The photo shows construction workers installing a solar farm… they know that since we all have to go to work anyway, we may as well choose jobs on the side of clean products rather than ones which pollute.
Besides, these are good-paying jobs in fields where the job forecasts are strongest for the next several decades.
There are 2.5 million jobs already in America’s advanced energy sector, plus more in other fields that do great things to stop or adapt to global warming. This trend is strong around the world: Renewable energy and clean transportaion is an incredible source of good jobs.
Make your next career move one that saves the planet, (or more precisely, saving civilization). What could give more job-satisfaction?
The nice thing: Once you make that big-life decision wisely, it’s done.
You don’t have to think about it over and over… by simply getting up and going to work every day, habit itself automatically deploys your working life. That is a LOT of superpower!
So, the strategy is simply, Choose Wisely. Measure twice, cut once, as Grandpa used to say. Why would you waste your working life on something off-task, or worse, polluting like Big Oil or Big Coal – jobs which actually harm our children’s futures?
Just as provacative but more on-point when it comes to your wallet, consider this: There is an INCREDIBLE boom happening right now in advanced energy, the internet-of-things, and in smart cities, smart grid and the green transportation sectors!
Consider this as well: We know old-guard industries slowly shed jobs because of robotics, software automations, globalization and Lean techniques. But these new advanced-energy and other new industries are high-wage, high-skill jobs that are still new enough to not suffer relentless headcount reductions. (Plus the pay is better.) When in doubt, a basic career strategy is, Always Leave the Ghost Town for the Boom Town.
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Not sure how to start saving the planet (civilization, really)… Start by remembering that “Hope is a renewable resource.” Keep your morale up.
Then, our immediate practical first step becomes “Deeply know our personal Superpowers,” those skills over which we all have 100% control:
1) To save the planet, CHANGE OURSELVES FIRST;
2) To save the planet, INVEST OUR WORKING LIVES;
3) To save the planet, USE OUR VOICES and take advocacy seriously in all its many flavors: Never miss a vote and never stop influencing your government. Influence the vast business world by voting with your buying power… business listens when you speak its language. Set a solid example in your personal life. Tell friends what we must do. Finally, have a carefully-chosen annual donor program. All of these are ways you can use your voice.
No one can take your personal power away. Stay focussed on the list of substantive global warming solutions.
And at all times, cast aside the “learned-helplessness” that infects so much of modern life… the time is now for action.
Never give up.
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Global Warming, You and I 