Six People Who've Changed Jobs for Climate

One of the most common questions people ask about climate is: what can I do? Since time is one of our most valuable resources — and we spend so much of our time at work — changing jobs may be the most effective individual climate action a person can take. Those changes could be big or small: Leaving the oil and gas industry for geothermal, or helping to bring down the emissions where you already work. 

The truth is, almost any job can be a climate job. But how do people actually make the transition from dirty jobs to clean? What do climate positive job transitions really entail?

Caroline Dennett

Director, CLOUT Ltd

Arvind Ravikumar

Co-Director, Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab, University of Texas, Austin

Jennifer Anderson

Carbon Removal Geologist, Charm Industrial

Emma McConville

Development Geoscience Lead at Fervo Energy

Nathanael Johnson

Electrician

December 12, 2023 | 6:00 p.m.

Climate One is delighted to present the 2023 Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication to atmospheric scientist Dr. Ben Santer.

Santer was lead author on the historic 1995 conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which proclaimed that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." At the time, Stephen Schneider told Santer that the sentence he wrote would change the world. Santer's work also laid the groundwork for the expanding field of attribution science, which enables activists and lawyers to ascribe proportionate blame to specific polluters in lawsuits demanding damages for climate-disrupting emissions.

Also joining Climate One for the live ceremony will be Kassie Siegel, Director of the Climate Law Institute, Center for Biological Diversity. Tickets are on sale now!

December 13, 2023 | 12:00 p.m.

People's lives and livelihoods depend on science. But when those lives and livelihoods are threatened by impacts of a changing climate, how many of us know a scientist we can turn to who can help us protect our communities?

Community Science happens when lay people and scientists do science together to advance community priorities. Natasha Udu-gama is Director of the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) Thriving Earth Exchange, which connects communities with scientists and supports them as they work together to tackle local challenges related to natural hazards, natural resources, and climate change. Daniel Wildcat is a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University and serves on the steering committee of Rising Voices, a network of tribal and community leaders and earth scientists that bring Indigenous and earth sciences into partnership. Angela Chalk is an AGU Community Science Fellow and Executive Director of Healthy Community Services in New Orleans.

Join Climate One Co-Host Greg Dalton in this special, in-person conversation with Udu-gama, Wildcat, and Chalk, presented in collaboration with AGU at The Commonwealth Club of California. 

The U.S. federal government released the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) this week. The agency is mandated by law to issue a report analyzing the risks caused by climate change for each region of the country. During the Trump administration, the release of the fourth assessment in 2018 was minimized — in start contrast to the current White House, which is using the release of the report to highlight the landmark climate legislation and infrastructure investments signed into law since President Biden took office.

No region of the country is immune to the effects of climate change, warns the assessment. Issues of particular concern include the increasing frequency of billion-dollar disasters, rising tides in the Southeast and Pacific regions, and rolling heat waves stifling the Southwest. Environmental justice is also featured more prominently in NCA5 than ever before, with this year’s version making history as the first NCA to both be translated into Spanish and to examine climate vulnerabilities facing LGBTQ+ communities.

PLUS: 

Lithium supply is critical to the electrification of our vehicles and energy storage necessary to reduce emissions, and Nevada, the only state currently producing the valuable material, is critical to the U.S. lithium supply chain. As industry leaders push to develop a full-fledged “lithium loop” in the state, which would centralize lithium refinement and battery production around extraction facilities, tribal leaders and environmentalists are urging federal officials to slow approvals of new sites to ensure proper climate protections are in place.

In July, Climate One hosted JB Straubel, CEO of Redwood Materials, a Nevada-based battery recycling firm that received a $2 billion loan from the Department of Energy to expand its operations. During his live conversation with co-host Greg Dalton, Straubel shared insights on the state of the lithium market, the future of the battery industry, and how his experiences with Tesla shape his work. You can listen to his full conversation with Climate One on all major podcast platforms now.

Source: The Washington Post

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