green jobs

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Bail-out or Build-out, Part 2

As the Presidential race nears the finish line— with the candidates and voters both gasping for air amidst the ubiquitous onslaught of commercials on everything from lawn signs to Saturday Night Live—there are no shortages of "new and improved" proposals for dealing with the current financial mess.
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Educating Environmental Professionals in the Sustainability Era

It's been just over 21 years since the United Nations released Our Common Future and introduced the term "sustainable development" to the popular culture.  I was thirty years old when I read it, and I remember highlighting whole sections and inserting exclamation points, and adding notes in the margins like "Exactly!" Many environmental professionals (me included) eagerly embraced the notion that humanity's hopes for ecological health, social justice, and economic security were inextricably interwoven and might be addressed together through coordinated policies and actions. One of th
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In Praise of Environmental Careers

Recently, I received a review copy of a handbook for people seeking “green” careers. This has been beat for a long time now, and I’m always interested in other people’s wisdom and advice. I was vaguely troubled after reading it, but I couldn’t exactly say why. There was just something wrong. The handbook was informed and up-to-date, so there was no problem there.

Defining the "Green Collar" Jobs Movement

On Wednesday of this week, fellow Island Press author Bracken Hendricks and I talked about "green collar jobs" on Philadelphia's popular NPR show "Radio Times." We tried to define what "green collar" means, answered some questions about whether the job creation potential of clean energy is being overhyped, and discussed some of the creative policies that federal, state, and local officials might pursue if they want to increase the probability that green jobs will be good jobs. It was fun for me, I think it was interesting for Bracken, and it might be of interest to y

Green ramblings for your long holiday

Is it just me, or is the word "green" approaching it’s sell by date? I know I’m getting a bit tired of all things green, and I really need this color association to hold on to its hip cachet. It would be a minor disaster for me if green was more like the old beige than the new black.
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Landing a Job in the Green Market

Hello Island Press readers! It's a pleasure to be asked to contribute a few thoughts about environmental careers for the blog. I hope that these thoughts spark some conversation.