Making the world a better, cleaner place can also mean making new jobs with an assist from the energy of a new state alliance focusing on the environment and jobs.

NYSUT recently welcomed the Apollo Alliance - a coalition of unions, businesses, environmental organizations and health groups - to New York, the 11th state to host a chapter.

It is part of a national movement to reduce dependence on foreign oil by investing in energy alternatives.

Alliance members believe that investments in clean energy and efficient infrastructure, along with the manufacture of renewable power components, could provide thousands of new jobs, as well as healthy schools.

NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin said the statewide union supports Apollo because this country depends too much on fossil fuels and oil, and that entangles our military and threatens to destabilize our climate.

This, in turn, affects "our children, our grandchildren, and the children we serve in schools and hospitals," he said.

NYSUT is adhering to greener standards in its own building plans, Lubin added.

Since this year the state budget includes millions in capital construction money, he said, "Let's build schools that are environmentally healthy and safe."

Jerome Ringo, Apollo's national president, said the alliance is looking into advanced technology cars, homegrown biofuel and localized initiatives such as one in south-central Los Angeles where residents are weatherizing public buildings.

"It's not 'if we can,'" said Ringo. "It's 'now we must.'"

A resident of southern Louisiana, Ringo was housing displaced family members from Hurricane Katrina when Hurricane Rita hit, and his family lost their house, too.

Amid this turmoil, Ringo found the time to help secure 1,000 bicycles for people who lost their cars in the hurricanes.

Global warming is heating ocean waters, which Ringo said is "like adding steroids to the storm."

Kilimanjaro is losing its ice cap and the permafrost is melting in Alaska, he said. There are record levels of carbon monoxide in the air.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, "Our children are dying to stop another nation's civil war. What will it take to get the president of the U.S. to lead us out of this predicament? What will it take to get gas prices to be lowered?"

The government rewards fossil fuel companies with bigger subsidies, he said, and provides more tax cuts for corporations.

- Liza Frenette