According to environmental justice advocate Majora Carter, getting serious about job creation in NYC will mean funneling money toward green manufacturing and clean tech industries, not professional sports.

Topic: Majora Carter on City Governments and the Environment.

Majora Carter: Macro, really encourage, through funding and incentives, the development of green manufacturing and clean tech industries. We can talk the talk without walking the walk. That’s what a lot of people do. That’s called greenwashing.

But I find that when in New York City, for example, the kind of subsidies that are going to the Yankees from Major League to create stadiums or big box stores, stuff like that, when we know that they’re not really going to do anything to seriously impact the bottom line of our communities. They’re not going to create great jobs. They’re not going to mitigate the environment.

We have to really put our money where our mouth is and support the kind of industries that are going to have the kind of environmental and economic impact. Because they’re going to create green jobs. And that’s really important for us to recognize.

So just on a macro level, creating the kind of environment so that green businesses can actually flourish. That’s one.

Another one is making sure that we can train people in those green collar jobs. And making sure that there is funding and support to do that as well. Because we’ve got huge pools in major cities of unemployed people who want to be a part of something. That’s all anybody really wants when you think about it. To be loved, to contribute to society, and really feel like they’re making a difference. And you often do that through your own economic bottom line. If you don’t have the funds to do that and if you have a job that automatically makes you feel like you’re a part of something bigger. So making sure that we are training the folks that have been, traditionally, deprived of a lot of resources in their own communities. That’s really important to look at, as well.

Recorded on: April 28, 2008