Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds

Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello and Brendan Smith at The Nation write:

How Green Is Your Collar? In the short run, the Bush Administration stands in the way, but major federal legislation this year or next is almost a foregone conclusion--and the carbon market it will establish will generate hundreds of billions of dollars a year and create thousands, even millions, of new jobs. But the realities of how Americans will work and what jobs they will have in a green future are only beginning to be addressed. Nearly 1,000 trade unionists, environmentalists, green businesspeople, political leaders and allies came together recently in Pittsburgh to explore these issues at the first annual conference on " Good Jobs, Green Jobs," sponsored by the Blue-Green Alliance of the United Steelworkers Union and the Sierra Club. It has taken labor a long time to address the threat of global warming--the AFL-CIO even lobbied against the Kyoto Protocol. It doesn't help when environmentalists don't stand up to insist on protecting workers from the pain that may accompany environmental protections. But all that may be changing. For example, the AFL-CIO Executive Council issued a statement March 4 on "greening the economy" that said, "It is time for our nation to take bold steps to meet the 21st century challenges related to climate change." There are both risks and opportunities for labor in the shift to a green economy. For coal miners, for example, restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions might mean real job losses, and many environmentalists are deeply concerned by the insistence by some union leaders on continuing a coal-based economy. But for Midwestern steelworkers, the building of parts for wind turbines is already a source of thousands of jobs.... To win labor support, the push for green jobs will have to provide, if not guaranteed unionization, at least a guarantee of labor rights. Writer and former National Writers Union president Jonathan Tasini, blogging about the conference, complained, "Environmentalists and other policy folks have gotten the lingo down about 'high-wage, good-paying' jobs, but they still don't seem to be able to use the word 'union' consistently." He praised as an exception one speaker who said that green jobs generated with public monies have to include commitments of neutrality in union recognition campaigns.

Thanks for the memories:

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, March 11, 2003 – "The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator. They know that America will not come as a conqueror. Our plan – as President Bush has said – is to remain as long as necessary and not a day more."

Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens on Jan. 28, 2003: "This will be no war – there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention. ... The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling ... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on."

Hours until Mister Bush leaves the White House: 7149

Direct cost per hour of the Iraq occupation: $16.68 million

The Overnight News Digest is posted.