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Welcome to the Green Career Tip of the Week
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Online Version of this Issue Green Career Tips Archive
Are you connected to your green network? Networking may be the most productive way to find your green career. Learn more about Carol's next teleclass to build and strengthen your network.
An Opportunity for You: Become a Member of the Green Career Central Industry Tracker Team. Read below to find out how you can get involved with Carol and the Green Career Central team!
Are you looking for inspiration to make green changes now? This week's tip discusses the premise of Thomas Friedman's new book and some actions you can take to support the green revolution.
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!
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Highlighted Event: Five Ways to Tap into Your Green Network: Locally and Online
Call Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Call Time: 6 pm Pacific Time/ 9 pm Eastern Time
Call Duration: 1 hour
When the job market is as tight as it is right now, your network is likely to be the most productive way to find job openings in your area.
- Do you have a functioning green network? Do you have a network at all?
- Are you wondering how to create a viable green network through social networking?
- Do you wish you knew more about how to talk with your contacts to gain the information about your target industry and green job?
It’s never too early to build or strengthen your green network!
Join us for this teleclass where Carol will help you dig into the details of building your own network. This is not an introductory call but rather an in-depth call for those ready for more! Because there will be fewer people on this call, we will be opening the phone lines so Carol may answer your questions live and you may all share ideas.
During the call you will learn:
- Three strategies to uncover networking opportunities in your local area.
- Four tactics you can implement to green your LinkedIn profile.
- How to find LinkedIn Groups and use them wisely to build your network.
- Why Twitter is my favorite social networking tool for reaching out to the green world… and one Twitter application that makes it all worthwhile.
- Four things you can do to get the most out of face to face meetings with your contacts.
- Two things you must avoid when networking online and offline.
Sign up now!
Tip of the Week: Why We Need a Green Revolution: Insights and Opinions of Thomas Friedman
Last weekend my husband and I went to see Thomas Friedman, a best selling author and NY Times columnist speak about his most recent book, Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America, which is a follow up to his previous book, The World Is Flat: The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. We enjoyed his presentation which was full of vivid examples, memorable images, and humorous lines.
The Problems
According to Friedman, America has lost its way over the last decade or so. His entire book is about, as he put it, how America can gets its groove back. His ideal solution is that the U.S. should become a world leader in the green innovation and technology that’s needed to tackle the world's largest problems, which all stem from the fact that the world has become:
- Hot: As you can guess, this part of his book is about the climate crisis due to global warming.
- Flat: Straight from his last book, The World Is Flat, this term refers to the fact that far more people on the planet have high paying jobs that allow them to achieve the American standard of living.
- Crowded: The world’s population is growing exponentially which is going to tax all the resources on the planet.
With the world in this three-pronged predicament, five significant global problems have arisen:
- Ecological and Natural Resources, Supply and Demand. Increasing demand for raw materials such as timber, water, and minerals is putting undue stress on the earth’s ecosystems.
- Petrodictatorships. As the price of a barrel of oil decreases, the pace of freedom increases, and vice versa, in countries such as Russia, Iran and Nigeria. By continuing to purchase oil from these countries we are contributing to the problem.
- Climate Change. As the average temperature of the earth increases, look for the weather to become more extreme. Friedman prefers to think of this as global weirding rather than global warming. In a way he is correct. All weather patterns are going to become more extreme. Hot will become hotter, but cool will become colder. Wet and dry, the same thing. Weather patterns will shift dramatically with as little as one degree of temperature increase.
- Energy Poverty. A large portion of the world’s population lives without electricity. No electricity means no access to the world's knowledge. Ignorance through lack of learning creates large scale problems.
- Biodiversity Losses. The world faces a mass extinction larger than when an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Currently we are losing one species every 20 minutes, primarily due to loss of habitat. As the climate changes, animals will have to search for new habitats, but they are unlikely to evolve rapidly enough to survive the abrupt shift in their habitat. (The SF Chronicle just had an article showing how bird populations will be impacted by shifts in their habitat. Read this to get a feel for how this will affect the entire ecosystem.)
The Solution
Not one to despair over such large problems, Friedman sees one solution to these five problems:
cheap, abundant, clean, reliable electrons
His hope is that our country will use the power of innovation, technology, government and businesses leadership to produce electricity that satisfies these requirements. He refers to this new industry as Energy Technology, or ET, the next generation of Information Technology, or IT.
The Reality
As it stands now, the rest of the world is a step ahead of the U.S. Of the top 30 clean tech companies in the world, only 6 are American companies. If we don’t take action now, we’ll lose our place as an innovative force in the world.
What we need is a bold revolution to solve the climate crisis… a Green Revolution, so to speak. He described the current green effort as a party where everyone gets to continue enjoying life without making a commitment or sacrifice. A party, a change in lifestyle, is not enough! We need to take a stronger stand to get done what needs to get done. As he put it… a Revolution isn’t a revolution unless someone gets hurt. There will be losers in this new world, the outdated, dirty, carbon based businesses that continue to contribute to the problem.
The Action
The ultimate goal of the green revolution is that the word green disappears from our vocabulary. It can happen as the current green standards become embedded into our everyday lives such that it’s the norm, rather than the exception.
