Tip of the Week | Blog | Upcoming Events | What's New | About | Subscription

Online Version of this Issue                                         Green Career Tips Archive

Are you frustrated with the time and confusion of searching for a green job? Carol McClelland can help you! Read the Highlighted Event for information on an upcoming f.r.e.e teleclass.

Are you ready to be inspired for the future? This week's tip is Paul Hawken's commencement address given to the University of Portland class of 2009.

Did you get a f.r.e.e month on the Green Career Central site this week? Scroll down to see if the beginning of your email is next to the treasure chest. We do this every week!

Connect with us on these social networking sites:

Linked-In          Twitter               iTunes

Highlighted Event: 7 Steps to Your Green Career

A F.R.E.E Teleclass

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 @ 6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern

Is the process of matching your skills and experience to the needs of companies in the green economy taking you TOO LONG? Do you have an organized, well thought out, step-by-step plan to achieve your goal or does it feel like ‘hit and miss’?

For nearly 20 years, our Founder, Carol McClelland, has been guiding people into careers that match their skills, interests, experience, and education. In helping thousands of people switch to more fulfilling careers, Carol has developed a step-by-step process that shortens the time it takes, eliminates the uncertainty inherent in the process, and keeps you moving forward to your goal.

Now she’s sharing this 7-step process with those who are trying to find the best way for them to enter the green economy.

In this teleclass you’ll discover:

To Register: Click on the register link below and complete our contact form so that we may send you all the details and the dial-in information for the call.

REGISTER HERE

Feel free to share with friends and colleagues you feel would benefit from the information of this teleclasses. If you have any questions, please contact Susan at susan@greencareercentral.com.

We look forward to your joining us!

Tip of the Week: You Are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring

Whether you are graduating with a new degree this month or you are ready to graduate from the business-as-usual economy, I hope this commencement address by Paul Hawken inspires you.

Why Paul Hawken has a unique view on the green economy:

Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, and author. Starting at age 20, he dedicated his life to sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. His practice has included starting and running ecological businesses, writing and teaching about the impact of commerce on living systems, and consulting with governments and corporations on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy.

He’s written several books you may recognize: The Next Economy (Ballantine 1983), Growing a Business (Simon and Schuster 1987), The Ecology of Commerce (HarperCollins 1993), Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Little Brown, September 1999), Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being, and Why No One Saw it Coming (Viking, 2007). He also was one of the founders of Smith & Hawken, a gardening/outdoor living company.

Paul has been thinking about and living the tenets of the green economy since the 80’s which gives him a unique perspective on what’s happening now. (I reformatted the text of the address to make it easier to read/scan online. In addition, I bolded the most powerful lines in Paul’s presentation. If you have limited time this week, just read the bold sections and you’ll get some of his main points.)

Paul Hawken’s Commencement Address…
Class of 2009 at the University of Portland, May 3, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." Boy, no pressure there.

But let's begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.

Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades. This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don't poison the water, soil, or air, and don't let the earth get overcrowded, and don't touch the thermostat have been broken.

Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food, but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING.

The earth couldn't afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint.

And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done.

Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisher folk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, re-imagine, and reconsider. "One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice," is Mary Oliver's description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: At that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit...

And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not "out there" somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy.

We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can't print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product.

We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable.

We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a "little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven."

So I have two questions for you all:

What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past. Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation.

You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequeathed to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn't stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence.

Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn't make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. It's not very comfortable. Take it and run as if your life depends on it, it does.

Copyright © 2009 Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc.

SFBay Greenfair

We’ll be at the SF Bay Greenfair on June 27th.

Sponsored by the Bay Area Newspaper Group, this event will have a variety of opportunities to learn about all things green! There will also be companies with job openings!

Carol will be speaking about Plug into the Green Economy: A New Frontier for Job Seekers from 11 am to noon. We’ll also have an exhibit table. Stop by and see us!

http://www.sfbaygreenfair.com/

Green Career Central Blog:

Follow the Green Money: The Department of Energy announced $300 million more for high efficiency vehicles, solar projects, and carbon capture and storage technologies.

Green Career Trends: The trends we’ve discovered this week include a study about growth in green jobs, a project to build zero-net energy schools, and a new 92 megawatt solar plant.

The discussion forum topic, audios, ebook, and articles listed below are available to members of GreenCareerCentral.com as a part of their membership.  If you're not a member and would like to have immediate access, we'd love to have you join us now!

Green Career Central is a membership site with a comprehensive set of easy-to-use programs, resources, and events to help people achieve their green career dreams whether they want to find a green job, start a green business, or get a green education.

"It's a hard to find an investment these days that pays for itself many times over but the annual fee for joining Green Career Central is certainly worth every penny. The process laid out is structured and easy to follow. It takes you through the steps to get a truer understanding what your interests and skills are and makes you excited about researching your career options, while giving you a sense of progress and accomplishment. The weekly tips and "how to" resources on the website are time saving and are in of themselves an invaluable resource. Thanks Carol."

~WG Becoming an Energy Systems Consultant

Read what other members are saying about Green Career Central here....

What's New at GreenCareerCentral.com

Action Verbs To Enliven Your Job Search

Are you writing your resume, cover letter, or description of your skills? Use this extensive list of 375 action verbs to add pop to your documents.

List of 150 Solar Start Up Companies

Are you exploring a career, or looking for a job, in solar? Check out this amazing list of 150 solar start up companies.

Identify Your Green Niche

If you’ve just become a member this is your #1 destination! This step will help you determine what you want to do within the green economy.

Did You Know...

...if you missed a Tip of the Week, you can read the archived publications?

Green Career Tips Archive

About Us

Copyright (c) 2007-2009. Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Green Career Central^TM is a trademark of Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc

PO Box 354, Menlo Park, CA 94026
650 322 8661 | Contact

Subscriber Information

Green Career Central respects your privacy and does not give out or sell subscriber names and / or e-mail addresses.

You are welcome to pass this newsletter to your friends and colleagues as long as the entire newsletter is kept intact. If this newsletter has been forwarded to you, we invite you to sign up to receive your own copy.

If you wish to be taken off this list, simply go to the end of this newsletter for your subscription update options.

Read the online version of the newsletter.