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http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg Green-job training programs might well serve as a bridge between environmentalists and a constituency they’ve sometimes struggled to reach. (greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/do-green-jobs-create-greener-americans/?scp=4&sq=green,%20inc&st=cse)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/green-us-flag.jpgLiz Galst - BLOGS (greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com) - Oct 29, 2009

Green collar constituency - interesting -- Ed.

Most “green job” training programs aim to teach low-income workers the job skills necessary to join the nascent clean-tech economy: energy-efficiency retrofitting, wind turbine maintenance, brownfield remediation and so forth.

But do these programs train low-income people to become environmentalists, too?

At present, there seems to be no academic research addressing that question, though anecdotal evidence gathered while reporting my story in today’s New York Times suggests that, at least in some cases, they do....http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/do-green-jobs-create-greener-americans/?scp=4&sq=green,%20inc&st=cse

I'd say the effect is real but small. My impression from doing work that includes Brownfield remediation is that the work creates environmental moderates out of the people with the more extreme views that do it. Nobody likes all the bureaucracy that sometimes leads to nonsense. Everybody sees that there are some real environmental problems.