Green Jobs Bonanza?
By Paul Homewood
According to the ONS, the number of green jobs in the UK rose from 507,000 in 2015 to 526,000 in 2020.
Most of these are jobs that have traditionally existed, such as waste collection, forestry management, water and wider environmental activities. There are also 53500 non-jobs such as consultancy, charities and management.
When we strip these out, the jobs total rises from 168,000 to 179,000. Hardly earth shattering!
Low Carbon Transport is a bit of a cheat anyway, as jobs created in building EVs, for instance, have merely switched from building ICEs.
Two thirds of the jobs are involved in “Energy Efficient Products”, whatever that may mean. I suspect that these are just normal manufacturing jobs which have been relabelled as green.
Either way the number of manufacturing jobs already lost added to the ones which will be in future thanks to Net Zero will dwarf this handful of new green jobs.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Green jobs?
None at our local solar farm. The units were made in China of course. Wind farms? Very few there, and again many turbines aren’t made here. EV’s? I suppose a few, but batteries likely to come from elsewhere and the EV job is merely replacing an existing one on a grown up ICE car.
Heat pumps? I suppose engineers and insulation jobs but where do the heat pumps and foam and rockwool come from and are they new jobs or merely replacing existing jobs?
I can’t really see where these new, well paid, (British) jobs are coming from
They will be mostly maintenance jobs. Wait 10 years for solar farms and wind farms, three years for heat pumps. (My estimates).
Ahh.. but when nice Mr Milliband achieves his “decarbonisation of the electricity grid by 2030”, he tells us that will lead to a huge number of green jobs. And if this technological colossus says this it must be true – mustn’t it?
I read your headline as Green Jobs Banana.
Was I entirely wrong?
These green jobs are as illusive as the infamous straight banana, so yes, you’re not wrong.
What benefit are green jobs to the economy compared to real jobs? What is the salary and therefore income tax paid for a coded welder working on oil and gas projects in the North Sea compared to that of the person who washes solar panels?
Including existing longstanding industries like forestry is a complete con especially if it is to plant trees on perfectly good farm land paid for by taxpayers subsidy.
Yes, we’ve got a forestry scheme here to plant 220 acres of Grade 2 farmland with a conifer plantation ( and a few broadleaf trees round the outsides to disguise it). Grants to the landowner will top £1m. The land was taken back from the tenant farmer who’d spent years nurturing the good soul, but I suppose the rent paled into insignificance compared with the grant. Very wealthy landowner getting state money.
The benefit to the economy of any job is what is produced, not the tax paid.
Just think how many jobs they could create by breaking windows!
Betcha they are thinking about it.
Are you referring to JSO/XR and their ability to break windows at a bank and not face any penalties? Or am I missing something?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
You are missing the economists’ Broken Window Fallacy.
My point is these yahoos are so ignorant they probably think the Broken Window Fallacy isn’t a fallacy at all. Most of government climate action is breaking windows or digging holes.
How ignorant are they?
JOBS ARE A COST!
Gamecock spent 40 years in industry trying to eliminate jobs.
Thank you Ray and Gamecock. Yes, I clearly missed that. When I hear about breaking windows I just think of those JSO/XR idiots.
When I think about broken windows and greens, I think, BASTIAT!!
Its a re-labelling exercise. The green agenda will almost certainly lead to a net loss of jobs. As the UK shoves it’s CO2 emissions abroad, manufacturing jobs go with it. Ask the steel workers at Port Talbot.
O/T I see that Mann won his case against Steyn. The good news is that the jury awarded Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each plaintiff. It also awarded $1,000 in punitive damages from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn.
I wonder if the judge will allow such a discrepancy to stand….
Seems the Appeals Court enforce a standard ratio range between punitive and compensatory damages of 3-5:1, so Steyn may only have to pay $3-$5. However, considering Mann didn’t pay Dr Tim Ball anything after he lost that case, Steyn should follow suit and not pay any punitive damages to Mann, but perhaps make a fanfare of tossing Mann 100 1 cent coins 🙂
“…the judge will allow…?”
Probably. After all, the whole idea of religious show-trials is to punish the “blasphemers.” I listened to some of the re-enactments of the daily testimony. Mann epitomised the meaning of the description “on a good day, average.” Steyn was too rhetorical and would have antagonised the DC types on the jury.
The judge said it wasn’t a trial about the right to express doubts about the truth of ‘climate warming science.’ When everybody had finished laughing up their sleeves…
I think that the law about defamation has been left behind by the coarsening of manners. Vile insinuations and ad hominem attacks are simply the go-to weapons of controversialists in most situations.
“…a discrepancy…”
Largely irrelevant under US law. But Steyn will not be required to pay a cent of the punitive damages. The purpose of it is to leave a vague feeling among the public that Steyn must be a Trump-loving, Conservative monster to be hit like that. That purpose will have been fulfilled, even when the damages are overturned in a few years’ time on appeal. Meanwhile, Steyn like the late Dr Ball has already had his health ruined.
Lawfare. Steyn – for 12 years, and now Trump 5 years and counting.
