“Even local governments have played a significant role. For example, in manufacturing and port areas, streets are designed to facilitate the passage of turbine blades and other large parts with street poles that fold flat and with traffic circles that have wide, straight shortcuts through the middle.” That’s a description of wind-freight logistics and infrastructure in Denmark, captured in a report by Robert Collier for the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center.

Often missing from the discussion are the underpaid, marginalized laborers who make up much of the state’s wildlands management workforce.

As California pushes forward in its transition to clean energy, the state faces hard choices in its most futuristic initiative yet: offshore wind power.

According to data obtained and analyzed by researchers at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center, the answer is that in recent years, a significant share of good, career-track jobs in the construction of renewable energy power plants in Kern County and statewide have in fact gone to low-income residents and people of color.