What, exactly, is a ‘green’ job?

Whereas previously renewables such as solar energy enjoyed guaranteed, government-mandated prices at 500 percent of the market rate, the new regime called subsidies to be reduced to a mere 300 percent above what the market would otherwise bare. Apparently, even this monumental handout wasn’t enough to sustain those jobs: The Spanish bubble popped, and today the country is wracked with an unemployment rate on the doorstep of 20 percent.

“A bubble?” stated a partner at Kleiner Perkins, the politically connected venture capital firm heavily invested in green technology, “You can almost count on it… Bubbles are common. They end badly for those who come in late. For those who come in early, it’s not that bad.” Rest assured, Kleiner Perkins got in early.

Government officials don’t make us richer by rearranging workers. In the long run, for every “green” job the government “creates” in one area, it destroys a real job somewhere else. But the whole charade isn’t simply a wash, because government green jobs policies make the economy less productive. They raise prices—especially for energy—across the board and make consumers poorer.

If green jobs proponents want to cite the danger of global warming as the reason for showering massive government subsidies on the wind and solar industry, that’s a case they’re free to make. But they should be upfront with the American public that these so-called “solutions” won’t make us any more prosperous. If the renewable mandates and other subsidies actually made the economy more productive, the private sector would have implemented the changes long ago.

Robert P. Murphy is a senior economist with the Institute for Energy Research, a nonpartisan, market-oriented energy think tank with offices in Houston, Texas, and Washington, D.C.