What Does This Photo Have to do with ‘Green Jobs’? (PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING!)

Cross-posted from The Green Suits:

Jan. 25, 2011: Nighttime protests in Cairo, Egypt. (photo h/t MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images)

It has been said that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” But could this picture be worth several thousand American green jobs?

Quite possibly, it could.

A constant flow of cable news reports, and Facebook posts, and tweets from Cairo’s streets has got world oil markets buzzing. Yesterday, the price of crude oil surpassed $90 USD/bbl. Nervousness about the continued viability of the Suez Canal has spread like wildfire. A whole lot of commodities–especially crude oil–enter and exit the Suez Canal on a daily basis; without this important passage way, some crude oil would on average take two weeks longer to reach port. And crude oil taking longer to reach port would be considerably more expensive to refine.

Authoritarian regimes in Egypt and other Arab nation-states may soon fall. But what will fill the power-vacuum? No one knows for sure; Egypt’s regime outlawed political parties over 30 years ago. We hope that a democratically-elected government replaces Mubarak, but we fear an Iran-style regime will take its place.

The world markets hate such uncertainty. And already across the U.S., prices-at-the-pump have spiked.

Will we again be paying north of $4 a gallon? The odds of that happening soon are extremely high.

Once and for all, our economy–and others around the world–must end reliance on crude oil. To create economic sustainability, our future must involve energy sustainability.

So what does this photo have to do with ‘green jobs’? Practically EVERYTHING!

An eco-entrepreneurial spirit is spreading across the U.S. and in many other countries. Renewable energy technologies are being fast-tracked. Market demand for them is building quickly. And that’s how green jobs will come to the fore.

In 2009, we thought green jobs would take hold quickly–spurred on by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and other governmental directives. Those jobs did not materialize.

But in 2011, I believe that the green jobs we have long hoped for will arrive–the result of our national response to this and other world crises. These jobs will be in renewable energy, green tech, clean tech, and related sectors.

It is my hope that with a new found urgency–to rid ourselves of our foreign-oil addiction–we will convince Americans that green jobs are indeed a critical part of our nation’s security.

We cannot wait a moment longer to win our future.