Green Careers: Environmental Journalism

Stumped on a career path? Itching to explore new job opportunities? Yesterday we posted a quiz to help you get started. Today we launch our series of green career profiles with a glimpse into environmental journalism.

Green Careers: Environmental Journalism

Environmental journalists inform and engage the public about important environmental issues. Whether it’s climate change, dirty coal plants, or genetically modified crops, the public wants to stay abreast of possible threats to their environment and their implications for human and ecological health. Reporters should be able to explain developments related to these issues clearly, fairly, objectively, and engagingly, without relying on sensationalism or jargon. Their stories should serve to improve the dialogue among journalists, scientists, policymakers, and the public.

Quiz: Which Green Career is Right for You?

It's never too early or too late to launch a new career. Whether you’re a student stumped about your post-grad future or a professional stuck in a mid-career rut, our green career series will help you find your path. This week, we’ll outline job requirements and highlight training programs and internships that can help you build the skills and network you need to jump-start your career.

Still not sure which professional path to pursue? Take our short quiz to learn which eco-friendly gig might be the best fit for your personality.

Quiz: Which Green Career is Right for You?

1. Close your eyes. Imagine your ideal work environment. What are you doing and how are you dressed?
   a. Backpacking through southern California’s San Jacinto mountains, in full hiking gear, chronicling your trek through a video and blog post.
   b. On a rooftop garden or greenhouse, wearing your trusty jeans, t-shirt, tennis shoes, gardening gloves, and sun hat.
   c. Bobbing on a boat out at sea in a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, studying orca social structure.
   d. In a corporate office advising business executives, wearing a button-down shirt, skirt/slacks, and dress shoes.
   e. In your office, dressed in a smart suit as you write a legal brief for your latest case, this time involving a group of families with asthma caused by a local coal plant.
   
   
2. Quick! Classes are filling up, and you can only squeeze one elective into your schedule next term.  What do you sign up for?
   a. Journalism/communications
   b. Agriculture/botany
   c. Biology/ecology
   d. Business/marketing
   e. Law

3 Free New Apps for the New Year

It's time for another tech update! Whether you want to eat healthier, accomplish new goals, or be the most informed of all your friends, these awesome apps will keep you up-to-date and feeling great. Oh, and the best part? They won't cost you a dime. 

Everest

 Sticking to those New Year's resolutions can be tough, especially once you head back to work and back to your busy lifestyle. With the Everest app you can keep your goals in sight and keep a tally of your accomplishments along the way. The app lists various challenges in categories such as adventure, causes, health, self-improvement, and more. Within each of these categories are specific goals. For example, in self-improvement you could choose to do anything from being radically honest for one week, to conquering a fear. Everest lets you choose the time limits, whether it be a year, a month, or a day, and it gives optional reminders to keep you on track. The app also helps you reach your goal by suggesting steps that help you to achieve it. Not only can you subscribe to challenges currently listed by the app itself or its various users, you can take matters into your own hands and create your own challenges as well. 

 

15 Resolutions You Can Cross Off Your List Today

The New Year is here, and what better way to celebrate than by doing some good! Whether you made resolutions or not, the start of a new year is a clean slate. You may not know what the next 12 months have in store, but you can guarantee that you jump-started 2013 on a positive note by accomplishing any (or all!) of the following eco-actions.

1. Keep the TV off. It's the first week of the New Year, do you really want to waste it sitting in front of the television? We thought not. You could get so much done today if you spend less time watching reruns — and you could cut down electricity usage too. 

2. Make dinner tonight. Why waste the gas and money to go out for dinner, when you can make a nice, hot meal right at home? Go with local, organic ingredients to step it up a notch. Not only will you be saving money, and help out the local economy, you'll have leftovers for later. 

3. Take a shorter shower. In general, it'd be good to cut back on excess water usage. You can install low-flow showerheads and fix leaky faucets for other inexpensive and easy conservation moves, but if you shave a minute or two off of your shower today that's a step in the right direction. Do that for a whole month and you could save 150 gallons of water and be one step closer to being a Water Sentinel. 

App Obsession: DIY.org

In an ever-growing tech society, it can be hard to pull the kids away from their video games, iPhones or favorite TV shows and get them in touch with their own creativity. Crafting pulls out that creativity and allows kids to explore what it is that interests them in a fun, hands-on way, but it's not always easy to come up with something that the kids will think is cool. That's why parents and kids alike will love this app from DIY.org.

Why kids love it:

Not only is it an awesome way to keep track of all the crafty projects that they create, it's a way for the kids to show off their talents to other kids and share ideas on future projects. Much like Instagram, the kids can post pictures of what they've made, but they can also post video. DIY.org also created a Skills section that rewards kids with badges for having completed projects under different categories. For example, if the kids are thinking about building a fort, the fort badge challenges them to build it out of three different materials before obtaining the badge. These badges seem like a great way to get excited about making something rather than watching it on TV and it gets the creative juices flowing by making them complete various tasks before becoming a Maker. 

