Where the hell did all of the electricians go?
That's today's big question, and my guest is leading journalist Emily Pontecorvo.
Until recently, Emily was an energy, environment, and climate reporter at Grist, one of our favorite publications. She's now moved on to the new climate newsroom Heatmap.
Emily has covered the whole enchilada from green hydrogen subsidies to coal ash, scope three emissions, Fashion Week, airports, locusts, frequent flyers, college divestment movements, carbon removal, you name it.
And so when Emily did a deep dive on the worker's subsidies and training schools behind America's electricians or lack thereof, I knew she was the perfect person to help me, and therefore you, understand where we go from here because we need a lot of electricians to electrify everything.
It's complicated, it's systemic, and it's holding us back.
We need to understand what the bottlenecks are when you can't find an electrician, how we can market to future electricians, then educate them, train them, and support them as a new generation of truly essential workers.
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INI Book Club:
• Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero Is Not Enough (https://bookshop.org/a/8952/9781839762345) by Holly Jean Buck
• Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club
Links:
• Read Emily's electrician shortage piece in Grist (https://grist.org/energy/electrician-shortage-electrify-everything-climate-infrastructure-labor/)
• Subscribe to Heatmap (https://heatmap.news/)
• Follow Emily on Twitter (https://twitter.com/emilypont?lang=en)
• Upgrade your home or building with BlocPower (https://www.blocpower.io/)
• Upgrade your home with Sealed (https://sealed.com/)
• Support an equitable transition to a world powered by renewable energy with GRID Alternatives (https://gridalternatives.org/)
• Check out ChargerHelp (https://www.chargerhelp.com/)
• Help decarbonize California with resources from TECH Clean California (https://techcleanca.com/)
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• Edited by Anthony Luciani (https://anthonyluciani.com)
• Produced by Willow Beck (https://twitter.com/willowbeck_)
• Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com (http://timblane.com/)
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