Maine Voices: For green jobs,
should graduates stay or go?
There's a serious shortage of environmentally friendly jobs in Maine that match the education schools offer.
By ADAM MARQUIS
PORTLAND - Forget death and taxes. The two certainties of life in Maine are a lack of good-paying jobs and high and volatile energy costs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Marquis recently graduated with an environmental science degree from the University of Southern Maine, where he completed his internship with Opportunity Maine.
Even in the midst of the Great Recession, we can turn this around if we focus on two strategies that have the greatest potential for success -- investing in the education and skills of our citizens and in the development of the clean energy sector.
On education, as a recent college graduate facing the "should-I-stay-or-should-I-go" question, I can say first hand that it is a difficult one and, frustratingly, seems outside of my control.
Although I was born, raised and educated in Maine, I have also lived in other states. Time away made me realize how great Maine is, but having recently completed a degree in environmental sciences -- a fast-growing field -- I have found it is nearly impossible to find a job here.
That's true even though I could land a job tomorrow in Massachusetts. Business opportunities of the 21st century will not be fully realized if Maine's work force is not prepared.
One example of how Maine has faced this challenge is the newly created Opportunity Maine Program.
The program allows individuals who earn an associate or bachelor's degree at a Maine college or university and continue to live and work here to be reimbursed for student loan payments through an income tax credit.
Alternately, businesses that create a student loan reimbursement program as an employee benefit are eligible to take the credit instead. This type of bold yet practical initiative rewards Maine's workers with educational opportunity, rewards businesses with a better-educated and skilled work force, and contributes to a stronger and more sustainable economy.
And on energy, as the snow piles up every year, so too does the burden of heating and other increased energy costs. Whether in our household budget or the state budget, these higher costs are offset by cuts elsewhere. The inverse relationship between energy costs and economic growth could not be clearer.
We can address our economic, educational and energy challenges head on by bridging the gap between our economic and work force development strategies. Developing the clean-energy sector will create opportunities for Maine to prosper in a rapidly changing, internationally competitive, knowledge-based economy.
Incredible job growth would result for many professions, including engineers, carpenters, plumbers, researchers, marketers, financial services, steelworkers, machinists, IT specialists, energy auditors, and electrical, HVAC, wind and other technicians, all with upgraded certifications in a variety of green skills.
Unfortunately, Maine continues to suffer from a vicious cycle keeping our economy weak, outsourcing the knowledge and skills of our current and future work force, while wasting billions of dollars on foreign oil.
What message are we sending to our students, employees and businesses when the potential for job and business creation is lacking, yet so clear? Are we marketing "the way life should be" without the prospect of better jobs and a brighter future?
State and federal policymakers have made a good start with greater attention to and investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and the education and skills of our work force. But more focus and coordination are needed. We need a plan that Mainers can believe in, contribute to and succeed within.
An aggressive, coordinated economic and work force development strategy will address both sides of this "weak economy" coin.
If we focus on developing an educated and skilled work force and a clean-energy sector, educational and economic opportunities, greater energy independence and an even higher quality of place will follow.
Average incomes and educational attainment levels in Maine continue to be the lowest of any state in New England. Every year our colleges and universities graduate thousands of young people, only to see this investment short-circuited because too many of those graduates are unable to secure decent-paying jobs.
As this outflow of knowledge and skills continues, so too does our weak economy.
- Special to the Press Herald
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8 COMMENTS
Jack_Pine said...
Congratulations on your recent graduation. I fully agree that high energy costs are a hindrance to economic success. It is for that reason that grid-scale wind power will harm Maine's economy by increasing electricity costs and also requiring that Mainers fund enormously expensive transmission upgrades, necessitated soley by wind's unpredictable intermittent surges. Moreover, the tainting of about 35% of Maine's prized viewsheds with industrialization via turbines and massive transmission is not good for Maine tourism, a key industry. And it's surely not good for Mainers who are here exactly because this is the sort of thing they chose to avoid by staying in Maine or moving her.
March 17, 2010 at 8:27 AM Report abuse
ThorEau said...
