In the last few years, there has been a surge of interest for green career paths among recent college grads. Heightened concern about global warming and other environmental problems that seriously threaten our well-being and our planet has created a generation committed to making a difference.
While this trend is heartening, there remains an abundance of different ways to start a career in the environment. The real question is which would allow each of us to make the biggest difference possible. In my opinion, that career path is environmental organizing.
The biggest hurdle for taking on global warming is no longer a need for science to prove global warming, clean energy technology, green entrepreneurship or environmental policies. The science is clear, renewable energy is increasingly more affordable and reliable, green startup businesses are forming rapidly, and it’s quite obvious that we need regulation on dirty sources of energy like coal and oil. What’s missing from this equation is political will.
What our planet and people need to solve our looming environmental catastrophes is for our elected officials to understand that they must support bold environmental stewardship if they want to be elected. And our corporate CEOs must understand that consumers will not stand for environmentally and socially destructive businesses. This shift starts with grassroots organizing—building support among concerned citizens to demand the change that is needed.
If you really want to make a difference, you should consider a job with Green Corps—the Field School for Environmental Organizing. Each year, Green Corps takes 35 recent college and university graduates for their program.
The one-year Green Corps paid program intersperses intensive classroom instruction with hands on experience running grassroots campaigns from the ground up. Green Corps Organizers gain extensive experience running field campaigns to fight and win some of today’s most pressing environmental battles. At the end of the training, the Green Corps program facilitates trainees’ placement in career positions with leading environmental and social change groups.
Justin Ruben (Executive Director, Moveon.org), Phil Radford (Executive Director, Greenpeace USA), and Burnadette Del Chiaro (author and organizer of California’s Million Solar Roof Initiative), and over 250 others all began their careers in environmental activism with Green Corps.
This semester as a Green Corps organizer myself, I’m working on SUNY Binghamton’s campus to shut down one of 60 coal-fired power plants in the country on college campuses. After building a really strong group of students on campus, we’ll be holding rallies, getting a ton of media coverage, and meeting directly with administration officials. For me, organizing has been a way to take my knowledge of the environment—and the ways we continue to degrade it—that I learned at Wesleyan, and use it to affect real change.
I hope you’ll join me.
If you have any questions about Green Corps, or jobs in the environmental movement, feel free to call me: 607-592-9500, or e-mail, at miller@greencorps,org. You can apply online at www.greencorps.prg/apply.
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