The economy is shifting. Jobs are being lost in some sectors of the economy and being created in other sectors of the economy. One sector of the economy where jobs are being created is in the "clean energy" sector:

Venture capital and private equity investment in [U.S.] clean energy totalled $8.6 billion in 2006, 69 percent above the 2005 level and 10 times above the 2001 level. By early 2007, these investments had helped create 146 clean energy start-up compaies with names such as Nanosolar, Celunol, SunPower, E3 Biofeuls, and Miasole, most of them working to develop and commercialize new energy technologies.

Christopher Flavin, "Building a Low-Carbon Economy", State of the World 2008, p.86.

Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch Institute, makes the interesting point that venture capital, private investment, and private companies contributed much more money to clean energy R&D ($8.6 billion) than the U.S. government ($600 million) in 2006. There is still an enormous amount of growth that will occur in the clean energy sector as clean energy begins to dominate fossil-feul based energy as the primary energy source supplying homes, businesses, and transportation systems. The role of government is arguably not to become a major financier of this sector of the ecomomy but to devise a regulatory framework that strongly promotes clean energy R&D and rapid commercialization. Carbon taxes can have this effect.