbon emitted each week. I’ll also be popping up in other places on Grist during the week now, and asking you dearest readers for more input. So keep the questions, suggestions, and blush-inducing compliments coming—we’ll lick this climate thing yet.

Efficiently,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

What is the most effective thing each of us can do over the next six weeks to help stop global warming?

Ned T.
Columbia, Md.

A. Dearest Ned,

I assume your six-week timeframe is pinned on the Copenhagen climate conference, to which we are all looking with bright eyes and big hopes. My advice for the interim is two-pronged: first, pledge to make one change in your own life that will reduce your energy use. Because I’m getting in the holiday spirit, I’ll even say changing one light bulb counts, though I’d like to see you take some bigger steps as well. Second, but only because I couldn’t blurt both ideas at once: Contact your representatives and senators. Tell them you support the passage of strong climate legislation, and tell them Obama would be insane not to go to Copenhagen. Tell them if they don’t do something about climate change immediately, you are going to distribute photographs of them in compromising positions. We all know you don’t possess any such photographs, but that sort of threat will always send a shiver down a politician’s spine. When it comes to the climate crisis, we are no longer above such maneuvers.

Shiveringly,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

Do you have any recommendations on how to make the annual corporate ‘gift basket’ sustainable, yet memorable?

Erin K.
Portland, Ore.

A. Dearest Erin,

Want not, waste not. Good for you for thinking about how to make this consumption-y tradition more sustainable. The obvious choice, of course, would be to forgo the gift basket entirely. Can you get away with that at your company? Why not send your supporters and customers a gift certificate for a nice meal, instead, or donate to a worthy non-profit organization in their name. It seems to me that, in an age when 83 percent of people report receiving gifts they don’t want, the corporate gift basket has run its course. However, if you absolutely must dole out tangible items, see if you can draw any inspiration from our list of creative green gift basket ideas. If all else fails and a more traditional basket is required, make sure you are thoughtful about choosing local, sustainable products. You live in a land of good cheese, beer, and wine, so it shouldn’t be hard.

Scroogily,
Umbra

Q. Dear Umbra,

Can I recycle my receipts?  I’m worried that the type of paper they’re printed on will contaminate the regular paper I’m recycling.

BadRabbit
Richmond, Va.

A. Dearest Bad,

What a good question as we approach Holiday Shopping Madness. I can say with nearly 100 percent confidence that you cannot recycle your receipts—at least, those printed on thermal paper, which is the sort of shiny, sheeny paper that faxes used to arrive on. (Remember faxes?) However, as with all such “can I recycle this or that” questions, I’ll advise you to doublecheck with your municipality. Two more things on the receipt front, one creepy, one promising. The creepy one is that some receipts are coated with BPA, the estrogen-mimicking chemical found in baby bottles and can linings. At present, the best advice for avoiding this form of BPA exposure seems to be to decline receipts when you can, and wash your hands after handling them when you can’t. Now for the more promising news: I’ve been hearing about a business model in which you, the customer, can associate your debit card with an e-mail account and request digital receipts, so instead of ending up with a pocket full of non-recyclable thermal paper, you end up with an inbox full instead. Many people seem to be trying this notion, but I have not located one good, central resource that’s figured out how to get it up and running—readers, any insights?

Totally,
Umbra

Related Links:

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Simon Hackett’s Tesla Roadster on the Global Green Challenge in Australia. (Photo via Simon Hackett)

Simon Hackett is the managing director of Australia’s national broadband company Internode, but he doesn’t spend all his time behind a computer. He is the proud owner of a Tesla Roadster, which he just drove 313 miles on a single charge — at least a tentative world record.

The record was set on the Global Green Challenge, an Australian solar car race (from the Northern Territories to southernmost Adelaide) that goes back to 1987, when it was won by a General Motors/AeroVironment entry called Sunraycer. The solar car race, open to electric vehicles charged by photovoltaics, was won by a team from Tokai University in Japan. American teams from the University of Michigan and MIT did well, too, but that’s another story.

The Challenge also includes a division for production cars, and that’s where the Tesla was competing. Hackett points out that his drive smashes a record set last April by another Tesla Roadster, which completed the 241-mile Rallye Monte Carlo d’Energies Alternatives on just one charge (with more than 38 miles left, apparently).

