“Going green” doesn’t just mean using recycled products anymore. It doesn’t have to be about global warming. Going green means caring about the world we live in, no matter how long it takes us to become a more earth-friendly country.

According to an MSNBC article in February, many companies are taking advantage of the up-and-coming green market. Although many people are losing jobs in our energy-inefficient economy, many people are about to have the opportunity to work for green companies.

For example, the article reports that 1,800 workers lost jobs when a factory closed in Newton, Iowa. A wind turbine blade company saw an opportunity in the skilled workforce that this company left behind. They have created energy-efficient green jobs for those workers who unfortunately lost their jobs.

A spokesman for TPI Composites Inc., which builds large-scale composite structures for wind energy, said in the MSNBC article that if positions begin opening for “green-collared jobs,” by 2030, close to half a million jobs in green markets will arise.

That seems like a long time to wait, but in retrospect, the economy moves pretty slowly. That’s only about 20 years, and by then we’ll hopefully have electric cars or homes completely dependent on solar energy. The technology is out there; it’s just waiting to be implemented.

Presidential candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the MSNBC article said, promise to send federal funding to companies like TPI to train the workers with the skills they need to work in a green industry.

TPI is only one company, and they promise about 500 job openings within the next few years. Can you imagine how many jobs would be available if other companies formed in a green industry?

This does nothing to help those who have already lost their jobs, because it doesn’t promise them a job, a future or starting salaries near what they earned before. But it can offer them hope.

To know there are companies and there are people who care so much about our environment and our future on this Earth that they are willing to spend money to create a green company that could enter a potential green industry and green market astounds me.

It’s difficult to think this technology has probably been stifled for a long time and is just now being allowed to enter as a wave of thought and action for the American people.

The more we conserve, the more we recycle and the more we are just more careful and conscientious of our world, the better off we’ll be in the long run. It’s the world we live in; we just have to decide what kind of world we decide to make of it.

Marissa Warms is a senior advertising/public relations major from Irving.