In an article entitled "Will Green Jobs Become the New Greenwash?", Joel Makower asks the reader:

"Could it be deemed a good thing that everyone is talking about green jobs, even though they don't necessarily know what that means? Or do we need standards and definitions that help us gauge how well we're really doing? "

The semantic question is important to answer, though in no way essential for us to define a "green job." A number of forces are coming together to put under the microscope the true meaning of green jobs, and what potential -- economically, environmentally and socially -- they might hold.

Redefining "Prosperity"

In the United States, Joel's question exposes a unique challenge. In the U.S., we "live to work" as opposed to "work to live." This way of life's being questioned as greater environmental challenges mount and force us to reconsider our long-term priorities and what we're actually working toward. There's a cultural undercurrent that's disrupting, defying and eschewing conventional definitions as we meet our generational challenge: global warming. Is economic success alone enough anymore, or does it lose relevance as the ability to enjoy a comfortable life is threatened by resource shortages, dramatic weather events and increasing insecurity in what the future will look like for people's children and grandchildren?

The potential people see in green jobs -- and perhaps the root of all the hype and potential for greenwashing -- is to finally find balance and synergy between their personal, professional and public lives. "Doing well while doing good," so to speak, is evolving into the next iteration of the American dream.

The Green Jobs Mirage?

Al Gore has famously stated that the coming environmental revolution promises to be bigger than the Industrial Revolution and happen faster than the Technology Revolution. With such a sea change occurring in front of our eyes, it's no wonder we sometimes stare in disbelief: "Is this really happening?" If we can't define it, yet less see it, does it exist?

Consider these facts excerpted from Joel's article:
•    The Apollo Alliance's New Apollo Program proposes an investment of $500 billion over 10 years to create 5 million green-collar jobs in a range of industries including renewable energy; energy efficiency; transit and transportation; and research, development and deployment of cutting-edge clean energy technologies.
•    The Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute call for spending $100 billion over two years to create 2 million jobs in building retrofitting, expansion of the transit and freight rail grids, construction of a "smart" electrical grid, wind and solar power, and next-gen biofuels.
•    A report prepared by Global Insight for the U.S. Conference of Mayors forecasts that renewable power generation, building retrofitting, and renewable transportation fuels will together generate 1.7 million new jobs by 2018 and another 846,000 related engineering, legal, research and consulting positions. That total jumps to 3.5 million jobs by 2028 and 4.2 million by 2038.
•    A study by the American Solar Energy Society asserts that the renewable energy and energy-efficiency industries represented more than 9 million jobs and $1.04 billion in U.S. revenue in 2007, 95 percent in private industry, and could mushroom to as many as 37 million jobs by 2030 -- more than 17 percent of all anticipated U.S. employment.
•    A report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation predicts that a $50 billion investment in the smart grid over five years "would create approximately 239,000 new or retained U.S. jobs for each of the 5 years on average."

"Proposes," "call for spending," "forecasts," "asserts" and "predicts" all characterize the potential for this sector. But the rhetoric's yet to become a reality, right?

Green jobs do exist -- though at the moment, they're few and far between. However, we need to understand where we are in the life cycle of the green job movement to appreciate why we have such a hard time defining, identifying and getting a green job.

Understanding the Revolution

The Industrial Revolution took decades to become universally obvious -- yet less to garner a name. The technology revolution of the late 20th century took nearly 25 years to be labeled, celebrated, disdained (thanks to the bust of 2001) and finally understood.