Berkeley, CA,: GETS Energy Services is a triple bottom-line social venture that provides subsidized energy upgrade services to moderate-income residents in Berkeley and Richmond, CA. New Foundry Ventures, is advising and assisting Rising Sun Energy Center in launching GETS Energy Services as a pilot business model that the will then be scaled to other communities. This partnership combines Rising Sun’s weatherization expertise, as a leading green workforce development and energy retrofit services organization, and New Foundry’s extensive background in building sustainable and scalable social enterprises.

New Foundry Ventures, a social enterprise business incubator, is looking to build on the growing market demand for home retrofits and the $625 million the government has already invested in green job training. The goals of the GETS Energy Services enterprise are to lower moderate-income homeowner utility bills and make homes more comfortable, healthy, durable, and energy efficient, while providing transitional employment for graduates of Rising Sun’s GETS (Green Energy Training Services) workforce development program. The GETS workforce program is an optional energy efficiency training module that participants of RichmondBUILD can apply to participate in.  GETS Energy Services will provide talented and qualified graduates from the GETS training program with their first experience working in the green sector.

Through a partnership forged between Rising Sun Energy Center, the City of Berkeley, City of Richmond, and PG&E, GETS Energy Services is able to provide Berkeley and Richmond residents with exclusive incentives of up to $7,000 on energy efficiency improvements.  The cities of Berkeley and Richmond are able to provide funding to this partnership thanks to the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant that they were awarded as part of their broader climate change strategies to reduce their CO2 impact.  The cities decided to make some of these funds publicly available to residents to encourage energy efficiency improvements in the residential sector.

“This is a great opportunity for the community. We’re expecting to create 15 new jobs within the first year, and reduce a homeowner’s energy consumption by 20-40 percent, which reduces a homeowner’s utility bills at the same time,” said New Foundry Venture’s Project Manager Jade Rex. “Furthermore we’re also helping reduce CO2 emissions. The residential sector accounts for 21 percent of total U.S. CO2 emissions, which is more than twice the emissions produced by passenger cars.  Reducing emissions from the housing sector can have a real and measured impact on the environment.”

Applications are now being accepted. To apply and find out more about income qualifications, homeowners can contact GETS Energy Services at 510-655-1501 ext:17 or visit http://www.risingsunenergy.org/content/getsenergyservices.html.

LONG ISLAND YOUTH

SHOW CONCERT GOERS WHAT GREEN JOBS ARE ALL ABOUT

Sammy Chu-Director of Long Island Green Homes-Babylon, NY.

When Green for All called me looking for volunteers for their joint effort with The Black Eyed Peas, I knew just where to find some.

Since 2008 the Long Island Green Homes program has been retrofitting homes in Babylon, Long Island and is on its way to thousands more. What’s better than that? This year we partnered with United Way’s Youth Build program to train low-income youths from Wyandanch, the most economically depressed community on Long Island. They are attaining the skills they need to start careers with Green Homes contractors. Who could be better to spread Green for All’s message of high road green jobs for everyone than our Youth Build kids?

Our Youth Build kids along with the Long Island Green Homes crew canvassed Nassau Coliseum all night long. I was so impressed with the enthusiasm that they demonstrated taking part in a movement that will have such an enormous impact on their lives and the future of our clean energy economy. These kids have seized the opportunity to forge their own futures through self-improvement, volunteerism and civic participation. We are so grateful to Green For All and The Black Eyed Peas for providing such a powerful platform for change. We truly appreciate the opportunity to advance our green economy and create new opportunities for those who have been left out in the past.

You’ve got to give it up for Green For All, the innovative national grass roots organization started by Van Jones and Majora Carter currently being led by Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins. Now in conjunction with THE BLACK EYED PEAS, RETHINK, AND LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS their launching the ENERGY NEVER DIES (END) TOUR .

To raise awareness about climate change and to promote a strong clean-energy economy during the U.S. leg of their 2010 The E.N.D. World Tour. will.i.am, member of six-time Grammy Award winning The Black Eyed Peas said, “From creating new sustainable products out recycled bottles to capping harmful global warming pollution, the actions and policies that protect the planet for future generations are the same as those that create new jobs and economic opportunities.”

The campaign launched in Washington, D.C., and will continue throughout the band’s 23 U.S. tour stops. Each city features a unique recycling initiative with Rethink, an innovative fabric and apparel company that focuses on producing sustainable fabric from recycled plastic bottles. Green For All volunteers will encourage fans at each tour venue to recycle their plastic bottles, which will eventually be converted into fabric to produce The Black Eyed Peas merchandise including t-shirts.

In addition to supporting this recycling initiative, non-profit partners Green For All and LCV are conducting community outreach and educational events, including conversations around jobs and opportunities in the green industry.

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Que Sera Sera – by Richard Andrews

Not long ago I wrote TRANSFORMERS, “Transforming ourselves, transforming our Energy! Ironically there I was in the process of posting a podcast interview of Van Jones with Majora Carter, Host of The Promised Land and co-founder of Green jobs for All, and a green giant in her own right recorded not long ago. When I read that Jones had just resigned his position as Special Advisor for green jobs at the White House Council for Environmental Quality. Van Jones is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean energy economy. A 1993 graduate of the Yale Law School and an attorney.Van wrote the New York Times best selling book on “green jobs”: The Green Collar Economy. How could this be?

He’s a bay area hero and green jobs evangelist! The commentators started weighing in – Adriana Huffington of the Huffington Post wrote, “Thank you Glen Beck”(She thinks he can do more good outside Washington), Bryan Walsh Time Magazine, says “Van Jones’ Ideas on Green Jobs Should Stay.” New York Times writer Eric Ethridge, “Us and Mr. Jones: What’s Going On?” A sort of blog of how a smear becomes a smear. Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer for San Francisco Chronicle gives us the home court view “The administration is losing not only one of the nation’s leading environmentalists, progressives say, but one of the few liberal voices with President Obama’s ear.”

To listen the Jones/Carter interview podcast,click here. Somehow even with all our plans and counter plans there are events and circumstances that seem to defy the laws of gravity. Author Charles Dickens from, A Tale of Two Cities” It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of enlightenment, it was the age of foolishness.” So please forgive me in advance, I couldn’t help but think of Doris Day, here singing. Que Sera Sera.

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