From the road, Hackett and co-driver Elilis Prelgauskas sent Tesla an email: “Emilis and I have decades of experience flying gliders competitively, and we applied the same energy conservation techniques to our driving, with significant results! The car had about three miles of range left when the drive was completed. We traveled 501 kilometers [313 miles] on a single charge. Let that sink in for a minute.”

On his blog, Hackett said, “We wanted to prove a point about the ability of EVs to drive truly large distances–and we have done so! This ends any contention that EVs aren’t practical cars. They’re more than that–they are the future of motoring.”

Sealing the charge port door. (Photo courtesy Tesla Motors)

The team’s secret was slow and steady–they seldom traveled more than 35 mph, though we all know the Tesla Roadster can reach 125. Don’t gliders go faster than that? I’m sure this will start a run on Teslas down under.

The security of the charge was established with a seal affixed to the charge port door when the team took off from Alice Springs. It was still there when they arrived in Coober Pedy (they have crazy town names in Australia). A film crew was on hand to document everything.

Hackett emailed me at press time, to praise what Tesla has been able to do on the market–sell 900 cars so far. “Tesla have taken the ‘Silicon Valley’ approach with electric vehicles,” he said. “They have started at the high end with a sports car, and are working ‘down the stack’ toward progressively more affordable and mainstream cars. For decades EV manufacturers have tried to do it the other way around and failed to get their business model to work; I believe Tesla are doing it the right way around and their success is already obvious, with external investment now flowing toward them…”

Hackett said he has already ordered a Model S sedan, and will enter it in the next Global Green Challenge two years from now. “The Tesla Model S Sedan will equal or exceed the performance of my current family ‘people mover’–a Subaru Tribeca–in every axis (city driving range, space, capacity to carry people and luggage),” he said. “And it will do it at a comparable price.”

The Tesla runs on lithium-ion batteries, more than 6,000 of them, and it is the first production EV to have more than 200 miles of range. The company’s battery guru, JB Straubel, is amazingly confident about the future range of battery cars. In an interview I did with him for the New York Times, he said that battery tech is improving roughly eight percent a year, and energy density has doubled in the last 10 years. He predicted that a “rich improvement trend” is on the horizon in the coming decades, By 2015, he said, the cutting edge for automotive battery packs will be ranges of 350 to 370 miles.

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[In his ongoing but sporadic series Don’t Throw That Away!, the Green Cheapskate shows you how to repurpose just about anything, saving money and the environment in the process. Send him your repurposing ideas and challenges, but whatever you do, don’t throw that away!]

I was a bank robber, the first Halloween I can remember. That involved carrying a burlap bag filled with stacks of newsprint “loot” over my shoulder, wearing a black turtleneck sweater like Illya Kuryakin wore in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and — most memorably — sliding one of my grandmother’s worn out silk stockings over my head.

That memory (the last part, in particular) is etched upon my mind. And, my therapist says, no amount of counseling is ever likely to erase it.

Silk stockings are of course as long gone as my dear grandmother; truly sad to say, in both cases. But here are 20 creative ways to repurpose today’s worn-out nylon pantyhose, even if you’re not planning to rob a bank:

