Greening your job often means talking about sustainability and climate solutions at work. But how do you talk about climate change when your boss doesn’t get it — and doesn’t want to hear it? On today’s show, climate communication rock star Dr. Katharine Hayhoe shares her own journey learning how to do some of the most difficult planet-saving work there is: learning how to talk about climate change across political, emotional, geographical, and generational divides. Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is...

Federal legislation is projected to create 1.5 million new jobs in infrastructure and clean energy each year for the next ten years! Whether you want to decarbonize energy supply chains for hydrogen hubs, accelerate electric vehicle battery manufacturing or write grants to implement geothermal energy plants, there’s a role for you. Our guest, Betony Jones, directs the federal Office of Energy Jobs. A hallmark of her whole career has been finding climate solutions that boost the economy and...

When it comes to green careers — and planet-saving vocations — there’s a huge sector many of us overlook: faith traditions. Religious leaders from practically every tradition are now waking up to making climate change central to their theology. Today, we take a deep dive with Rev. Dr. Ambrose F. Carroll, a pastor at the forefront of a movement to “green the church” — particularly the Black church. His passion for the natural world and climate action led him to found Green the Church, an...

After a squirrely career path, Solitaire Townsend found her role in the sustainability movement by filling a big communication gap: she’s persuasive, an excellent storyteller, and loves talking to people. Today, she lives and breathes public relations for good as co-founder and Chief Solutionist at her company Futerra.There, she’s led sustainability planning with name-brand organizations from the United Nations to Formula 1. But she’s also in a fight with her own industry. Solitaire is...

Is the green job search making you feel downtrodden? Do you have application burnout? Do you lie awake at night wondering: Should I follow up — again? On this Degrees hotline episode with sustainability job coach Shannon Houde, we answer these questions and more. Through Shannon’s company Walk of Life coaching, she has helped more than a thousand changemakers from around the world unlock their passions, change their careers, and make an impact. In this episode, she tackles your job-seeking...

Scott Z. Burns intends to be part of climate action, and he’s using his prolific storytelling talents to both entertain and inspire others to do the same. You’ve likely seen his work. Scott has spent years honing his storytelling chops as a screenwriter, director, producer and playwright. He wrote screenplays such as the 2011 medical disaster thriller “Contagion,” 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum,” “The Informant,” and was also a producer on Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” His new...

Ever wonder what it’s like to bring your own seat to the table at one of the world’s largest, high-stakes climate conferences? Youth Climate Collaborative (YCC) founder Pooja Tilvawala certainly knows. Since attending her first global climate summit in 2018 as a college senior, Pooja has been getting her foot in the door to participate in some of the most important climate convenings of our time, including the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, COP26. In 2020, at the age of 24, Pooja...

You likely have lots of feelings about living in a changing climate: from anger to frustration, dread and anxiety, but also motivation to do something about it out of love for being alive, love for your family and love for the planet. Rebecca Weston says that while these emotions can be difficult and scary, all of the feelings you have about climate change, including your love for the planet, can be "mobilized" into action on personal and community levels. Weston is a psychotherapist who...

Creating a green career out of thin air? That’s bananas! Literally. Ciara Imani May is the CEO of the company Rebundle, a hair extensions brand made out of the fiber found in banana trees. What started as a quest to live a zero waste lifestyle and find a career through which Imani May could live her values, has led to a consumer product that solves an environmental problem — and a health issue too. In this episode of Degrees Season 6: How to Green Your Job, join us as we take a trip down...

Struggling to find a sustainability job? Well, good news. You don’t have to find one…you can MAKE one. Drew Wilkinson was a punk rocker and eco-pirate when he landed a job as a paralegal at Microsoft. He felt like a fish out of water in the corporate tech world, but instead of changing his DIY-contrarian tune, Drew leaned in. Though “sustainability” wasn’t in his job description, Drew co-founded a powerful employee sustainability community. It would grow to the thousands, stretch across the...

More than half of Gen Z and millennials are pressuring employers to green their companies — and almost that many would switch jobs to help the climate. Great news: This new season of Degree is all about “How to Green Your Job.” If you’re looking to change careers or want to “green” the job you already have – this season, hosted by sustainability jobs expert Yesh Pavlik Slenk, is for you. And even better news: there are a ton of opportunities to get paid to fight climate change —...

Struggling to find a “climate job?” Hit pause on that Google search and ponder a radically different solution to your green job-hunting problem. Jamie Beck Alexander has a mantra that could change your entire mindset: “Every job is a climate job.” As director of Drawdown Labs, Alexander is pushing for every company on the planet to fight climate change. How? By harnessing the power of employee voices to change systems for the better from the inside. In the final installment of The Year of...

