Massive investments in clean energy promise to keep farmers, urban planners, and green-tech entrepreneurs in business for the next decade. This guide to sustainability focused career paths will help solar-charge your work life. "It's time to bail out the people and the planet," says Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. We......read more
When entertainment and environmental politics collide so beautifully, as they often do on Real Time, SHFT needs to share. Nobody does it better than Mr. Bill Maher. Not only does he take the piss out of the boneheads at BP who are "trying" to curtail this messs, but he frequently lands on answers that need to be seriously considered. Van Jones has been talking about the green economy......read more
According to a report from the Center for Climate Strategies and John Hopkins University, the implementation of a federal climate policy could create 2.5 million new jobs. With a stagnant economy and high unemployment rates, you have to ask: How can a new climate policy create that many new jobs? Job creation would occur in areas such as forestry and waste, energy supply, residential,......read more
Green jobs are as aspirational as they are enigmatic. We know we want them, we know they hold the key to the clean economy of the future, but no one can agree on what they are. A new report from Brookings Institute attempts to offer a standard definition of clean jobs ("establishments that directly produce goods and services with environmental benefits, or produce uniquely tailored goods......read more
With most industries in California cratering under the weight of an intractable recession, green businesses have proven to be most resilient, according to a new report. The nonprofit Next 10, which is focused on improving California's future, found that the overall state economy shrunk by 7 percent from 2009 to 2010. During the same span, the "core green economy" -- made up of......read more
Green jobs are one of America's best-kept secrets, but they shouldn't be. When you consider the fact that at least 3.1 million Americans already work in green jobs, and that green industries and businesses can help solve some of our country's biggest problems -- from pollution to poverty and economic stagnation -- you'd think we'd be hearing our leaders talk about green jobs all the time. A new......read more
Kevin Knoblach for Huffington Post: When President Obama called for Congress to "pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change" in his State of the Union Address, adding that he'll use his executive authority to act if Congress won't, legislative handicappers would be excused if they scratched their heads. After all, didn't opponents of climate action decisively block legislative......read more
The 2010 Environmental Performance Index, which ranks the world's nations according to environmental policy and performance, was released last week at the World Economic Forum. The index is compiled every two years by Yale and Columbia University researchers. Leading the rankings is Iceland, which is powered almost entirely by renewable energy sources. Rounding out the top 5 are Switzerland,......read more
On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Actress Sigourney Weaver testified before the Senate, warning that without climate legislation limiting CO2 emissions, the impacts on our oceans will be monumental. “The oceans are 30 percent more acidic than they were during pre-industrial times and if we continue burning fossil fuels as we are now, we will double the ocean’s acidity by the end of the......read more
Environmental advocates and allies have achieved plenty since the first Earth Day forty years ago: the creation of the EPA, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act, are just a few of the legislative highlights that come to mind. But, as John Kerry warned today, the U.S. has yet to confront the biggest environmental problem of today: climate change. In......read more