U.S. Green Economy Produced 10 Times More Jobs Than Fossils in 2016 – The Energy Mix
The U.S. green economy produced 9.5 million jobs in 2015-2016, more than 10 times as many as a lavishly-subsidized fossil fuel sector, and its US$1.3 trillion in output accounted for 7% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to analysis released this week by two researchers at University College London.
The numbers cut off before Donald Trump took office in early 2017, with his promise to shield coal industry jobs and build up the country’s “energy dominance” through oil and gas, New Scientist reports. But one of the study co-authors, Earth systems science professor Mark Maslin, says those policies are misguided at best.
“The Trump administration, with the ‘America first’ approach of ‘fossil fuels are good’, is stupid when it comes to economics,” he said. “If you wanted to be a hard-nosed neo-liberal economist, you would say, ‘Let’s support the green economy as much as possible.’”