To accomplish the goal of becoming an innovator in the chase for cheap, abundant, clean, reliable electrons, we need to create what he calls an Ecosystem for Innovation. To explain this Friedman used an analogy of a rocket on a launching pad. The technology and innovation bubbling up in entrepreneurs right now is the base of the rocket exploding with energy. For the momentum to be directed and focused, we need the second set of engines to ignite and the astronauts in the capsule to steer us toward the goals. Unfortunately, at this moment, the astronauts in the capsules (read politicians in Congress) are in disagreement about the flight plan.
That flight plan, the system of rules, standards, regulations, incentives and pricing, is essential to create the necessary infrastructure for this Energy Technology explosion. If we are committed to this goal, we need to focus our attention on getting leaders in all levels of government who believe in the cause and are willing to take action. One of Friedman’s take away lines was… Don’t change your light bulbs, change your leaders!
This is a critical moment in our history on planet earth. The next great global industry, Energy Technology, is just beginning to take shape. We must act now to reduce the world's carbon output. We must all take a part in turning the national conversation to issues associated with cheap, abundant, clean, reliable electrons!
Our actions can’t wait. The word later must leave our vocabulary. There is no later when it comes to addressing climate change.
If we all start now, we have just enough time to solve this.
If you would like to read this book for yourself,
click on the image of the book above.
Copyright © 2009 Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc.
Update: NOW Is The Time to Prepare for Your Green Career
A Fr^ee Teleclass
Call Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Call Time: 6 pm Pacific Time/ 9 pm Eastern Time
Call Duration: 1 hour
Are you wondering whether you should act on your desire to have a green career NOW? Should you wait? Are you worried that the move toward a sustainable economy is just a fad?
In this free teleclass, Carol reveals five actions you can take right NOW to move toward your green career - even in an economy that's shifting and growing.
During the call you will:
- Learn how to read the signals that the green economy is real and not just a fad.
- Discover why NOW is the perfect time to begin your quest for a green career.
- Find four ways you can prepare yourself to move into the green economy.
- Understand why having time to explore your options puts you in a position of power.
- Learn how to build your path to your green career while you are employed in another job.
- Uncover ways you can move toward your green career if you are currently out of work.
Sign up now!
An Opportunity for You: Become a member of the Green Career Central Industry Tracker Team
As I get closer and closer to finishing my book, I’m getting excited to make a number of significant enhancements to the Green Career Central site. One of our first initiatives is to augment the resources in our existing green industry profiles and add the new industries I’ve discovered in my research.
Innovations and new developments are happening very quickly, we would like YOUR HELP in this venture!
In the next couple of weeks we'll be announcing our new Industry Tracker Team. If you'd like to:
- Learn more about this opportunity to delve into your target industry
- Strengthen your knowledge of that industry and the green economy
- Work with Carol
- Gain a number of other benefits that we'll spell out soon
Please take a moment to sign up to receive special announcements about becoming part of the Industry Tracker Team. In addition to the Industry Tracker positions, we'll use this list to announce some short-term projects that will pay a stipend.
Green Career Central Blog:
Green Career Trends: This week’s trends include an algae biofuel plug-in car that’s on a road trip, the nation’s first Smart Grid city, and strategies to make homes more saleable.
Follow the Green Money: On this week's money trail... wood pellet development for green home heating; Westly Group raises funds for green projects; and, Hara develops software to manage waste.
Fr^ee Webinar: Curious about the hidden environmental consequences of consumerism? Attend this fr^ee webinar with Daniel Goleman.
Membership Has Its Advantages!
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
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This Week's Drawing for a
30-Day Trial Membership: chaye
If this is the beginning of your email address, contact us with a subject line of "Trial Membership" and we'll tell you how to get signed up for your 30-day trial membership to GreenCareerCentral.com. You must reply within 2 weeks of the date of this newsletter.
Current Members...you didn't think we'd leave you out, did you? If you see the beginning of your email address, we'll add one more month to your membership.
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What's New at GreenCareerCentral.com
Download the Green Career Map
Are you still trying to figure out what kinds of industries are considered green? This green career map will give you a one page overview that will help you put it all in perspective.
Research Green Companies
One of the tricks to finding a green job is finding green companies in your area. Although there no exhaustive list of green companies, more and more lists of green companies in various industries are coming out. Explore our lists to see if anything matches your interests.
Thinking of Starting a Green Business?
We have a green business center to help you get started with your green business. You’ll find resources and associations where you can learn more about what it takes to start and run a green business.
Did You Know...
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Green Career Tips Archive
About Us
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Green Career CentralTM is a virtual career center for motivated professionals who are ready to find a green career that fully expresses their passions, skills, values, and talents.
Carol McClelland, PhD, founder and Executive Director of Green Career Central, has helped thousands of people discover their dream career through her book Your Dream Career For Dummies and her work with individuals, groups, and students. Together with her team of experts, researchers and writers, Carol has pulled together eighteen years of experience into a broad collection of how-to articles, resources, support, and teleclasses to help you find your way to make a difference and prosper. Carol is currently writing Green Careers for Dummies, which will be available in bookstores in late January/early February 2010.
Why not have the green career you've been dreaming of? You can struggle on your own or gain support throughout your journey. The decision is obvious ... Join Us Now!
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