Jobs from Climate Control is the new mantra

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The four-letter word that will dominate President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday -- jobs -- could be the savior for faltering climate control legislation, or at least that's environmentalists' latest hope. Supporters of a global warming bill have failed to captivate the country with warnings of drought, disappearing polar ice caps, refugees fleeing floods and worsening disease. So, they are ramping up a more positive-sounding argument.

The four-letter word that will dominate President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday -- jobs -- could be the savior for faltering climate control legislation, or at least that's environmentalists' latest hope.

Supporters of a global warming bill have failed to captivate the country with warnings of drought, disappearing polar ice caps, refugees fleeing floods and worsening disease. So, they are ramping up a more positive-sounding argument.

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Forget environmental benefits and saving the planet. Clean energy, they say, could create millions of new jobs, a potentially powerful argument amid a 10 percent U.S. unemployment rate, the worst in more than a quarter-century.

There are opposing opinions, however, on whether jobs would blossom by requiring factories and utilities to use less oil and coal, or whether the rise of more expensive solar, wind and other "green" energy would kill jobs.

"We know that clean energy is a proven job creator," Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer recently told reporters.

She cited a 2009 study by researchers at the University of California Berkeley, the University of Illinois and Yale University that concluded between 918,000 and 1.9 million jobs would be created over 10 years by the climate bill passed last year by the House of Representatives.

Article continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60Q11520100127