• Gift wrap storage: Keep rolls of gift paper neat and tatter-free by storing them in old pantyhose — one roll per leg — and hanging them in the closet.
• Green Cheapskate soap on a rope: Put bath soap slivers in the foot of a pair of pantyhose to get every last bit of suds out of them in the shower. Rub-a-dub-dub, there’s a cheapskate in my tub. (See more “Recycling Oddities.”)
• Plant ties: Use lengths of pantyhose to stake up tomatoes and other plants in the garden; because of its elasticity, it’s easier on tender plants than string.
• Mold and mildew stoppers: Partially fill pantyhose with kitty litter and place in shoes, luggage, closets, dressers, etc., to absorb moisture and reduce mold and mildew.
• Panty-pantry storage: Store onions, potatoes, and garlic in pantyhose and hang them in the pantry to promote good air circulation and keep them from rotting.
• Sweet smelling sachets: Fill lengths of pantyhose with potpourri, tie off at both ends, and use to keep closets and dressers smelling sweet. They also work well when filled with cedar shavings or moth-repelling herbs to prevent damage to clothing in storage.
• Pillow stuffing: Cut pantyhose into strips and use to stuff throw pillows or toys.
• Repair torn pair in a pinch: If she has a run in the left leg and a matching pair with a run in the right, my wife sometimes cuts off her bad legs (so to speak) and doubles up, wearing two layers of panties with a good leg attached to each. (God I love that frugal woman.)
• Packing peanut storage: Store menacing foam packing peanuts in a pair of pantyhose to keep them from invading the house until you’re ready to reuse them. Cut a hole in the toe and tie it off with a twisty seal for easy peanut dispensing.
• Homemade Bungee cords: The elasticity of pantyhose make them perfect all-purpose tie down straps, or tie a metal “S” hook from the hardware store on each end for a homemade Bungee cord.
• Lint mitt: Use like a mitten to remove lint and pet hair from clothing and upholstery rather than a lint brush. The mitt will also remove deodorant residue from clothing.
• Scratch-less scrubbers: Try pantyhose to scrub tile and other surfaces where you’re afraid of scratches. Also good for applying polishes to silver, brass, gold and other easily scratched metals.
• Protect prized veggies: Put pantyhose over vegetables like squash and melons while they’re still growing in the garden to protect against pest damage without using chemical pesticides. Is that a zucchini in your pantyhose, or are you just happy to see me?
• Flower bulb storage: Store seasonal bulbs in pantyhose and hang them up in a dry place to promote good air circulation.
• Shoe shine buffer: Old pantyhose are perfect for putting the spit-shine on shoes.
• Wear them outdoors: Guys, don’t be shy about sporting a pair of worn out pantyhose next time you go camping or work in the yard. Real outdoorsmen (and outdoorswomen) have known for years that they prevent chigger and other insect bites and minimize foot blister.
• Draft dodgers: Partially fill pantyhose with kitty litter to seal off cold drafts from under doors and windows.
• Fishing trick: When I wasn’t wearing my Granny’s worn out stockings over my head, my Gramps was using them to catch catfish. He’d wrap a piece of chicken liver bait in a section of nylon stocking to keep it on the hook; the fish would still bite, and he’d still have his bait.
• Paint/stain/plaster applicator: Use pantyhose to add interesting texture and designs when applying and/or finishing paint and plaster.
• Special photo effects: Stretch pantyhose over your camera lens to give photos a muted or starburst effect. (Note: It’s best to have her take them off before you try this.)

Jeff Yeager is the author of the book The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches. His website is www.UltimateCheapskate.com.

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Stephen O’Shea asks: My high school has been collecting a large quantity of used household batteries with the intention of having them recycled. But when I contacted the local recycling agencies, they said these types of batteries are just considered trash. Before I dump them in the trash, do you know anymore about this?

Manna Jo Greene replies:

Rechargeables need to be recycled: Nickel-cadmium and ni-metal hydride batteries are made with heavy metals.

In early 90s, I served on the New York State Battery Task Force and we (collectively those working on battery issues) got the industry to stop using mercury in alkaline, single-use AAA, AA, A, C, and D batteries as an antioxidant (Mercury-Containing and Rechargeable Battery Management Act of 1996).

So these batteries are not toxic per se, but do contain a metal (steel) casing and can technically be recycled with scrap metal if you have a metal can full of them, but make sure they are fully discharged. Also, do not close the storage container tightly as they can give off some hydrogen.  Most people just put these safely into the trash.

It’s lead, NiCd, NiMH, and lithium batteries that are toxic. Mercuric oxide, rare specialty batteries are not used by general public, but must be recycled. Zinc air and silver oxide are substitutes.

Silver oxide batteries contain silver, a precious metal, and should be recycled and can be easily.

Lead acid batteries (for autos) must be recycled, and there is a rebate in N.Y. when you trade them in.

Lithium batteries are highly reactive and should be recycled.

In summary, rechargeables and button cells can and should be recycled, single-use can be tossed.

More info on battery recycling.

Manna Jo Greene is the environmental director of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

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Construction of renewable energy projects has revealed some serious environmental issues that will have to be dealt with as we speed toward a clean energy future.  We recently wrote about the conflict between land conservation efforts and renewable energy projects in deserts out west.  Land that is ideal for solar energy production is also pristine land in need of protection.

In California, a similar conflict is arising between solar projects and water conservation.  Solar farms demand a lot of water, a resource that is stretched very thin in the arid areas where they’re being developed.  A large solar farm can use upwards of 500 million gallons of water a year for cooling purposes and there are currently 35 big projects slated for development in California desert.

A “dry cooling” technique exists that uses 90 percent less water than “wet cooling,” but it’s more expensive and reduces the efficiency of the solar plant.  Even so, some plants are giving in and going the dry route.

