Climate change can provide job opportunities

February 1, 2013

By ANDREA KAY , Gannett

Let me say at the outset that I am not a climate-change expert.

I am a big believer in trends as a way to discover and create your next job and stay valuable in a marketplace that can change as fast as the weather. And that brings me to a trend you need to pay close attention to: our weather.

As is the case with almost any change, the shift in weather is affecting jobs two ways: taking them away and leading to new ones. See the draft National Climate Assessment report that Congress requested, recently released for public comment.

Here’s one example of how climate change takes jobs away.

Earlier this month, Cargill Beef said it’s closing one of its Texas plants because of a prolonged drought in the state that thinned cattle herds to their lowest level in 60 years. As a result, 2,000 workers had to relocate to another plant or find new jobs.

No, we’re not an agriculture-based economy anymore. But this sector still employs up to 250,000 workers, making agriculture one of the biggest victims of changing weather patterns, says John A. Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas outplacement services.

According to a recent New York Times article by Andrew C. Revkin in which he references the federal report, “climate-change effects on agriculture will have consequences for food security” and food processing, storage, transportation and retailing. And that can affect jobs.

Tourism is another industry affected by the weather.

With ski resorts seeing less snow, skiers are headed further north and resorts are making more artificial snow, Challenger says.

Companies in transportation and travel will be affected as people travel more to climates that stay warmer longer. Again, some jobs will go away; others will increase.

More work will come about as a result of climate change in places where the weather has been more temperate. In Chicago, which has had little snow this year, Challenger points out that construction workers have continued to do their jobs without weather-related stoppages.

And in the aftermath of major storms, “there does tend to be increased economic activity and job creation in the areas impacted as cities and states clean up and rebuild,” he says.

Climate change threatens human health and well-being -- wildfires; decreased air quality; diseases transmitted by insects, food and water, according to the draft report. So public health actions such as preparedness and prevention become paramount.

Strategies to do both can create jobs.

The biggest and most positive effect on employment will come from “initiatives to address and reverse climate change,” Challenger says. These include “the development of new renewable energy sources and the manufacture of more energy-efficient transportation.”

The latest green job statistics from 2010 show that the United States has produced 3.1 million green jobs.

The construction industry “is rife for green jobs,” Challenger says. And utilities and manufacturing have high potential “since equipment to harness and distribute energy more efficiently is being built nationwide.”

When it comes to looking at this trend and your career, think of it like this:

-- What jobs are being created -- or will be created -- to respond to climate change?

-- What jobs will help combat climate change?

-- And what jobs might help reverse climate change?

Career consultant Andrea Kay is the author of “Life’s a Bitch and Then You Change Careers: 9 steps to get out of your funk and on to your future,” www.andreakay.com or www.lifesabitchchangecareers.com. Write to her in care of USA TODAY/Gannett, 7950 Jones Branch Drive, McLean, Va. 22108. E-mail: andrea@andreakay.com. Twitter: @AndreaKayCareer. Facebook: facebook.com/AndreaKayCareerAdvice.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20130204/BUSINESS/302040007/Climate-change-can-provide-job-opportunities?nclick_check=1

 

We Urge You to Reject Calls for a "Repatriation Tax Holiday"

Dear Member of Congress:

We urge you to reject calls for a “repatriation tax holiday” allowing U.S. multinational corporations to bring home offshore profits at a reduced tax rate. The proposed repatriation holiday is, pure and simple, an attempt by a few multinational corporations to dodge their rightful tax obligation. It is a tax avoidance measure that will benefit a few corporations, their executives, and their shareholders, while other taxpayers bear the hefty expense.

A repatriation holiday loses revenue and will add to the deficit. While Congress is working to address the projected long-term deficits, a repatriation holiday is a narrowly-targeted tax break that is neither warranted nor affordable.

A repatriation holiday rewards the worst corporate actors. Multinational corporations that are conducting real business offshore are less able to take advantage of a repatriation holiday because they often have reinvested their offshore profits in foreign jurisdictions. In addition, they are paying tax to foreign governments and would have foreign tax credits to offset a portion of the U.S. tax if profits were repatriated under current law. On the other hand, multinational corporations who are merely shifting profits on paper to zero-tax jurisdictions can easily bring those profits back to the U.S. and benefit enormously from a tax holiday.

A repatriation holiday will not create U.S. jobs. The 2004 repatriation holiday, justified as a job-creating measure, was a dismal failure. Many of the companies that benefitted most from the tax holiday actually reduced their U.S. employment. Instead of making investments in production capacity and workforce, companies used their repatriated earnings to pay dividends and finance stock buybacks. U.S. companies currently have plenty of cash already on hand if they want to make investments or hire workers.

