In this tough economy people are forced to cut expenses to the very basics of lifestyle choices. It’s gone beyond eating out less and not going to the cinema.

More time is now spent deciding on how to curb our drive time to save gas. Turning off lights when not needed - and sometimes even when we normally would think we need them on - can be an obsession.

Gas and electric bills are closely monitored so that maybe we’ll put on a sweater or open the windows rather than spending the extra dollars on our utility bills. …read more of Recession is Boon for Green Movement here

Pursuing a new career after being laid off is challenging and scary. Now, with an uncertain future and plenty of time on their hands, laid off workers are faced with no other option than to explore new avenues.

Many laid off workers finding themselves in this predicament are faced with making serious changes to their professional portfolio, which oftentimes require retraining or updating existing skill sets.

In today’s current tide of social and lifestyle changes, a lot of these workers are choosing the green route and are going back to school for green certification and training. …read more of Green (Re)education here

Green news has been inundated of late with warnings to consumers to be aware of greenwashing. While consumers should read labels and be certain the products they buy are truly green, these warnings seem almost frantic in nature.

Greenwashing is when businesses label their products as green or eco-friendly when the products don’t actually meet these standards. It is about people being fooled into buying products that are not really good for them, or for the environment.

Consumers today should be savvy enough to navigate through advertising hype. How many people really think that sugary cereals are nutritious? Yet TV commercials and cereal box labels still want us to believe that sugary frosted cereals are “part of a nutritious breakfast.”

There are of course many more examples of advertising hype as we all well know, so shouldn’t the same hold true for eco-friendly products? …read more of The Hype About Greenwashing here

Google has teamed up with GE to bring us up-close and personal to the smart grid. They’re developing a personal energy information application called the Google PowerMeter that will show us our energy consumption in near real-time.

We will know how much energy we’re using, which appliance is using more energy, and find out once-and-for-all just how much energy and money we save by unplugging all of those appliances not in use.

A leader in the Silicon Valley internet technology industry starting from modest beginnings with a well-designed search engine, Google is betting we’ll better understand our energy usage by the information we receive from the PowerMeter than what we currently find on our utility bills. …read more of Google and the Grid here

A lot has been reported this past week about the growth in cleantech jobs in California over the latter part of 2008. Cleantech seems to be providing a small bit of relief to California’s economy at the moment.

While job loss in Silicon Valley has risen in the last year, capital invested into cleantech companies and green technology research has boomed at the same time.

The term cleantech covers a range of industries in the green sector some of which include renewable energy (solar, wind, biofuels, etc.), electronic and computing innovations, environmental safety (household cleaning products, for example), automotive engineering, LEED construction, and creating a smart grid. …read more of Cleantech Job Growth: California Leads the Way here