Writing Feature Articles - Step 1 - Lesson 1 | Page 44

Writing Feature Articles - Lesson
Writing Feature Articles - Handout . a

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. a: Feature Articles Packet

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“Saving the Working Class...” continued
grow beyond a relatively small elite is if it meets broad, basic economic needs, not just green ones. "We need to
go from talking about green as a lifestyle choice, and make it an economic choice," says Jones. "We need ecopopulism, not eco-elitism."
For that to happen, however, we need serious government policy: smart subsidies for alternative energy and green
building, retraining for green-collar jobs, more research money for clean tech — and hopefully a tax on carbon.
Both Presidential candidates have gestured at this — though Sen. Barack Obama, who has pledged to spend $150
billion over 10 years on clean tech, is ready to do more.
But that was before this once-in-a-generation economic crisis hit. Now, with hundreds of billions of dollars in
government money being shoveled towards the ?nancial sector, with the economy in free-fall, with once-record oil
prices dropping, surely the last thing we can afford is more spending to prop up green dreams?
Jones says we can and we should. This isn't the time to abandon the green push — not just because carbon
emissions continue to rise faster than ever or because scientists grow more concerned daily about the fate of the
planet. Let's even put aside a politically fraught cap-and-trade program for the moment. A green stimulus package
— a Green Deal, perhaps — could not only put the unemployed back to work in the middle of a harsh recession,
but also lay the building blocks for a new, more sustainable American economy, one prepared to compete in a
future where energy, natural resources and maybe carbon will all come at a premium. The old system failed, and
we're picking up the pieces. "We can create an economy that's about production, not just consumption," says Jones.
"That's the way forward." It may be hard to believe, but a recession could be the ?rst step to a truly green economy
— one that will be ready for a very different future.

Walsh, Bryan. (October 2008). “Saving the Working Class with Green-Collar Jobs.” TIME Magazine,
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1852183,00.htm Permission pending.

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