It’s a company town so of course the employees all hate Mark Steyn as a Climate Denier, Insurrectionist, White Supremacist, Big Oil Shill, Rush Limbaugh guest host etc. etc.. Despite that the award of $1 in compensation shows that his remarks hit home. The plaintiff Mann failed to show any loss and his key witness said that any loss to Mann was caused by Climategate not a 270 word blog post. Finding that Simberg and Steyn had deliberately defamed Mann was perverse and unsupported by the evidence. Steyn has been saying the ‘Hockey Stick’ is fraudulent since it appeared. The punitive damages are nonsensical of course and limited by Supreme Court precedent to 9x or less the compensation. Mann stands revealed for all time by the court transcript. Papers including Washington Post and New York Times filed amicus briefs in support of Simberg and Steyn’s free speech rights.
perhaps a tally of “going green” job losses would be of more use?
Thanks for drawing attention to the nonsense that is green jobs hype. If I may:
I have just received a reply from Claire Couthino following my letter via my MP, asking for justification for the spending £20 Billion on Carbon Capture and Storage, an amount that would fund 40 new state of the Art £500 Million Hospitals, and what is the benefit to the Nation.
The reply says that there would be 48,000 new jobs per annum created, enough Co2 could be buried, equivalent to taking 6 million cars if the road every year.
Also, this which must be a vital motivation for this eye watering sum of our money being spent, ” the Climate Change Committee have stated that CCUS is not an option, it is a necessity”
No other data to justify anything.
Just composing my response!
.
48000 jobs doing what exactly.
” Just composing my response! “
You are wasting your time. The AGW/CO2 concept has been accepted as an axiom {think — 2 points determine a straight line) so there is no hope of dislodging it from the minds of the ClimateCult™. The comparison about hospitals (I agree) will be dismissed because the argument will be none will be needed if “Net Zero” fails. A task that is both laborious and futile is described as Sisyphean but in the case of Net Zero, we know it won’t last for eternity.
More to the point, that’s nearly 10% of income tax revenue or £500 per adult.
Jobs, as economists like to point out, are a cost – the more jobs, the more cost.
New jobs that create new wealth, makes us wealthier.
If it takes more (green) jobs to replace existing jobs with the output we already have, or less, that is reduced productivity, that makes us all poorer.
As we moved onto fossil fuels, this increased productivity, created many new jobs, more wealth. We are now moving backward.
In private industry there are many Gamecocks ensuring that jobs no longer required are eliminated.
In the civil service there no Gamecocks, the same is true of subsidised industries, in both empire building is the order of the day
Off topic, but have you seen the award to M Mann in a defamation case, yes he off the hockey stick graph. Its worrying to say the least.
Jobs are a cost.
Jobs are a cost.
Jobs are a cost.
We are far wealthier than our ancestors because most production now uses far fewer people to achieve it.
The only successful green bonanza was Lorne Greene in the TV western series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorne_Greene#American_television
Maguns Magnuson to contestant on Mastermind…”your specialist subject is?”
Contestant …”Bonanza.”
MM “Sorry we don’t have questions on that, can you try another subject?”
Con “Erm OK, the Holy Bible.”
MM “OK, who according to the book of Genesis was the first man on Earth”
Con “Hoss”
MM “No it was Adam”
Con “Oh bugger I knew it was one of the Cartwrights”
Sorry couldn’t resist!
.
😄
Very good.
Building offshore wind in Germany was so expensive that each job created in that project cost as much as three jobs in the economy at large.
The costs of power in Germany drove the solar panel industry to China, followed by the turbine industry, although strictly speaking both those industries are a waste of resources. All power-intensive industries are at risk due to the rising price of power. Every week we read about firms closing due to the cost of power. Would any official agency dare to keep score?
Read about the rust bucket on the Rhine:)
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2023/07/18/lets-all-follow-germany/
Reality doesn’t matter anymore – “authorities” can say whatever they like and we are all expected to just suck it up. Doesn’t matter whatever the subject is now….you must believe. MSM just go along with the state version of truth as they have been bought and paid for years ago.
Think about it, a raving nutter chucks seriously vicious alkali at people (injuring himself in the process) and disappears so the police haven’t caught him. You must now believe he has fallen into the River Thames and has died. No evidence, no body, nothing required to prove this but….you must believe. Proof? They produce a video of someone, (anyone!) , crossing the road….you must believe.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68249835
All this bullshit has gone on for far too long about everything. It has to stop now.
Insight from Theodore Dalrymple:
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.”
“authorities” can say whatever they like and we are all expected to just suck it up.
Perhaps non-believers need to adopt a vaguely consistent approach to counter the believers?
Where one of my sons works they have a section for working on BEVs (pre-loved Teslas mainly) and two trained technicians. I bet they’re counted as green jobs, although most of their time is spent working on ICE vehicles, they hate Teslas because nothing is easy and Tesla make them wait 2 months for every parts.
Thank you for this interesting, well presented essay. I would add that the actual green energy jobs BOOM has been in China. China is where all these weather-dependent, unreliable wonders of technology are created. President Xi Jinping is laughing all the way to the bank with the profits from this Green New DEAL. Less Joe’s 10% off the top, of course. Finally, the jobs created to control, mandate and monitor the application of all this remains ineffable. And how many jobs will be destroyed at the U.S. Big Three auto plants? As Chris Wray would say, “We mat never know.”
The phrase “well paid green jobs” is regularly trotted out by LibLabCon politicos as if it were an economic bonus. It is not a bonus at all – it merely increases the cost of all goods, unless accompanied by an increase in productivity or efficiency of production as compared to the previous situation. A perfect example of the ‘broken window fallacy’.
More greenfoolery – made up stats, false data, tweaked models – all to protect the stealth tax raid and billionaire rinsing of the masses