Blue Collars, Green Ties

In Pennsylvania, the New Republic's Dayo Olopade finds an effort to unite working-class union types with the liberal elite that could long outlive Barack Obama's heyday: the search for green-collar jobs. Stelworkers have long viewed environmentalists skeptically, but both groups have a stake in finding a "new industrial policy based on the twin causes of sustainability and job creation."

Efforts to turn America green, both industrially and domestically, will require the hard-won expertise of workers whose aims have long been seen as at odds with tree-hugging Sierra Club types, Olopade writes, pointing to the Blue-Green Alliance, which ties the green group to the United Steelworkers. The infant effort, while promising, will surely face obstacles, Olopade concludes: "Just ask Barack Obama." (More green construction stories.)