Do Protect The Earth,.. AND ALSO Jobs?!

The recently concluded drama at Flopenhagen (Sorry, Copenhagen), made me think about something which is usually a pretty neglected topic when it comes to debates on environment related issues etc. (Note that I am just highlighting this side-effect to trigger a constructive debate on this topic, and in no way am I stating that the issues related to environmental protection are not important)
--> Sidenote: Well, the Danish capital could do well by changing its name anyways, given the popularity(or is it notoriety?!) the new word has attained.

I wanted to dwell on the possible effects on the professional and personal lives of people working in certain industries, upon implementation of all or some of the solutions being suggested to overcome the problems faced by the Earth's environment.

Please feel free to send in all your cerebral "bricks and bouquets", regarding this topic. I would especially solicit interesting inputs and insights from the readers of my blog who are (a)domain experts in the few industries covered below, (b) environmentalists, (c)social scientists, (d)economists etc. Of course all the others are also welcome to send in their valuable inputs. Please feel free to add insights about other industries which I might have missed out in this blogpost.

Before I list out points about each of the industries, I would like to put down some scenarios which I believe could exist:-
*Scenario 1: Skills of people working in the "polluting" industry, are not transferable to be used in the "non-polluting" industry which is being touted as an environmentally friendly replacement. However, the existing market demand for products of the "polluting" industry sustains itself for many number of years. This helps in the workforce in the "polluting" industry to gracefully reach retirement during these many number of years.
--> Suggested Action: Non Required, as there will not be a mass unemployment issue

*Scenario 2: Skills of people working in the "polluting" industry, are not transferable to be used in the "non-polluting" industry which is being touted as an environmentally friendly replacement. To compound problems for the folks working in the "polluting" industry, the market for their products also vanishes in no time.
--> Suggested Action: Governments to work closely with industry and intervene timely with proper plans, to ensure that the effected workforce and their families do not suffer due to no fault of theirs.

*Scenario 3: Skills of people working in the "polluting" industry, are transferable to be used in the "non-polluting" industry which is being touted as an environmentally friendly replacement. However, the number of available jobs in the "newer" industry, is much lesser in number.
--> Suggested Action: Ditto, as for Scenario 2 described above.

*Scenario 4: Only certain market segments of the "polluting" industry needs to be "shut down".
--> Suggested Action: Can be easily resolved.

*Scenario 5: Each member of the workforce of "polluting" industry can be promptly transferred to the "new" industry.
--> Suggested Action: Well, what else do you want? It is Utopia! :-).


Having listed the scenarios which I could think of, let us go to some of the concerned industries --

* The Oil and Gas Industry (Upstream activities like oil exploration etc, all the way to cover downstream activities like marketing of petroleum products etc):- The Upstream activities would fall in the "Scenario 1" category. The Downstream activities would come closest to falling in the "Scenario 5" category

*Non-Renewable Energy: Scenario 1 is applicable in this case

*Auto Industry (Vehicles running on petrol, diesel): Again, Scenario 1 is applicable for this industry

*Plastics: Scenario 4 is applicable in this case

*Poultry and livestock: Ditto as for the Plastics industry i.e. Scenario 4

The importance of policy makers taking adequate measures to cover the scenarios described in this blog post, can be realised from the following scenario which occured in a different context (some of you would be aware of it):- Textile units in Bangladesh which employed children as workers, were abrupty shutdown. The result was an even worse future for the kids who lost their jobs. Since the children's families lost an important source of income without any means to replenish the same, most of them were forced to become child prostitutes. This forced the policy makers to implement a solution which was more pragmatic in nature.

Catch you folks later, with a blog post on the legendary "Sales Vs Production" fight :-)