Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
Yesh Pavlik Slenk
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10 Ways to Save the Planet
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
09/07/22 • 27 min
Fighting climate change is the biggest job opportunity of our lifetime. But which career will make the biggest difference — and where will you fit in? In this episode, Ryan Panchadsaram explains the 10 solutions outlined in Speed & Scale: six areas to decarbonize and four ways to do it as rapidly as possible.
To win a copy of Speed & Scale, rate and review Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser or Spotify. Take a screenshot of your review and share it with us on Instagram @Environmental_Defense_Fund. Use the hashtag #DegreesPodcast. We’re giving away up to five books per episode!
Yesh Pavlik Slenk is Degrees’ host. Amy Morse is our producer. Podcast Allies is our production company. Tressa Versteeg is senior producer; Rye Taylor is our audio engineer; Elaine Grant is CEO of Podcast Allies and Tina Bassir is project manager. Our music is Shame, Shame, Shame from Yesh’s favorite band, Lake Street Dive. Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers is presented by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
Follow Yesh on Twitter at @yeshsays, and stay up to date with us on Instagram @environmental_defense_fund.
Have a green jobs question for Yesh? Send it to her on Twitter @yeshsays. Use the hashtag #askyesh.
Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on green careers, upcoming episodes and more.
Resources:
Job hunting? Visit our comprehensive Green Jobs Hub for job listings, networking resources, skills and certification information and more.
Speed & Scale, by John Doerr and Ryan Panchadsaram
To learn more about how rapidly green careers are growing, see the GreenBiz report mentioned in this episode. Seventy-five percent of large companies have added sustainability jobs since 2019. Their latest report says, “Hiring of green jobs in the workforce in the United States is rising faster than any other category.”
For a great example of the potential of sustainability careers in city government, listen back to Yesh’s conversation with Chris Castro (Season 1, Episode 2). He became head of sustainability for the city of Orlando before he turned 30. The White House recently recruited Castro to work at the Department of Energy, helping cities across the country become more sustainable.
For more on this episode’s Ask Yesh segment on narrowing down your career choices, listen back to episode 1 in our Green Jobs 101 miniseries).Sustainability careers expert Trish Kenlon offers live coaching to jobseeker Maya Johnson. (Johnson found her first dream job a few months later.) While you’re there, listen to the rest of our Green Jobs 101 miniseries, and to all of the episodes in Season 3 as well!
Visit the Degrees website: https://www.edf.org/degrees
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The fastest electric vehicle fleet makeover in the west
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
09/07/22 • 31 min
To win a copy of Speed & Scale, rate and review Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser or Spotify. Take a screenshot of your review and share it with us on Instagram @environmental_defense_fund. Use the hashtag #DegreesPodcast. We’re giving away up to five books per episode!
Yesh Pavlik Slenk is Degrees’ host. Amy Morse is our producer. Podcast Allies is our production company. Tressa Versteeg is senior producer; Rye Taylor is our audio engineer; Elaine Grant is CEO of Podcast Allies and Tina Bassir is project manager. Our music is Shame, Shame, Shame from Yesh’s favorite band, Lake Street Dive. Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers is presented by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
Follow Yesh on Twitter at @yeshsays, and stay up to date with us on Instagram @environmental_defense_fund.
Have a green jobs question for Yesh? Send it to her on Twitter @yeshsays. Use the hashtag #askyesh.
Job hunting? Visit our comprehensive Green Jobs Hub for job listings, networking resources, skills and certification information and more.
Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on green careers, upcoming episodes and more.
Resources on electric school buses (ESBs)
- World Resources Institute School Bus Initiative
- Electric School Bus Newsletter
- Mom’s Clean Air Force on environmental justice and electric school buses
- How infrastructure bill is related to electric school buses
- How electric buses reduce toxic exposure for kids
- Stockton Unified School District Energy Patrol video that got a standing ovation at the school board
- Stockton Unified School District is an exemplary case study at WRI
- Modesto City purchases largest single order of electric school buses from Bluebird
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Building a Black community for green jobseekers
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
09/28/22 • 29 min
Have a green jobs question for Yesh? Send it to her on Twitter @yeshsays. Use the hashtag #askyesh.
Job hunting? Visit our comprehensive Green Jobs Hub for job listings, networking resources, skills and certification information and more.
Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on green careers, upcoming episodes and more.
To win a copy of Speed & Scale, rate and review Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser or Spotify. Take a screenshot of your review and share it with us on Instagram @environmental_defense_fund. Use the hashtag #DegreesPodcast. We’re giving away up to five books per episode!