Solar plants are fighting with state regulators to get the water they need.  Some are succeeding, while others are failing.  Just with land conservation, there doesn’t seem to be one right side here.  Ideally, a new technique for cooling will be developed that doesn’t require large amounts of water or a dip in efficiency.

via Green Inc.

The DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Florida will be large enough to serve the entire city of Arcadia, whose very name suggests some kind of modern-day post-oil paradise.

Here’s what the 25-megawatt facility, the largest solar installation in the U.S. with 90,000 solar panels, looks like on video:

But there are clouds in the solar sky, and its name is the electric grid.

President Obama, in Arcadia on October 27, was only too happy to align himself with hopeful symbols like Arcadia and its promise of 100 percent clean utilities producing renewable electricity. But he also used it as the backdrop for the announcement of $3.4 billion in stimulus funding for the smart grid. It’s desperately needed.

The DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy
Center: Needs a smart grid. (Florida Power
& Light rendering)

As Obama pointed out, “To realize the full potential of this plant and others like it, we’ve got to do more than just add extra solar megawatts to our electrical grid. That’s because this grid-which is made up of everything from power lines to generators to the meters in your home-still runs on century-old technology. It wastes too much energy, it costs us too much money, and it’s too susceptible to outages and blackouts.”

Obama made an appropriate analogy — to the tangle of roads that existed in the U.S. before the interstates were announced (as a defense measure!) by President Eisenhower in the 1950s. “It was a tangled maze of poorly maintained back roads that were rarely the fastest or the most efficient way to get from point A to point B,” he said, and that is the grid today: local power plants and small regional networks, barely capable of communicating with other grids or even with their own customers.

This is a huge challenge if we truly want to switch to renewable energy, because the wind and sun are located in inconvenient places such as east Texas and North Dakota. One of the reasons T. Boone Pickens killed his massive Texas wind farm was because the grid just couldn’t deliver his plentiful energy.

Obama: Plugged in. (Photo: NASA)

The smart grid is also crucial to make the switch from gas-guzzlers to electric cars because plugging millions of EVs into the peak usage times in the current infrastructure is a recipe for melted transformers and blackouts. But electricity is use it or lose it, and we’re currently wasting billions of kilowatt-hours at night when there’s low demand.

With a smart grid, customers will have pricing incentives to charge only in late evening, and touch-screens in their cars (as well as cell phone apps) to make setting up a charge as easy as programming a VCR (well, easier than that).

The Obama Administration outlined how the money will be spent:

• $1 billion for empowering consumers to cut bills and use off-peak electricity through giving them access to smart meters and dynamic pricing schemes;
• $400 million for improving electricity distribution, transmission and stability with digital monitoring and increased grid automation;
• $2 billion for enabling the optimum use of smart meters, appliances and thermostats, all in the interest of helping components of the Smart Grid to play better with other parts. This fund, the bulk of the stimulus package, will also help communications with plug-in hybrid cars and battery-electric vehicles, as well as with renewable energy sources.
• $25 million for expanding a manufacturing base for smart meters, transformers and appliances-though such a small amount of money is unlikely to go all that far.

The $3.4 billion includes funding for a million in-home smart meters, 170,000 smart thermostats and 175,000 other “load control devices. It’s also supposed to jump-start a market for smart appliances, though just how isn’t spelled out.

The Obama administration said this project will leverage $4.7 billion in private investment and, of course, create tens of thousands of green jobs. The administration has gotten quite adept at that claim, and with our current dismal job prospects such employment is sorely needed. Where is Van Jones when we need him?

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Factcheck.org is one of The Daily Green’s trusted sources of information. Here’s one of its latest, all about the advertising war raging over the assertion that carbon cap-and-trade legislation will create — or destroy — jobs.

A TV ad sponsored by business groups claims a bill to curb carbon emissions “will cost up to 2.4 million U.S. jobs” if enacted. That directly contradicts claims by President Obama and his allies who say the bill would create jobs — 1.7 million of them according to one TV spot.

Who’s right?

It’s true that limiting carbon emissions would create some jobs — building wind turbines or insulating homes and businesses, for example. But it’s equally true that raising the cost of burning coal and oil would act as a drag on the entire economy, slowing down job creation in other industries.

