In Minnesota, the Blue Green Alliance is urging Governor Pawlenty to adopt and implement a green jobs plan focused on making us more energy independent with clean, renewable energy, which will help us end our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels and create over 18,405 green manufacturing jobs in Minnesota and over 820,000 new green jobs nationwide.

"The time for a national push for renewable energy is now," said USW International President Leo Gerard. "What is really exciting about this campaign is the opportunity to create jobs, help fix our broken economy and contribute to solving the biggest environmental challenge of our generation at the same time."

The Green Jobs for America campaign will demonstrate that investing in clean, renewable energy is the best way to fight global warming, bring skyrocketing energy costs back under control, create new, good-paying jobs and put us back on the path toward economic growth and prosperity. In addition to encouraging the right investments from the private sector, the campaign will also focus on the kinds of policies that are needed to fight global warming, expand clean energy production and reform unfair trade agreements.

The public education campaign will take place in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Oregon, and Nebraska. The campaign will run through Sept. 15, 2008.

In Minnesota a team of organizers from the USW, Sierra Club and Blue Green Alliance are calling on Governor Tim Pawlenty to adopt and implement a Green Jobs Plan. The organizers will mobilize grassroots support, conduct a series of public events, release independent studies highlighting the potential for tens of thousands of new green jobs in each state and generate thousands of signatures on a petition calling for green jobs, clean energy solutions and fair trade agreements.

The Mayors Green Manufacturing Initiative, which is co-sponsored by the Blue Green Alliance, Mayor Rybak of Minneapolis and Mayor Coleman of Saint Paul, will release its report later this month on how to attract green manufacturing jobs to the Metro area.

"Over 18,000 good paying green manufacturing jobs can be created in the renewable energy sector statewide. With job loss in Minnesota higher than the national average we need solutions now. It\'s time for Governor Pawlenty to implement a green jobs plan for working Minnesotans," said Gerry Parzino, staff representative of United Steelworkers in Minnesota.

Blue Green Alliance Executive Director David Foster said that green jobs are not only those that produce a green product designed for a specific environmental purpose but also include existing jobs that involve a green process or a green purpose. He said that steelworkers building components for wind turbines are performing green jobs, as are chemical workers making products that are not harmful to humans or the environment.

"The green revolution isn\'t just creating new and different jobs," Foster said. "It\'s revitalizing and creating new investment in a lot of the jobs we already have."

"By working together, we are building a future where we solve global warming, empower people by cutting their heating bills, and train our community\'s youth for the clean energy economy," said Winona LaDuke, executive director for the White Earth Land Recovery Project, which is one of the groups working on creating green jobs in Minnesota.

The campaign builds on the momentum of the Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference held in Pittsburgh last month, which brought together over 1,000 participants, over 80 organizations, elected officials, and leaders from industry, community groups, environmental organizations, and labor unions. The Green Jobs for America Campaign expects to add additional allies to this new national movement focused on making the clean energy future a reality.

"We saw a glimpse of the clean energy future last month in Pittsburgh," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. "The Green Jobs for America campaign will bring the power of that future to communities across the country. We aim to show people that we can start building that clean energy future today — a future that promises a strong economy, good jobs, fair trade agreements, a clean environment, and a stable climate for our children and grandchildren."

Energy efficiency is a largely untapped resource that can save consumers and businesses money on their energy bills and cut our global warming emissions, all while creating tens of thousands of new jobs.

"Technologies like wind and solar are just part of the story. This is also about job security. Making homes, offices and factories more energy efficient not only saves money, it also represents a huge growth opportunity for the people who build our communities and keep them running," said Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We’re talking about architects and engineers, drywall and lighting contractors, electricians and carpenters, everything from construction to computing. And these are jobs that cannot be shipped offshore, and pay lasting dividends to the American economy."

Founded in 2006, the Blue Green Alliance is a strategic partnership of the United Steelworkers, North America’s largest manufacturing union, and the 1.3 million members and supporters of the Sierra Club, the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization.

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing.

For more information
Visit these websites: www.bluegreenalliance.org,  www.usw.org,   www.sierraclub.org,  www.nrdc.org