I recently read some news that was so surprising, I had to re-read it to make sure I understood correctly. It was about a proposed energy/water deal between Israel, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. This is a region of the Middle East that is getting increasingly hotter and drier, with agricultural losses, refugee migrations, and generational ethnic violence that seems like it might never end.
According to the planned deal, the wealthy U.A.E. would finance construction of a huge solar farm in Jordan to generate affordable, emission-free energy for Israel. In turn the Israelis would build a desalination plant to send water to Jordan. These former enemies are now working together to reduce emissions and prepare for their hotter and drier future, all while creating infrastructure jobs from their energy and water projects.
We here in the Gulf Coast states have long enjoyed work opportunities in the energy industry, jobs that pay well enough to support a family and require a diverse skill set. Some of the best guys I’ve met here in the Pine Belt work in the oil field; if they are a little rougher around the edges, they also don’t shy away from the hard work. And resourceful too, oil workers just seem to know how to get a job done with whatever they have at hand.
Employment numbers are one of the ways we judge our leaders, and of course no elected official would want to be associated with job losses. But it’s been over 30 years since Dr. James Hansen made global warming a mainstream issue through his testimony before the U.S. Senate, warning us about the connections between man-made pollution and the unprecedented rates of heating on our planet. The year was 1988, and his testimony led then-candidate George H. W. Bush to promise to fight global warming if he was elected president. If it was clear then that we needed to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, it’s only become crystallized now in 2022.
Many of the problems that Dr. Hansen warned us about have already begun, from melting ice and rising sea levels to shifts in precipitation, agricultural challenges and stronger storms. But reducing emissions sooner still can provide relief to our future generations, and there are ways to cut pollution while still creating valuable jobs like those projects in the Middle East.
There actually is an exciting economic outlook for offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Mexico. Because our Gulf Coast has such well-developed industrial ports already, there is significant interest from two of the world’s largest wind development companies – Orsted of Denmark and RWE of Germany. Their two proposed Gulf wind farms would create up to 17,000 jobs, including a larger number of jobs in the earlier construction phase, but still up to 2,800 permanent positions in operations and maintenance.
Offshore wind is a growing field across the country, with two projects already operating on the East Coast and 15 more in the planning or construction phase. Modern wind turbines are larger and more efficient than previous designs, and as development continues, much more job growth is projected. Young people with no prior experience can get a two-year associates degree from many community colleges around the country, and land turbine technician jobs with very competitive pay.
If Arabs and Israelis can come together on an energy infrastructure deal, surely we can too! Passing the proposed Congressional infrastructure bill would improve our transportation and energy grids and repair crumbling water and gas lines. And by developing our renewable energy sector, the infrastructure bill would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help hundreds of millions of Americans that will be under increasing risk of flooding in the coming decades.
There have been some hits to the number of Gulf oil and gas jobs over the past decade, and we absolutely cannot discount the importance of these workers’ contributions to our national success. But it’s exciting to think about this chance to find common ground for voters who want to create jobs for skilled workers and improve quality of life into our future generations.
Chris Werle of Lamar County is Mississippi state coordinator for the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. Write him at chriswerle@cclvolunteer.org.