The table is set for widespread electrification. But, facing a shortage of electricians to make it happen, could this be an opportunity for you to make a big difference? We’re sharing an episode from a podcast we love called The Carbon Copy. To decarbonize the economy, we need to electrify everything. That means installing millions of heat pumps, EV chargers, electric water heaters and rooftop solar panels. But there’s one big problem: finding enough electricians to make it happen....

In 2020, Anshuman Bapna needed a major shift in his life, a professional one. With the magnitude and urgency of the climate crisis weighing on him, he decided to leave his good job to pursue climate work. But what, exactly? He didn’t know. Making the change was tough. As Bapna tried to navigate his way to a new climate-specific role, he found a calling he never expected: He could help other green jobseekers who were experiencing similar job-hunting roadblocks. Thus Bapna’s company, the online...

Eugene Kirpichov had a great job as a software engineer at Google. But he left it all behind. As he expressed in a resignation letter that went viral on LinkedIn, “the scale, urgency and tragedy of climate change are so immense that I can no longer justify to myself working on anything else.” That letter, which urged others to follow suit, set the course for his career path. He would go on to co-found the wildly successful Work on Climate community, which today boasts more than 20,000...

Building a network in a new field is tough. But 80% of all jobs are found through networking—and to get the green job you want, you can’t avoid it. How can you make it both more enjoyable AND more effective? Get just the right hacks from TechChange CEO and founder Nick Martin, who teaches purpose-driven jobseekers how to network—or, as he calls it—how to build relationships. With a LinkedIn following of more than 200,000, Martin has made it his mission to help people who want to change the...

When you know you want a green job but you have no idea how to find organizations that fit you —your interests, your experience, and your personality—what do you do? The Year of the Climate Job host, Daniel Hill, talks with Kristy Drutman, who founded Browngirl Green and the Green Jobs Board, to solve exactly this problem. Because she faced it herself, and she had to learn to demystify climate work before she could find her own path in it. The truth is, the climate economy is growing and...

Searching for a green job can be a slog. From job postings with endless lists of qualifications to the lousy advice about how to get your foot in the door, to the ghosting, it’s frustrating — especially when you so badly want a job fighting climate change. In this five-part Degrees miniseries, “The Year of the Climate Job,” we get you unstuck. Host Daniel Hill speaks with movers and shakers in the rapidly changing green workforce landscape. Guests include Kristy Drutman of Browngirl Green and...

Elected one of the youngest Black female mayors in the United States before serving as administrator of the EPA’s southeastern region, Heather McTeer Toney is now leading a movement to make sure that everyone is encouraged to be part of the millions of the green jobs of the future. Heather knows what it’s like to feel left out of the environmental movement, despite being affected by climate change every day and leading efforts to mitigate its effects. Today, she’s working to ensure that...

Thousands of jobs and billions of dollars are at stake in the political fight over how climate-friendly our food supply should become. No matter the outcome, fascinating food jobs of the future are emerging. Want to fix our food system – and take gigatons of emissions out of it? We get the lay of the land from award-winning food policy journalist Helena Bottemiller Evich.

Three years ago, Kameale C. Terry and Evette Ellis founded ChargerHelp!, one of the first companies to repair broken charging stations, fast. Their growth is eye-popping: They’ve raised millions and will be in all 50 states by the end of the year. But their success rests upon their ability to train a new EV workforce – not just for ChargerHelp, but for the whole field.

Yesh introduces a podcast she loves: Going Wild with wildlife conservationist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. In this hit PBS podcast, Dr. Wynn-Grant takes us on journeys to study the most fascinating wildlife in the world…but it doesn’t always go smoothly. Today, she attempts to bring her toddler along on a jaguar-tracking expedition in the Panama rainforest. It’s an adventurous, boots-on-the-ground example of a career that matters to all of us, if we are to save the planet.

The climate tech investing space is growing fast. Curious about how to get involved? Venture firm Lowercarbon Capital "backs kickass companies that make real money slashing CO2 emissions, sucking carbon out of the sky, and buying us time to unf**k the planet." Learn how VCs are enabling jobs of the future to advance ideas like 100% beef that never had hooves, fully electric passenger planes, kelp-farming, carbon-sinking robots, and a fungus that eats carbon and pays farmers. Do these sound...

US Forest Service research ecologist Frank Kanawha Lake is bringing Indigenous ways of knowing to managing fire into the 21st century. Frank learned from his Yurok and Karuk family the cultural practice of setting fires to prevent blazes. He is at the heart of a conflict that’s raged for more than a century: Is all fire bad? Can we use fire for good? How? Jobs to address wildfires could include lots of career paths. What skills do you need? In the field, they need people who can run...