Nevada had a strong presence at last week’s Good Jobs-Green Jobs conference in downtown Los Angeles, a sign that the Silver State’s renewable energy industry is continuing to grow. The annual conference organized by the BlueGreen Alliance Foundation (blue for unions, green for environmental activists) brings together labor, business, elected leaders and nonprofit groups to coordinate their efforts to promote clean energy and learn from the governmental and private-sector successes of our allies throughout the West.

Along with members of labor unions and “green” businesses, Nevada nonprofit groups the Sierra Club and Clean Energy Project had staff and volunteers at the conference. As an indicator of the conference’s importance, and of the importance of the renewable energy sector itself, speakers included Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Teamsters President Jim Hoffa, Congressman Xavier Becerra and former Sierra Club president Allison Chin.

Amid the overall message that industrial carbon pollution is a direct health threat, especially to children, and is contributing to extreme (and deadly) weather events worldwide, union leaders joined the traditional conservation groups with a call to confront the 19th Century fossil-fuel industry.

An overriding theme of the conference was how to build a renewable energy and energy-efficiency industry that will provide the jobs – both green and good! – that America needs. The coordination between the “green” nonprofits and labor unions worked on many levels, and dozens of conference participants added their voices to labor’s at a rally outside a Los Angeles recycling center where the Teamsters are demanding fair wages and safe working conditions for the center workers.