Globe's Puzzling Emphasis on Clean Energy

Today’s Globe endorses Deval Patrick for Governor, an expected and surely welcome recommendation. My quibble is with the Globe’s overemphasis on clean energy. (Obligatory Throatclearing: Clean energy is undoubtedly important, for many reasons.)

Why is clean energy mentioned 8 times in a roughly 1100 word endorsement? The clean tech industry in Massachusetts is, at best, 10,000 to 15,000 jobs (or here), with the prospect of adding 5,000 or so jobs in the next five years. And I suspect that those numbers include a lot of HVAC tech and energy/power automation companies that were around long before the ‘green energy’ wave became high profile.

The growth in jobs is welcome and should be encouraged but in an economy with 3 milllion plus jobs, the persistent emphasis on this narrow sector reflects a puzzling lack of understanding about where people actually work.