Green Career Tip - Expanding Your View of the Energy Issue

Carol will be interviewed on TV! Want to be in the live audience? Find out about this event, and the first book reviews, in the Green Careers for Dummies section below.

Come meet Carol and get a signed copy of Green Careers for Dummies. Read the Highlighted Event section below to find out when and where.

Why is our energy situation important to your green career? Find out what you can learn, and how it can help you, in this week's Tip of the Week.

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!

We are excited to report that we’ve just received the first reviews of Carol’s latest book:

Americans are bombarded with forecasts of glowing opportunities in the sustainable green economy, but… finding useful and reliable specifics in one place has been a challenge. That changes with the recent publication of “Green Careers For Dummies” (Wiley), a definitive new guide by Carol McClelland, Ph.D. Without question, her “Green Careers For Dummies” ranks in the top tier of career books, a keeper that you’ll return to again and again. I know I will.

Joyce Lain Kennedy, syndicated columnist, Careers Now

Carol McClelland does a wonderful job with this exciting new book, giving her readers the industry-centered information and resources they need to help begin the discovery of their very own green career niche. Highly recommended.

Jim Cassio, Author of the Green Careers Resource Guide and
co-author of Green Careers: Choosing Work for a Sustainable Future

Upcoming Book Events

Carol will be a guest on “The View From the Bay”
San Francisco, ABC 7 Studio
Tuesday, February 2nd at 3 pm

Want to be in the live studio audience for the interview? Reserve your ticket today! Please be sure to note under “comments” that you want to be an audience member on February 2nd to see Carol McClelland who is scheduled to be a guest on the show that day.

Not able to attend in person… no worries, you can watch the show live or watch the archive when it is posted.

Book Launch Party and Book Signing

Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park
Saturday, February 6th at 2 pm – 4 pm

Carol will give a short talk about the book and then we’ll celebrate with conversation, refreshments, and the signing of books! If you are planning to attend, please RSVP so that we have enough books and refreshments on hand. If you won’t know until the day, please know drop ins are welcome!

Last Friday night on Bill Moyers Journal, one of the segments was on America's Energy Challenge. The guests, Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, are the authors of a new book entitled Who Turned Out the Lights: Your Guide to the Energy Crisis.

The book’s Web describes the book as “an entertaining, accessible, and refreshingly nonpartisan take on energy and environment.” Based on what I heard them say on the show, I’d agree with their description.

Although the energy crisis might not be everyone’s choice of topic for a Friday night, I was intrigued with their concise points and the way they delivered their comments, complete with a number of pop culture references to Groundhog Day, Mad Max, and Survivor.

Within about two sentences I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen to take notes… why? Because I think everyone with a green career, or who aspires to have a green career, must be familiar with issues surrounding energy. Although many of us are focused on the task of reducing greenhouse gases by moving toward renewable energy sources, that’s really only one part of the energy story. To be effective in our jobs and in shaping our future we must know more.

In their conversation with Bill Moyer, Bittle and Johnson explained six reasons “why Americans need to address the energy crisis now.” I’ve taken the six points in quotation marks directly from Bill Moyer’s description of the America’s Energy Challenge. My comments follow each point.

1) “The United States needs more energy. The projections are that we're going to need about 25 percent more energy in the next couple of decades.”

Although most of us focused on climate change are looking for ways to reduce our energy usage, economic growth and population growth indicate that our use of energy is going to increase for several decades to come.

2) “World energy demand is projected to go up 40 percent over the next 20 years in places like China and India as they grow, develop and become middle-class consumer societies.”

Thomas Friedman, author of Hot, Flat and Crowded, also referenced this growing need for energy throughout developing countries. It’s highly unlikely these countries are going to pull back on their economic growth to lower their energy usage.

3) “About 80 percent of our energy comes from fossil fuels, oil, coal, and natural gas — expensive to obtain and supplies of which are finite.”

Although we don’t think about it much when we turn on our lights, turn up the heat in our homes, or put our foot on the gas pedal of our cars, the energy sources we depend on are finite. There’s no way to determine exactly when these sources will disappear, but some say we have already hit the point where extracting fuel will become more difficult, and therefore more expensive.

4) “Climate change: the carbon dioxide we're putting out from use of fossil fuels is fundamentally changing the world's climate.”

If you are searching for a green career, you are no doubt very familiar with this reason for rethinking our energy situation.

5) “Our system for getting energy is much more precarious — to terrorism, political strife, technical malfunction — than most people realize.”

During the interview the authors referenced pipelines, natural gas lines, and the electric grid as systems that make our energy situation rather exposed and fragile.

6) “The fact that 60 percent of oil reserves are in the Middle East has national and foreign policy ramifications.”

Did you know this? I knew the Middle East was a key player in our energy scenario, but I didn’t realize these countries hold 60 percent of oil research.

Finding solutions that address these six points brings together a wide range of groups and players with different beliefs, agendas, and politics. Understanding the underlying issues will help you sort out the issues both on a personal and a professional basis.

If you are interested in exploring this topic in more depth, I encourage you to check out the Web site for Who Turned Out the Lights.

If you don’t have much time to do your own exploration, I’ll point you to four pages I found valuable.

Follow the Green Money: One clean tech investor with $1 billion has just raised another 300 million. New manufacturing plants for electric cars (Palo Alto) and lithium-ion batteries (Indiana) are getting funded. And five smart grid companies are receiving VC funding this week.

Green Career Trends: Check out this week’s trends for green job openings solar cells, green market research, and water desalinization.

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."

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