According to projections by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the net effect of the House cap-and-trade bill will likely be to slow future job growth. Using 11 different possible future scenarios, EIA projects that future job growth might be constrained by something between 388,000 (under the most optimistic assumptions) and 2.3 million (assuming everything goes badly) 20 years from now. CBO also says employment would likely be lower than it would without the legislation — but only “a little.”

So claims that the bill would create hundreds of thousands of “green jobs” are misleading, at best. The government’s own official economic projections indicate more jobs will be lost than created.

The National Association of Manufacturers ad gets the trend line right by predicting job losses, but strains the evidence as to the magnitude. The 2.4 million figure might turn out to be true — but only under the most negative set of assumptions. And EIA says those assumptions are “inherently less likely” than other scenarios.

Analysis

Opponents of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), which passed the House in June, and the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S. 1733), which was introduced in the Senate in September, say the bills would lead to significant job losses. Supporters, on the other hand, say the bills would actually create a lot of new jobs.

The claims that hundreds of thousands of “green jobs” lie at the end of the cap-and-trade rainbow were a staple of President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and they’ve continued to appear in TV ads sponsored by former Vice President Al Gore’s “Repower America” campaign as well as those of other groups. More recently, business interests have begun a counter-attack.

More recently, business interests have begun a counter-attack.

A job “killer”

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), with the National Federation of Independent Business and several small local business associations, launched an advertising campaign in August that painted the House bill as a job killer that “will cost up to 2.4 million U.S. jobs.” That figure was based on a report commissioned by NAM and the American Council for Capital Formation which estimated that the bill could cause between 1.8 million and 2.4 million job losses by 2030.

More recently, EnergyCitizens.org, an alliance of mostly conservative and business groups including NAM and the American Petroleum Institute, has run a TV ad and full-page print ads in The Washington Post warning that the “unfortunate truth about Congress’s climate bill” is that it could result in “2 million jobs lost.” That figure comes from a report prepared by the consulting group Charles River Associations (formerly CRA International) for the National Black Chamber of Commerce, which does not support the House legislation.

Similarly, the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank also says the House bill could cause a net decrease of 2.5 million jobs by 2035.

But supporters of the House and Senate bills have made the creation of “green jobs” a major selling point.

A job “creator”

Rep. Henry Waxman of California, who cosponsored H.R. 2454 along with Democratic Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, claimed the House bill would “create millions of clean energy jobs that will drive our economic recovery and long-term growth.”

Similarly, Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and John Kerry of Massachusetts said that the bill they introduced in the Senate in September would “stimulate the economy by creating millions of jobs in the clean energy sector.” And President Obama has also hailed the passing of the House bill and the introduction of the Senate bill both in part for their potential to create “millions” of new jobs.

Clean Energy Works, a coalition of “grassroots organizations” including the National Wildlife Federation and League of Women Voters, ran a TV ad in September saying that the House bill would create 1.7 million new jobs. That figure is based on a study from the liberal Center for American Progress, the group headed by former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta. It concluded that many net jobs could be created if $150 billion is committed annually to clean energy investments.

Likewise, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit group “dedicated to advancing energy efficiency,” says that the legislation could create between 400,000 and 600,000 jobs by 2020 and between 600,000 and a million-plus jobs (under an “enhanced efficiency” scenario) by 2030.

Who’s right?

Gary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, told FactCheck.org that “job loss estimates are very difficult to interpret.” He added: “The partisan estimates bracket the range of possibility, I suppose, but neither can really be believed.”

Both sides have a point, however.

The effect of any government program to limit carbon emissions would be to raise the price of burning carbon-based fuel, particularly coal and petroleum. That’s likely to cost jobs of coal miners and refinery workers, but that’s just a start. Any increase in energy costs acts as a drag on the overall economy, indirectly costing jobs in all sorts of other industries.

On the other hand, there’s little doubt that carbon limits would increase demand for “clean” energy produced by wind turbines and solar panels, and also for energy-conserving products such as insulation and services such as energy audits and weatherization of homes and businesses.

The question then becomes, will the losses outnumber the gains?

The official projections

The sponsors of the House bill, Reps. Waxman and Markey, asked the government’s Energy Information Administration to provide an analysis in a letter last March. The EIA, which is the independent statistical agency within the Department of Energy, released the analysis in August, and posted detailed spreadsheets on its Web site. These contradict Waxman and Markey’s earlier claim (made June 28, two days after the bill passed) that “[t]his landmark bill will revitalize our economy by creating millions of new jobs.” EIA projected that over time, the bill would likely become a drag on the economy and reduce job creation by hundreds of thousands of jobs under any of the 11 different sets of assumptions that it analyzed.