In Popeye cartoons, whatever the predicament, the solution was always green spinach. I'm beginning to sense a growing and misguided blind faith that "green jobs will fix all". Unfortunately this is not a cartoon where the cartoonist decides the outcome. The outcome of believing in a magical cure-all power of green jobs will be decided by economics. Some green things such as weatherization will in fact save individuals money. Other green things like industrial wind power will cost us big time despite the incessant lies from the subsidy-sucking wind industry and their coterie of government supporters, contribution-influenced non-profits and the relatively small handful of construction outfits that would sell out our landscape and citizens for a few months of revenues - that come and go.
March 17, 2010 at 8:39 AM Report abuse
Jack_Pine said...
You can't see much of the mountain from the mountaintop. Similarly, those riding today's rapidly inflating green jobs bubble can't see there is a bubble. Weren't the inevitable collapses of the never-real dotcom bubble and the housing bubble enough of a lesson? If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. There is absolutely nothing to this green jobs bubble except lobbyist-created bad policy and hype from the companies that are benefitting from the misguided subsidies - your hard earned money. Sustainability advocates should be the first to realize that subsidies are not sustainable. We are going broke and when, not if, the green bubble bursts, it is going to be very bad news for Maine.
March 17, 2010 at 8:50 AM Report abuse
qwenky said...
It would be better to plant trees in Maine to reduce CO2, than to rape ridges and environment, as well as tax dollar, to feed this “green” scam, particularly as it applies to wind power. Science and economics have been abandoned . Self-serving Politicization, Fadism and Groupthink dominate. Theoretical, renewable power schemes, a failure in Europe, are now being exported to Maine and elsewhere with brainless fervor. Lack of rational scientific and economic analysis is dominating. and supported by young “ Wind Zombies.” Most sad, at least the younger generations will reap the reward however. Higher costs for the rest of their lives for basic power, and no economic advancement for Maine. Such is the result of poor scientific and economic analysis(or lack of it), and politics being in control over fact and reason. It is most fitting however, that new graduates who do not apply science and reason will be paying for this folly for decades.
March 17, 2010 at 9:13 AM Report abuse
Arthur said...
Huh? Maine is very green today when it comes to electricity. (The national leader in renewable power portfolio.) We have a steady supply of renewable power now, with bucketloads more in Quebec if our demand ever rises high enough. We're rural, so we do drive more per capita than most states, and we do heat our buildings with oil more than any state. The Congress is throwing gobs of money at electricity generation, most specifically for wind power, which is terribly expensive and unsustainable. UMO and Dr. Dagger are wasting millions in taxpayer funded grants to create windmills that will only worsen cost for our already green and expensive electricity. The author should tell Congress to stop sending money to Dagger and instead direct it toward heating and vehicle technologies that could affordably get us to use less oil.
March 17, 2010 at 9:28 AM Report abuse
lordpeter said...
Congrats to a recent grad! I admire your goals in finding a green job. Most excellent! First thing, though, you must realize that wind is not green. Not by a long shot. The environmental degradation of blasting ridgetops, the clearcutting of thousands of acres and the spraying of massive amounts of herbicides is not green. The silt and mudslide runoff into our pristine waterways is not green. The tremendous size of the blades that swoop through the air, killing all in its path is not green. The infrasound the turbines emit and the vibration caused by these massive things is not green.
March 17, 2010 at 11:01 AM Report abuse
lordpeter said...
I advise you to use some of that critical thinking a college education has afforded you and read the book, "The Wind Farm Scam" by John Etherington. In it you will come to see that wind farms are a terrible waste of money that could go to really green jobs that would clean up our environment. You know, I blame governments in a way for not counting a standing forest as a sequester of CO2s. This is a terrible mistake. Maine has the most standing forest east if the Mississippi. By tweaking the way we do forestry and super insulating our existing homes and businesses we would be the greenest state in the Union - a goal worth of all Mainers!
March 17, 2010 at 11:15 AM Report abuse
Jack_Pine said...
Adam - the wind companies have gotten the environmnental groups' seal of approval on most projects and the environmental groups get plenty in return. In NJ, the mob calls it protection money. Meanwhile their whole argument of CO2 emissions is a horrendously out of whack terrible tradeoff for Maine. Please see the short Powerpoint presentation at: http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/maines-wind-goals-co2-and-the and work the numbers yourself. All that glitters is not green, especially when money is involved. Thank you.
March 17, 2010 at 5:12 PM Report abuse