A tale of four climate careers

Green jobs aren't what they once were

Simple climate action  //   I S S U E   # 4 0    //   RECAREERING

Thousands of people are now changing careers to tackle climate change. Even if you aren’t among them yet, chances are that the low-carbon economy will come to transform your industry soon. Some, like the energy sector, know this well.

Few have changed as much as the coal industry. In the last two decades, the number of coal workers has plummeted after cheap natural gas and clean energy eviscerated demand. Safeway, a grocery store chain, now employs more people than the entire US coal industry of 42,000 workers, down 75% since the mid-1980s. 

A more profound shift, however, is coming in industries and jobs that might not appear related to climate at all. Traditionally, green jobs have been at companies related to energy, infrastructure, water, and research, or environmental non-profits. Today, every sector of the economy is either decarbonizing or facing a mid-century deadline to do so. That’s stretching the definition of a “green job.” Everything from staffers at a small packaging company to Wall Street financiers (see BlackRock’s new investment criteria) can credibly be said to be working toward a climate goal.   

“Working in climate, people are realizing, doesn’t mean you need to be a climate scientist or an expert in anything climate-related,” says Evan Hynes, the founder of Climatebase, a jobs platform for climate-focused organizations. Workers can now fill whatever position they’re already qualified for — accountant, sales rep, social media manager — at any organization with a commitment to climate action.  

That means working on climate is no longer a choice at the beginning of one’s career. It’s a choice at any time, with a range of opportunities. In this issue, we meet four people whose commitment to the climate crisis has inspired them to dramatically change their lives’ work.

The software developer

After 15 years in software, Brendan Loudermilk was disillusioned with the kind of products dominating the technology market. He wanted to have a more positive impact on the world. 

Finding himself drawn toward climate campaigning, Loudermilk began a spreadsheet to track every tech company in the climate space. He followed the podcast My Climate Journey, digging out similar resources, and decided to combine them. In two weeks, he’d built the first version of Climatescape, an open-source, community-driven resource for climate-related jobs and investment opportunities. Loudermilk now runs Climatescape full-time. 

Initially, he was concerned he hadn’t received training in earth sciences, as friends of his had while recareering for climate jobs. But Loudermilk decided to study the issue, build a network of people who could help him fill gaps in his expertise, and then apply his software skills to address the problem. 

“A lot of people get decision paralysis when it comes to making the switch, and part of that is the fear of leaving the comfort and regularity of the job they have now, and also people can become overwhelmed by the scale of the problem,” he says. “One piece of advice someone gave me early on was, ‘Don’t think too long or too hard about it.’” When you find a way to contribute, he says, ‘Just jump on it.’”

The biophysics researcher

Brenna Teigler earned a PhD in biophysics. She expected to dedicate the rest of her life to studying the retina, a light-sensitive layer of cells at the back of our eyes. But in the last year of her degree program, she attended a talk on the intricate connection between water and energy that “flipped that switch in my mind in terms of how essential the energy-climate concerns were.”

When she joined the American Association for the Advancement of Science for a  fellowship, the hiring team spied Teigler’s real enthusiasm. They placed her in the office of energy efficiency and renewable energy at the US Department of Energy, where she changed her focus to energy and climate, and now serves as chief fellowship officer at Activate, a non-profit that helps entrepreneurial scientists jumpstart new careers in cleantech. It’s another example of a program that helps people refocus their work around their mission by building a new network.  

The professor

When she first heard about climate change in 2008, professor Laura Lengnick directed the program in sustainable agriculture at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. While people were sounding the alarm about the climate, most assumed it still lay far off in the future. But as Lengnick started looking at the impact of global warming on agriculture, she realized climate change was already happening. 

Compelled to take action, Lengnick began integrating climate change into the environmental science and agricultural classes she was teaching.  From there, she took a one-year sabbatical to work at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, helping to write its first report on climate adaptation, published in 2013. Lengnick eventually founded her own climate-risk management consulting firm, Cultivating Resilience. 

The Instagram campaigner

Vanessa Rathbone had always had a passion for the environment, and slowly shifted her career to work on climate. She started at a local food startup, moved to an ad agency that supported non-profits, and then began a Masters's degree at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Bren School of Environmental Science.

“I became obsessed with the environment in the past couple years,” Rathbone says. “I think I have what’s called climate change anxiety. Everything on my Instagram was plastic-focused, environment-centric…I really couldn’t even focus at work. I would go to conferences and all I could think about was how many water bottles were being used at that event.” 

She felt graduate school was the place where she could gain technical skills to start a new career. While some classes (like biogeochemistry) have been daunting, “it’s been an absolute dream for me to be immersed in this topic I was already immersing myself in, but with all these experts,” she says. Now, she’s planning to combine her communication skills and her new degree into a career in conservation. 

Your job?

The Climatebase jobs site shows hundreds of jobs related to climate, from earth sciences and media to sales and internships. It’s easy to be overwhelmed. But the most important thing, says Kevin Doyle, executive director of career development at the Yale School of the Environment, is to find a place to start. 

“One thing that can get in the way…is spending too much time getting overwhelmed about the size and scale of the problem and not enough time on, ‘What do I want to do?’” says Doyle. “The most important thing that somebody needs to do? Just get going.”