Annette John-Hall: A path to a greener life

These days, green has been recycled to mean much more than a color. It's climate change and the environment. Energy efficiency. Clean transportation and biofuels. Organic produce from farmers' markets. Reusable totes as chic fashion statements.

With its save-the-planet healing effects, green glistens as a sort of polar-bear-friendly emerald city that we're all supposed to aspire to inhabit.

But in Philly, our approach is more Kansas than Oz. Which is to say we're a lot more pragmatic. Sure, going green is all good, but in times like these, can we get a few greenbacks with our chai teas?

Well, as a matter of fact, we can.

Which was what Mayor Nutter wanted to impress on the 20 men and one woman who made up the first class of Philadelphia's Green Jobs Training Program.

"Green is not just about the economy and the environment," the mayor declared as he welcomed the weatherization trainees at the John S. and James L. Knight Green Jobs Training Center in Kensington the other day. "It's about jobs and money, which is the universal green."

This program, the brainchild of the Energy Coordinating Agency (ECA), a local energy-conservation nonprofit that just celebrated its 25th anniversary, is geared to fulfill all kinds of needs.

And it benefits from a windfall of funding streams. The Knight Foundation has already provided $1.1 million to renovate the training center. In July, Pennsylvania expects to begin getting $252 million in stimulus-package money, spread over three years and all earmarked for weatherization programs. Philadelphia will get about $60 million.

Combine that with eager trainees itching to get back to work and a housing stock sorely in need of weatherizing and you have a blueprint for success.

"We've got 400,000 rowhouses in Philly, so we're making our rowhouses more energy-efficient and putting people to work," Deputy Mayor Andy Altman said. "We could get 1,000 jobs for people. It's the perfect Philly program."

Just think: A simple technique like caulking a window or sealing a door can save residents up to 30 percent on their heating bills. That's more money for medicine, food, or bills.

And here's the beauty of it: Your unemployed neighbor could be the person getting paid for weatherizing your home while you get a tax credit for doing so.

Talk about recyclable dollars - paying for themselves three times over.

Trainees come from welfare-to-work programs as well as the unemployment rolls. Over four weeks, they'll learn the basics of energy retrofitting: air sealing, insulating, and essential carpentry.

Upon completion, ECA will hire 10 of the trainees in entry-level weatherization jobs; the company will recommend the others for jobs in other weatherization nonprofits.

Ernest Sutton, a trained heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning technician, tried to start a small business but had to resort to welfare because the work wasn't there.

"It was kind of emasculating," acknowledged Sutton, 33, single father of a 3-year-old son. "But this helps me hone my old skills and retool for the future. I'm trying to get into solar now."

Grassroots programs like this give Philadelphia - yes, old, provincial, smokestack Philadelphia - the distinction of being one of the greenest cities in the country. The city ranks in the top 10 in several green surveys.

It seems fitting that the first class of weatherizers is training in what was Keystone Dyeing, which provided a step up for millions of immigrant workers a century ago.

A giant step into the middle class for those too often stuck on the bottom economic rung.

Nutter challenged trainees to take their ambitions one step further.

"My expectation is that somebody in this class will have their own business because there is so much work to be done," he said.

With that, the mayor rolled up his sleeves and took aim at a window using the only gun worth wielding in the city - a caulking gun.