Diverse, GREEN jobs at Powershift
It's Day 2 of Power Shift 2009 and the conference is in full swing. Almost 11,000 students and youth, from 18-30 years old (and a sprinkling of supportive older folks) are here in DC, filling up trains to the convention center and talking about our vision for a sustainable future. The "Powershift" we're trying to create isn't just the move from dirty, fossil-fueled energy, but the change in traditional generational power structures. Generation Y isn't waiting for our elders to lead us anymore. At this conference, this move is embodied in the diverse issues and organizations that are represented. Looking around the Idealist.org Grad School and Opportunities Fair, in addition to the energy-focused (and youth-led) Southern Energy Network, and Power Past Coal, I see tables from the Hip Hop Caucus, Christians for the Mountains, the Indigenous Environmental Network, Take Back the Tap, and Citizens Climate Lobby. All represented by people under 30. Even AASHE, an organization dedicated to sustainability in a field traditionally led by those with graying heads, is represented this weekend by three women under 25. At the grad fair schools aren't just pushing programs in environmental studies, there are representatives from communications and marketing programs, applied economics, public health, and public service programs. Don't see how communications and marketing is going to help shift the power? Look at Power Shift's monumental marketing campaign. Applied economics? They're the ones who will help us figure out this carbon cap and trade question. Power Shift 2009 isn't just about bringing young people together and teaching them about energy issues and how to lobby their political representatives. Power Shift is also about showing these 11,000 young leaders how their "green" careers will help change the world; that there's a role and a vital need for every skill, for every subject area, for every person from every background to further the sustainability movement and put and end to dirty energy, social inequality, and a polluted world.
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