Rebel smell: In the Deep South, dirty energy and disenfranchisement go hand in hand

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http://grist.org/climate-energy/rebel-smell-in-the-deep-south-racism-and-dirty-energy-go-hand-in-hand/

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The southeastern U.S. is pre-1990s South Africa, and the brand of apartheid practiced here is of the energy variety. This is how environmental justice scholar Robert Bullard called it two years ago, and a report released yesterday from the NAACP pretty much confirms it.

Clocking in at over 500 pages, the civil rights organization’s new report, “Just Energy Policies: Reducing Pollution and Creating Jobs,” reads like an update of Van Jones’s 2008 book, The Green Collar Economy, showing how far the nation has come, and not come, in advancing clean energy.

The NAACP’s report hinges on the idea that the more that states invest in clean energy and implement diverse and localized hiring practices, the more people of color will benefit in terms of income, employment, and health. Clean energy, in other words, can help create a more just society.

You’re not tracking? Consider that, according to the American Association of Blacks in Energy, African Americans spent $41 billion on energy in 2009, but they only held 1.1 percent of the energy jobs and gained .01 percent of energy sector profits. Meanwhile, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says there will be 661,000 green construction jobs at the end of this year, and an additional 7.9 million jobs created in other professions supported by green industries.