Resources on diversifying the planet-saving workforce and environmental justice
- BlackOak Collective
- Congressional Black Caucus
- EPA announces new environmental justice division (September 24, 2022)
- Greenbiz State of the Profession Report 2022
Sources used in the making of this story
- Wes Gobar in Grist
- A timeline of the march on Charlottesville
- Compressor pollution compared to diesel fumes from buses
- Reconstruction: What went wrong?
- What are sacrifice zones and who lives there?
- What sank the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Credits
Host: Yesh Pavlik Slenk
EDF Producer: Amy Morse
Production company: Podcast Allies, LLC
Supervising producer: Elaine Grant, CEO of Podcast Allies
Senior producer: Tressa Versteeg
Project manager: Tina Bassir
Audio engineer: Rye Taylor
Music: Shame, Shame, Shame from Yesh’s favorite band, Lake Street Dive.
Follow Yesh on Twitter at @yeshsays, and stay up to date with us on Instagram @environmental_defense_fund.
Visit the Degrees website: https://www.edf.org/degrees
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Introducing Season 4: Jobs of the Future
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
08/24/22 • 2 min
1 Listener
Transfer Your Skills to a Green Job with Work on Climate’s Eugene Kirpichov
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
05/10/23 • 22 min
Eugene Kirpichov co-founded Work on Climate, an online community for people passionate about solving the climate crisis, in 2020. Prior to WoC, Kirpichov spent more than seven years as a software engineer with Google. But learning how severe the climate crisis was, he felt he could no longer stay in his job. The resignation letter he shared on LinkedIn went viral.
Read the transcript of this episode
Resources from this episode:
- Join Eugene Kirpichov’s Work on Climate community.
- Join other climate-specific communities:
- Read Kirpichov’s goodbye-to-Google letter.
- Check out the Climate Change and AI report that helped Kirpichov understand which of his skills were transferable.
- Browse other climate-related job boards:
- To find people to follow on LinkedIn, visit LinkedIn’s Top Voices in the Green Economy list.
- Search the hashtag #OpenDoorClimate on LinkedIn to find climate professionals who are willing to chat with you. (This is the movement founded by Daniel Hill. Year of the Climate Job host and director of Environmental Defense Fund’s Innovation Fund.)
- Sign up for the Degrees newsletter.
- Here are some articles we love::
Related episodes:
- How to network for a green job with purpose-driven LinkedIn expert Nick@Noon
- Browngirl Green’s Kristy Drutman: Taking the mystery out of finding a green job
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🌎 Job hunting? Visit our comprehensive Green Jobs Hub for job listings, networking resources, skills and certification information and more.
💚 Follow and rate Degrees on Apple, Spotify, CastBox, or your favorite listening app.
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How to green any job with Project Drawdown's Jamie Beck Alexander
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
05/31/23 • 18 min
Jamie Beck Alexander is the director of Drawdown Labs, a division of the climate nonprofit Project Drawdown. In 202, Alexander developed and launched Drawdown Labs, which works with the private sector to accelerate their adoption of climate solutions. She’s been heralded for her TEDx Talk about empowering workers to be the driving change for the climate crisis within companies. Prior to Project Drawdown, Alexander worked for Ceres, which also encourages companies to establish ambitious climate goals and reduce emissions.
Read the transcript of this episode.
Resources from this episode:
- Check out the Drawdown Labs Job Function Action Guides:
- Finance Job Function Action Guide
- Government Relations and Public Policy Job Function Action Guide
- Human Resources and Operations Job Function Action Guide
- Legal Job Function Action Guide
- Marketing Job Function Action Guide
- Procurement Job Function Action Guide
- Sales and Client-Facing Roles Job Function Action Guide
- Learn about The Drawdown Roadmap: Using Science to Guide Climate Action
- Follow the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice group and read Amazon’s Climate Pledge.
- If you don’t see your profession in Drawdown Labs’ Job Function Action Guides, try other resources on how to green your job, like the Climate Action Resource Library.
- Join climate-specific communities:
- Browse other climate-related job boards:
- To find people to follow on LinkedIn, visit LinkedIn’s Top Voices in the Green Economy list.
- Search the hashtag #OpenDoorClimate on LinkedIn to find climate professionals who are willing to chat with you. This is the movement founded by Daniel Hill, Year of the Climate Job host and director of Environmental Defense Fund’s Innovation Fund.
