According to the Times, Dozens of developing nations, including India and China, have threatened to walk out of the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Conference in protest. Leaders of these developing nations feel that larger, developed nations - yes, of course the US - should bear the burden of capping emissions and progressing more quickly toward carbon neutrality. 

Interestingly, developed nations stand to gain the most from pushing reform and instituting regulations. As the world economy seeks stimulus, the workforce needed to actually bring about real change in carbon emissions looms in the distance, needing only training and job security to race to the aid of legislators in Copenhagen.

Here's hoping those who can make a difference realize this opportunity and sieze it!

Green Collar Solutions will soon be offering our first fully online CEU workshop in conjunction with the International Carbon Bank & Exchange and the UF TREEO Center. The workshop will offer an eco-friendly, instructionally sound alternative to the current live workshop.

In preparing for this, we have been looking into a more robust web hosting platform. Naturally, we are investigating green hosting options.

There are a number of new hosting providers cropping up. They seem to fall into 2 categories:

1. Those that actually use or produce their own renewable energy
   TapRoot Hosting
   AISO.net
   WebCTel
2. Those that purchase Renewable Energy Certificates and claim environmentally friendly practices
   HostGator
   A2 Hosting

It's a tricky decision, involving a lot of interrelated variables. At this point it looks like the 2nd set of options provides a much more scalable and reliable platform. Most of the providers in the first group only offer shared hosting and don't appear to have much professional cache.

Yahoo! Hot Jobs recently launched a dedicated Green Jobs search on its site. Its features include articles focused on green industry along with a handy set of options allowing you to browse various categories and locations.

Slowly, but surely, the mainstream outlets are beginning to recognize the fiscal potential for green jobs. Isn't it satisfying to know we all can (read: will) benefit from a new workforce devoted to sustainable environmental and social practices?

It's really quite amazing how fashionable Glenn Beck's misanthropic machine has become. In this very public indictment of Jones, Beck calls Jones to the mat for a round of "I can make you like like a heretic no matter what you say." 

I suppose Beck has to find someone to pile on after many advertisers on his illustrious program pulled the plug, due to his similar indictment of our president, the racist. 

In a perfect example of media steadfastly holding to the status quo, David Speers, Australian news anchor for SKY News, pokes holes in a green jobs program proposed by Mark Arbib, Australia’s Employment Minister. Speers goes on to suggest a clear delineation between a "job" and a "work experience program."

If you couldn't stomach the whole video (understood), here's text of the most painful exchange:

David Speers: Does that mean that you are calling this a job or does that mean they’ll be remaining on the unemployment benefit?

Arbib: No, well, this is ... yeah this is a work experience program.

Speers: Is it a job or is it a work experience program?

Arbib: A work experience program is a job. They’ll be actually working during this time.

Speers: When you say it’s a job, do they get sick leave? Do they get superannuation? How is it just not the same as the work for the dole scheme?

Arbib: Well, I don’t have all the details.

Speers: But you’re the minister.

Arbib: Well, I am, but I don’t have all the details today for you mate. But what I can tell you ...

Speers: But it’s just been announced by the Prime Minister.

Arbib: 10,000 young people, 26 weeks’ training, plus work, day after day, it’s a great, great result.

Speers: But it is still being worked out.

Arbib: No, no, this scheme will be under way in January 2010, and obviously some of the detail will still have to be finalised, but ...

Speers: Is one of those details whether it will be a job or work experience?

Arbib: Well, well ... it’s a fine line but can I tell you it is work experience. Work experience is a job.

Sadly, I found this clip posted by a card-carrying nutjob in a nifty piece you can gargle with. For all you who think experiential learning cannot produce anything or expect your employees to know everything they should know on the first day -- I repeat Mr. Arbib's sage assertion: Work experience is a job.

In 2007, Raquel Pinderhughes, Ph.D. composed an enlightening case study of Berkeley, CA Green Collar Jobs: An Analysis of the Capacity of Green Businesses...

In her analysis, she presents a sound case for development in green jobs. However, one of the most startling things I found in her case was the assertion that green jobs exist in a whopping 22 current economic sectors.

When discussing green solutions with people who have never heard the term "green collar," I often mention the obvious: solar installers, wind turbine manafacturers, and the like.

Rarely do I think about more tangible, quotidian fields like bike repair and tree pruning. I wonder why not.

That's actually a more complicated question than it appears. This video produced by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers highlights a few options for those who wish to learn about PV installation and energy-saving electrical practices.

The information about the house that stores energy in the form of hydrogen gas about 6 minutes into the video still has me wonderi

It's exciting to see the term "green collar" has become "official" by making it into Merriam-Webster's. The induction still carries significance, while also bringing into focus the process by which our culture changes through language. As a term's definition solidifies over time, so to does its acceptance and visibility in the discourse.

Interestingly, "green collar" has been somewhere in the vernacular for quite some time. Wikipedia dates it back to 1976 in Patrick Heffernan's, “Jobs for the Environment — The Coming Green Collar Revolution.” More than 30 years later, I have to wonder what Heffernan intended when he used the word "coming" in his congressional presentation.

In a more recent work,  Green Collar Jobs: The Alternative Energy Industry and Labor Markets,
Noam Segal chronicles the potential for new jobs in our current markets. Much of Segal's analysis focuses on the process by which "green collar" has come to be understood.    

In order to effect cultural change, we must have a collective understanding of the concept. For a new term to carry weight it needs to exist in the physical -- not just literal -- world. Yet the dictionary definition of "green collar" bears little resemblance to the application for which it is intended.

A recent study conducted by researchers at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences analyzed the global potential for wind-generated electricity. The study relied on a variety of geographical and meteorological data sources to substantiate a claim that wind power could realistically replace all forms of energy consumed domestically and worldwide. 

The study's methodology involved analyzing various patterns in wind and air pressure across varied geographical formations in sparsely populated areas. According to the investigators, if these areas operated at only 20% of capacity, wind could supply greater than 40 times the current worldwide consumption of electricity.