Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Climate Change, Clean Tech Jobs, and Blog Action Day 2009...


Blog Action Day 2009 organized by www.blogactionday.org got 13,601 blogs from 156 countries with more than 18 million readers to participate in an annual event held every October 15th where bloggers across the world unite to write about a single issue on a single day. This year the issue was Climate Change. More than 50 nonprofit partners including the TckTckTck coalition and The Alliance for Climate Protection added support not to mention that United Kingdom, Spain, and The White House joined the cause.

All the big players played. The GIANTS of blogging, which includes Mashable, asked followr's how we can reverse climate change? Suggestions for save the world were sought by The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and The Official Google Blog's green tour roamed the company's campus. Greenpeace made a video and WWF bloggers from around the globe exhausted the subject, while The Nature Conservancy devoted it's voice to outlining the science of climate change.

Somehow, this blog missed the news of the event until recently but would have blogged about what Climate Change is doing for geospatial careers. I know this isn't Oct 15th but this is a great topic for my blog. At a time when the overall employment picture remains grim, one sector known as "clean tech", is enjoying real job growth. Thanks to infusions of federal government stimulus money, state lobby efforts, excitement in venture capital investment and moves by traditional industrial corporations Clean Tech is in demand to improve efficiency, cut pollution and bolster renewable energy.

The geospatial growth area is the smart grid. A loose term that includes everything from enhanced monitoring and control of the existing electrical grid to improved consumer energy management. The Economist Magazine suggests that the federal stimulus package alone would spur enough spending on clean energy to create an estimated 2.5m jobs, from academic researchers to factory workers making wind turbines. President Obama announced $3.4 billion in spending projects to modernize the nation's electric power system on Oct 27th at a solar plant in Arcadia, Fla. White House officials say the projects will create tens of thousands of jobs in the "near term" and lay the groundwork for changing how Americans use and pay for energy.

Search Indeed.com for "smart grid," and some 775 jobs come up, including, hardware, software, and project engineers. GeoSearch also has jobs looking for experience in the siting and permitting of Energy (Wind/Solar/Power) and/or Transmission projects in the US.


The collective effort of Blog Action Day 2009 to address the issue of climate change seems remarkable. The effort is on-going and you can get involved, by visiting their Take Action section. This blog will continue to monitor updates and ongoing opportunities for involvement here in the coming weeks and months ahead, and hope you'll stay join me.

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