Finding this information took a little digging on our part. The EIA did not provide direct predictions of job gains or losses. Rather, it generated year-by-year projections for the total number of jobs in the economy over the next 20 years for each of a dozen “cases,” one of which was the “reference case” — a “business as usual” projection of what might happen without the bill. We have compared the job projections for each of the 11 other cases with the “reference” case. And that comparison shows fewer jobs predicted in 2030 with a cap-and-trade bill than without, under any of the 11 different sets of assumptions EIA analyzed. (These projections don’t attempt to assess any job loss due to climate change, but more about that later.)

Only the most severely pessimistic set of assumptions produces a predicted job loss similar to the “up to 2.4 million” figure in the NAM’s ad, however. The EIA figures that there might be 2.3 million fewer jobs in 2030 if the Waxman-Markey bill went into effect, but things went badly wrong; that amounts to 1.4 percent fewer jobs than under the no-change-in-law-or-policy baseline. Specifically, this worst-case scenario assumes that government officials would be “severely limited” in implementing a key cost-saving feature of the bill known as “international offsets.” These are supposed to allow U.S. companies to avoid having to reduce their own carbon emissions by paying others to plant trees or avoid deforestation in developing countries, for example. This worst-case future also assumes that nuclear power and “clean coal” technologies don’t advance any faster than currently projected.

But this everything-goes-wrong analysis was only one of 11 different possibilities. And EIA said that while it cannot say how probable any of them are, “both theory and common sense suggest that cases that reflect an unbroken chain of either failures or successes in a series of independent factors are inherently less likely than cases that do not assume that everything goes either wrong or right.” Assuming that the only thing that goes wrong is that international offsets fail to materialize, for example, EIA projects the job loss would fall to just over 1 million. And under EIA’s “basic” case, in which offsets are not severely constrained and nuclear, wind, solar and other clean energy technologies are “deployed on a large scale,” EIA projects 597,000 fewer jobs in 2030 than under current policy. EIA’s most optimistic projection, a “high technology” case that assumes “more aggressive assumptions about technological improvements” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, would lead to job reductions of only 388,000, or 0.2 percent.

We should note that under some of the scenarios analyzed, EIA projected that total employment might increase by a small amount during the early years of a cap-and-trade program. For example, in the “basic” case, EIA found that employment might increase by about 96,000 jobs in 2012, 42,000 jobs in 2019, and 266,000 jobs in 2024, before ending with a loss of 597,000 in 2030.

The Congressional Budget Office’s take

The EIA’s view is echoed by the CBO. In a report released in September CBO noted that the House bill would create both winners and losers. And on Oct. 14, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and said that total employment would likely decline by only “a little” as labor markets adjusted.

“[C]limate legislation would cause permanent shifts in production and employment away from industries that produce carbon-based energy and energy-intensive goods and services and toward industries that produce alternative energy sources and less energy-intensive goods and services,” Elmendorf said. “While those shifts were occurring, total employment would probably be reduced a little compared with what it would have been without such a policy, because labor markets would most likely not adjust as quickly as would the composition of demand for final outputs.”

Elmendorf, Oct. 14: In terms of the employment … there is certainly a decline in employment in fossil fuel intensive parts of the economy. There is an increase in employment in non-fossil fuel intensive parts of the economy.

The net effect of that, we think, would likely be some decline in employment during that transition because labor markets do not move that fluidly. Workers live in certain places with particular skills, and they can’t immediately turn out living in some other place with a different set of skills.

We got a similar view from John Reilly at the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has run a number of independent projections on the effect of cap-and-trade programs on the economy. He said MIT’s modeling shows that the House bill would cause a “small net reduction in total employment — but quite small.”

An important caveat: None of these economic projections attempt to assess the effects of climate change on jobs or the economy. But CBO says it expects there will be major economic consequences should Congress do nothing to control carbon emissions.

CBO, September 2009: A strong consensus has developed in the expert community that, if allowed to continue unabated, the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will have extensive, highly uncertain, but potentially serious and costly impacts on regional climates throughout the world. Those impacts are expected to include widespread changes in the physical environment, changes in biological systems (including agriculture), and changes in the viability of some economic sectors.

By D’Angelo Gore, factcheck.org

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