- Sign up for the Degrees newsletter.
- Here are some articles we love:
- protocol: “The Inflation Reduction Act is testing Big Tech’s climate resolve”
- Greenbiz: “
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Lake Street Dive on music, activism, and bravery
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
10/13/21 • 31 min
Brooklyn-based Lake Street Dive is Yesh’s favorite band ever! She was so excited to talk to them about her most passionate subject, climate change, and to find out that they care about saving the world (especially for future generations) as much as she does.
Most people don’t think about how their favorite bands contribute to healing our planet. According to a study published in the academic journal Popular Music in 2019, five Scottish touring bands collectively created 19,314 kg (approx. 21 tons) of carbon emissions between the months of April and September. The average yearly carbon emissions per person globally, according to The Nature Conservancy, is four tons.
Lake Street Dive strives to make a difference. Drummer Mike Calabrese, a passionate environmentalist, has taken the lead in educating his fellow band members about climate change and inspiring them to take action. At their shows, they’ve created a culture of environmentalism by allowing only reusable water bottles and utensils—and of course by recycling. They have also partnered with Cool Effect, a carbon offsetting non-profit, to support environmental efforts that help underserved communities around the world. One beneficiary is the Los Santos Wind Power Project, which intends to provide clean energy to 50,000 people in the Los Santos region of Costa Rica. Their latest album, Obviously, includes the song “Making Do” about the effects of global warming on the lives of young people.
Calabrese and lead singer Rachael Price discuss their experiences as an eco-conscious touring band, including their politics in their art, and how people can overcome their fears about our changing world in order to make it better for everyone.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- IPCC: AR6 Climate Change 2021
Additional Resources:
- Cambridge: Do music festivals communities address environmental sustainability and how? A Scottish case study
- The Nature Conservancy: Calculate Your Carbon Footprint
- Cool Effect: Lake Street Dive (Info about Lake Street Dive’s collaboration with carbon offset nonprofit Cool Effect)
- Ladygunn: Lake Street Dive is "Obviously" Making Do (Rachael Price talks with Ladygunn.com about the album Obviously)
- Spotify: Mother Earth Podcast (Mike Calabrese discusses his environmentalism)
- FDA: Food loss and waste in the U.S. (In the U.S., food waste is approx. 30-40% of the food supply)
Follow Lake Street Dive:
- Facebook: Official Lake Street Dive Facebook
- Twitter: Lake Street Dive (@lakestreetdive)
- Instagram: @lakestreetdive
- Website: Lake Street Dive Official
Follow EDF:
- Sign up for the new Degrees newsletter!
- Twitter: EDF (@EnvDefenseFund)
- Facebook: Environmental Defense Fund
- Instagram: environmental_defense_fund
- LinkedIn: Environmental Defense Fund
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What drove a former USA swim team member to tackle the diesel problem
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
10/20/21 • 26 min
BJ Johnson is in a hurry—and for good reason. He’s frustrated by the slow pace of change to address the climate crisis. And he’s angry about how air particle pollution endangers everyone, but especially marginalized groups.
Black, brown, and poor communities are especially plagued by harmful health outcomes—like asthma, COPD and other lung diseases—from environmental pollutants. Regardless of their state or income, Black residents are exposed to 26% higher levels of soot from heavy-duty diesel trucks than the national average. Once exposed, they are then at a three times higher risk of dying.
BJ won’t settle for it taking another two decades to solve the problem. As he tells host Yesh Pavlik Slenk, “This notion of, oh, well it's okay, that five-year-olds in L.A. today have asthma because we'll have electric school buses in 2040—we need to reject that type of thinking and start asking, no—why can't we start making this better today?”
Which is exactly what he’s trying to do. BJ talks with Yesh about how he and ClearFlame cofounder Julie Blumreiter are working to transform the dirty fossil-fuel-based trucking industry into a clean one, affordably. Now.
But that’s not all—the two founders are also fighting for more diversity, inclusion and equity in academia and in the world of high-tech startups. Johnson is one of a small handful of Black academics who have earned doctorates in engineering.
Sadly, that’s not surprising: women and Black people (both men and women) remain underrepresented in STEM degrees and careers, according to the Pew Research Center. Black people are especially underrepresented in engineering, where they make up only 5% of all groups in that field, despite being 11% of the workforce.
