Green Careers and Environmental Professions: The New Hot Job Market

For citizens concerned about the disturbing effects of global warming, choosing a "green career" or environmental job can be a personally and financially rewarding way to help the planet and protect quality of life for future generations. The emerging green economy will be driven by a hot job market of earth-friendly careers in every field and industry imaginable. Learn more about the boom in green careers and environmental jobs from the collection of articles and resources below.

For New Grads, Green Jobs Are Plentiful (Newsweek)
The labor market for recent grads is strong overall. But green careers are growing especially quickly -- at double-digit rates in some specialties, like consulting. The fastest-growing professions, according to analysis of recent U.S. Department of Labor figures, include environmental engineers, hydrologists, environmental-health scientists and urban and regional planners.

Great Green Careers (Fortune Magazine)
Environmental jobs aren't just about organic farming and installing solar panels. Meet the carbon traders, eco-bankers and corporate climate strategists shaping the new green economy.

For Job Market, Green Means Growth (Forbes)
The greening of industry is creating a constellation of new careers, and they're not stereotypical forestry professions. Many of them are environmental twists on old professions, like law or journalism. Others are engineering science careers tied to research in renewable technologies like wind energy and ethanol production.

Can Green Jobs Save the American Middle Class? (Alternet.org)
While the traditional economic outlook is bleak, the green economy is taking shape, bringing with it the promise of well-paying manufacturing jobs, management and sales opportunities with huge growth potential, and lots of niche positions for enterprising students and job seekers looking for alternative careers. On the upper tiers of the economic ladder, many C-level executives are already jumping into green jobs, and online green job directories are heavy with listings for those with established business experience.

Green and Growing: Environmental Jobs (Monster.com)
Environmental job opportunities are thriving in numerous sectors and around the globe. This article outlines five key green career growth areas: wind power; financing alternative energy; green building; urban and regional planning; land trusts and "brownfield" redevelopment.

The State of Green Jobs (Sustainablog.com)
Kevin Doyle, coauthor of The ECO Guide to Careers That Make a Difference: Environmental Work for a Sustainable World, provides a "State of the Green Job" summary. The bottom line: The green economy is still new and undefined, but you shouldn't wait for crystal-clear statistics to get involved. The time to begin the quest for a green career is now.

Princeton Review Ratings Go Green (DesMoinesRegister.com)
The Princeton Review, known for its college guides and party school rankings, will add "green ratings" to its Best 368 Colleges book scheduled for release this summer.

About the author: Christine Herbert is executive editor for Degrees.info and RateMarketplace.com. She has worked in online publishing for more than eight years. You can contact her at editor@degrees.info.