Another repatriation holiday encourages corporations to be even more aggressive in moving jobs and profits offshore. If Congress repeats the 2004 holiday, multinational corporations will quite rightfully expect that another holiday will be enacted in a few years. They will have enormous incentive to engage in ever more aggressive tax schemes that move their profits to foreign jurisdictions. In fact, the 20 companies who repatriated the most earnings under the 2004 holiday are already anticipating the next holiday – they now have triple the amount of foreign profits parked offshore that they did at the end of 2005.

We urge you to reject the proposals for a repatriation holiday. The multinationals who are lobbying hard for this tax break offer numerous reasons why you should give them this generous reprieve. But their plea for a repatriation holiday is nothing more than a blatant attempt to escape their tax obligations and shift the burden onto the taxpaying American public.

http://www.tjn-usa.org/current-campaigns

FACT COALITION
Financial Accountability & Corporate Transparency

Here’s a change—Action instead of talk

Once again we are hearing the popular political refrain about small business being crucial to leading us out of the current economic malaise.  Yesterday President Obama announced his proposal that he believes will boost rural, small business economic development.

According to a Bloomberg report  the President’s plan will include:

(E)xpanded loan programs run by the Small Business Administration through a $1 billion investment fund aimed at luring private capital, job search and training services, and increased access to health care and technology.

(T)he Navy and the departments of Agriculture and Energy will invest as much as $510 million in a program aimed at producing biofuels for aircraft and ships. The plan, part of the administration’s energy strategy, will benefit rural areas, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

What makes me have more hope that this talk about helping small businesses is not just more political pandering is that the Administration doesn’t need Congress to put his proposals into action.  The President can just shift some existing funds around in the agencies he controls. 

This mean that these programs, while still not the big job creation programs we need, can actually come to fruition to help some small businesses.  Plus, since the effort won’t add a dime to government spending, our federal-budget watchers should be appeased.

Big business heal thyself (before it's too late)

It’s time for business to start creating jobs says Joe Nocera in his opinion editorial in the New York Times today.  He’s not talking about small business.  We’d love to start hiring again to meet incremental consumer demand but there is no access to capital for us.

Nocera is talking about BIG BUSINESS.  The companies he says “are hoarding cash while reporting record profits.”

With all their cash, companies shouldn’t be waiting for Congress to give them tax incentives to hire people. They should be trying to jump-start the economy — and fend off another recession — by making investments, and hiring workers, that will lead to renewed prosperity.

The problem, according to Nocera, is that these giant businesses are wed to “short-term profits instead of long-term good of the country.” 

It’s not a new love of socialism that Nocera proposes for corporations.  It’s the reality that their long-term financial health is directly tied to the long-term health of our economy.  And because our government has been made impotent to do much of anything thanks the success of the crazed minority’s rule of the majority, only big business can save itself by creating jobs, according to Nocera.

But what if they don't?  What if big business continues its myopic fixation on today's profits?  What if Congress and the President cannot deliver any effective job creation program?

Then that's what next year's elections will be all about.  Every member of Congress that continues to say NO to an immediate approach to creating jobs and only says yes to cutting spending needs to have opposition in the primary or general election.   

Illinois Dems weigh in on job creation and deficit reduction

With all the national attention being focused on the nation’s lack of jobs and deficit reduction, this week two Illinois U.S. House members put forward their plans to help the country.  Both have some great ideas.

Yesterday, Representative Mike Quigley released his 60-step blueprint he hopes the new Congressional deficit reduction Supercommittee will follow.  His plan calls for reducing deficit spending by $2 trillion over the next ten years and includes:

--$700 billion in savings by reducing U.S. troops in Europe, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Asian
   countries
--allowing the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for drugs   
   purchased through Medicare
--raising the income level subject to Social Security payroll tax
--cutting subsidies to oil companies
--closing corporate offshore tax haven loopholes
--ending tax credits for vacation homes

On Wednesday, Representative Jan Schakowsky released a proposal that she says will create 2.2 million jobs over the next two years at a total cost of $227 billion.  The following jobs would be created under her plan:

--400,000 construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs for public school rehabilitation improvements
--100,000 jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 to work on conservation projects on public
   lands
--250,000 par-time jobs for college students under the Federal Work Study Program
--300,000 teachers, 40,000 new police officers, and 12,000 firefighters
--40,000 health care providers for underserved rural and urban areas
--100,000 early childhood care and education jobs
--750,000 jobs to do housing rehab, weatherization, recycling and rural conservation