Blumreiter and Johnson, who is half-Black, call for an end to this inequity. Writing in an open letter on their website, they reference their own experiences as being “consistently underestimated” because of their identities. In their letter, they call for acknowledgment that solving the world’s problems must come from “a diverse range of thought-leaders.”
Additional Information:
- Grist: Grist 50 2021 ClearFlame was named one of Grist’s top 50 “fixers” of issues surrounding climate change in 2021.
- Techcrunch: ClearFlame Engine Technologies takes aim at cleaning up diesel engines
- OEM Off-Highway: ClearFlame Receives DOE Grant to Support R&D of Clean Engine Technology
- New York Times: Biden Tightens Emissions Rules
- Pew Research Center: STEM Jobs See Uneven Progress in Increasing Gender, Racial and Ethnic Diversity
- American Lung Association: https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/disparities
Follow BJ Johnson and ClearFlame Engine Technologies:
- Twitter: Clear Flame Engine Technologies (@ClearFlameEng)
- LinkedIn: BJ Johnson
- Company website: ClearFlame Engine Technologies
Follow EDF:
- Not yet receiving the Degrees newsletter? Join us here!
- Twitter: EDF (@EnvDefenseFund)
- Facebook: Environmental Defense Fund
- Instagram: environmental_defense_fund
- LinkedIn:
1 Listener
Degrees: The Trailer
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
08/01/21 • 2 min
Resumes suck. But here’s how to rock the search
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
08/20/21 • 10 min
For more guidance on making the biggest green job hunting pain points less painful, read on.
Keep in mind:
- An hour spent networking is more valuable than an hour spent applying for jobs you find on the internet.
- In your resume, focus on the outcomes of your work
- Learn how broaden your job search by applying specific modifications to your dream job
- For more guidance, visit Net Impact’s Six Steps to Job Search Success.
1. How do I write a resume that results in a job interview?
- Focus on what you’ve accomplished -- big or small -- rather than on your everyday responsibilities.
- Include specific examples of outcomes, like the number of shares on a social media post or a project getting picked up by the media. Think about numbers, percentages and other metrics.
- Use these examples to demonstrate the benefits you’ll bring to a new organization or hiring manager.
2. Why can’t I get a job interview?
- You’re not networking well. Don’t apply blind if you can help it. Find a classmate, former employer, or friend of a friend who is connected to the organization you are applying to.
- An hour spent networking is more valuable than an hour spent applying for jobs you find on the internet. You should be networking at least triple the time you spend searching for jobs online.
- Build a network of people you trust to offer encouragement, hold you accountable, ask you tough questions and serve as sounding boards for practice interviews.
3. There are so many kinds of planet-saving jobs. Where do I fit?
- Consider which type of workplace is most appealing: nonprofit, government agency, foundation, B Corp (triple-bottom line company), for-profit business (large or small?) or community organization.
- Traditional roles like accounting and marketing are vital to every organization focused on sustainability.
- Many traditional for-profit businesses now hire “impact” roles such as sustainability analysts and reporters and policy advocates.
4. I want to help save the planet but I don’t know where to start.
- To begin envisioning your dream job, write it out, draw it, or describe it to a friend. What are the day-to-day tasks? What type of organization? Any specific dream organizations? Are you working in front of a screen or out in the field? Do you want to work on a team or solo?
- Which parts of your dream job are you willing to modify? For example, would you still be interested if it were for a different company? What if the organization were much smaller than you’ve imagined, or in a rural area rather than a city? Modify the role in a couple of ways and open up your job hunt.
- Organize a group of friends or classmates to keep you accountable on your job search with Net Impact’s self-guided workshop, Making A Path (MAP).
Learn more:
- Find social impact and sustainability job listings on Net Impact’s Job Board
- Transform a traditional resume to a green one with Greenbiz’s Resume Guide
- Once you get that interview, practice! Use Net Impact’s interview toolkit to get ready.
Visit our Green Jobs Hub for job-hunting resources and listings and more links to information about salary and diversity in green careers.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers have?
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers currently has 60 episodes available.
What topics does Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers cover?
The podcast is about Millennials, Gen Z, Leadership, Climate, Environment, Climate Change, Nature, Podcasts, Jobs, Science, Esg, Business, Coaching, Careers, Sustainability and Environmental Justice.
What is the most popular episode on Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers?
The episode title '10 Ways to Save the Planet' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers?
The average episode length on Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers is 24 minutes.
How often are episodes of Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers released?
Episodes of Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers?
The first episode of Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers was released on Nov 23, 2020.
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