Why parents love it:

Quiz: What's Your Eco Personality Type?

From exploration to activism, to innovation, there are many ways to show your love for the planet. The question is, which cause inspires you the most? Take our short quiz, and you might find your answer. 

What's Your Eco Personality Type?

1.) When hiking are you more likely to:

a. Scribble notes on my experiences and surroundings. 

b. Snap photo after photo of the surrounding landscape.

c. Marvel over the lakes and streams and how they connect to the ocean waters.

d. Ponder how to bring nature back to our big cities. 

e. Find inspiration for my next invention.

Christmas Trees: Real vs. Fake

Aside from the American tradition of playing continuous Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving on local radio stations, we also know that the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree goes in tandem with the passing of Turkey Day. 

But before you purchase your Christmas tree, we've provided some information as to why a real tree is more sustainable than its fake counterpart. 

Pros and Cons of Fake Christmas Trees

The obvious advantage of a fake Christmas tree is that you can reuse it every year. This not only saves you time and money in shopping for a tree and having to haul it onto your car, into the house, and leaving a trail of pine needles behind; it also prevents many trees from being cut down and wasted. However, there is a very real and serious disadvantage in the way these trees are produced that are both hazardous to the environment as well as our health. Many fake trees are made with polyvinyl chloride (also known as PVC), a non-renewable and petroleum-based plastic, and lead. Making PVC produces carcinogens that are emitted from such factories that further puts people in neighboring neighborhoods at risk for cancer while lead exposure can lead to neurological or reproductive problems.

Pros and Cons of Real Christmas Trees

Movie Review: Chasing Ice

Chasing Ice is one of the most hauntingly beautiful, yet at the same time, socially disturbing films that you'll see this year. Brought to life by the same producer as The Cove, this documentary tells the story of climate change through the eyes, and lens, of photographer James Balog and a team of experts and interns who form the Extreme Ice Survey.

Watch as massive glaciers dissolve from the landscape, rivers of runoff slice through the arctic ice, and witness with your own eyes as the team catches the biggest calving event ever recorded. Combining both stunning visuals of glacial melt, alongside alarming statistics on the affects that global warming are having on the frigid landscape in Greenland, Alaska, Montana, and Iceland; this film will make even the harshest critic stand up and take notice of the drastic changes happening around us.

Aside from the visual aspects of the film, Balog's dedication to telling this story is truly inspiring. Toughing it out through multiple knee surgeries, even going as far as using crutches just to climb out and stay close to the action, shows a thirst for knowledge. To see that perseverance in Balog, and his crew, through personal and technical struggles, to share this story with the world is astounding. 

App Obsession: Commute Greener!

Whether you live in the spacious, outlying suburbs of Los Angeles or find yourself squeezed in between briefcases and sports coats during rush hour in Manhattan, there's no doubt that every one of us leaves some type of carbon footprint as we travel from home to work. Perhaps the most common is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the vehicles we drive and the taxis we take. The question is -- how much? We should definitely be conscious of the decisions we make during our commute and how it affects our planet. And with the Commute Greener! app, now we can. But smartphone users beware -- this app isn't only for vehicle or phone owners. Whether you utilize public transportation systems, walk, or ride your bike to and from work or school, this application, which is also available on the web, not only gives you an assessment of how green you are, but how you can continuously reduce your carbon footprint and encourage others to participate in the cause.

Ideal and convenient for spreading awareness about how our everyday decisions affect the earth, Commute Greener is a free application that you can download onto your phone as well as sign up for on the web. After creating an account complete with username and password, Commute Greener helps you track and reduce your carbon footprint in the following ways.

Q&A: Tammy Strobel on Life in a Tiny House

This week on the Green Life, we're celebrating the art of downsizing. To learn from a pro, we asked simple-living advocate Tammy Strobel about her 128-square-foot home, avoiding trolls, and what her spirit animal is.

Not a lot of people can say that when they’re cooking a chicken casserole, they can also get dressed and use the potty at the same time. Tell us about your 128-square-foot home.

We live in a super tiny house. It’s really cute. It looks like a miniature cabin. It’s just on wheels. The trailer is 16 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 13 feet tall. It was built according to the international building code standards. You have to make sure it all fits under overpasses when you move it down the road and stuff like that. People are curious about that part. It can literally fit in a car parking space. The thing about our house is that of course it’s small but it’s kind of cool because wherever you are in the house you are looking outside. We have lots of windows, so it makes it feel larger than it actually is and a lot of times when we have friends come over, they remark on that feeling.

Are there any times when you want to run into an open prairie and be one with the Von Trappe family?

I’ve never had the feeling of claustrophobia in our space but no matter what size home I’ve lived in, if I spend too much time inside, I get cabin fever; even if I’m at home with my mom who lives in a 2,000-square-foot house. If I’m inside for a really long time, I get itchy. So for me, it’s really important to go outside everyday to go for a walk or a bike ride and just move my body.

How do you deal with the negative criticism?