Make Way For Green Collar Jobs
As the Going Green Train picks up more and more steam, new domaining opportunities are presenting themselves. And today, I have another list for you!
Fast Company magazine has published the best green jobs for the next decade. I’ll post a little comment about each, but you may also want to check the article out for what they have to say about their choices.
- Farmer - They claim that America has just 2 million farmers, and sustainable agriculture will require tens of millions. The new farmers will be small-scale local farmers. Sound familiar? That’s because back in November I claimed that local farming was going to get big. The article offered these related careers: urban gardener; farmers market and CSA coordinator; artisanal cheesemaker (artisinalcheesemaker/s.com are available).
- Forester - The modern forester will be moving away from the mass deforestation of doing things and more towards silviculture; the more efficient and environmentally conscious way of harvesting timber.
- Solar Power Installer - A bit of an obvious choice. This is more along the lines of personal solar power and not commercial. Again, personal solar power is something I blogged about last June. Couldn’t agree more with this choice.
- Energy Efficiency Builder - The article claim that buildings account for 48% of the U.S.’s energy use and greenhouse gas. So this should be one of the primary targets of a carbon cap/trade system. They point out that Passivhaus, which- and sorry for sounding like a broken record- I blogged about just days ago, would be a good standard for the U.S. to adapt.
- Wind Turbine Fabricator - The article claims that wind is the leading and fastest-growing source of alternative energy. They’re not citing any sources for this stuff. But they do make an interesting point: turbines are 90% metal by weight, creating an opportunity for auto workers to adapt.
- Conservation Biologist - Pretty much is what it says it is: biologists whose primary focus is to preserve the integrity of ecosystems.
- Green MBA and Entrepreneur - This time they cite a source and claim that legal, research and consulting account for the majority of green jobs. I think they’re dead on here. 10 or so years ago, companies began hiring their own IT people. Now, you’d be hard pressed to find a successful company that doesn’t have it’s own IT. And now, they’ll begin hiring their own green people.
- Recycler - Again, perhaps one of the more obvious choices. But stop thinking paper and plastic and start thinking steel, clothing, glass and other various construction materials.
- Sustainability Systems Developer - Green code writers!
- Urban Planners - I suppose I see it. I mean, due to the limited number of urban areas that would require persons such as this, this probably won’t be as popular as, say, solar power installers.
I think there is plenty of opportunity here, not just in domain names but also for those looking to develop them. The government threw a good deal of stimulus money at this area.
I’ll throw in a few of my own as well:
- Auto Mechanics - Though the article says that auto workers can adapt their skills to the wind industry, why not get a couple new skills so they can work on the new cars? You know, whatever ends up succeeding the petrol-based cars we have now: electric vehicles, hybrids, whatever. When I worked in the auto field, I personally saw old timey mechanics fade away as the mechanical-based vehicles disappeared off the road. These guys found it hard, and some simply refused, to work on the new cars that had computers and electrical systems. The current set of auto workers can learn from those earlier mistakes. Oh, and being that people have not been buying new cars as of late, that means they are driving more and more used cars. Those will eventually need service. So the auto workers in the service field may start seeing better days sooner rather than later.
- Smart Home and Auto Software Programmers and Interface Designers - I’ve been convinced that our appliances and other home items will be connected on a home network. Your fridge will know when you used your last stick of butter and put it on your grocery list for you. Your home security system will be on the network, allowing you to monitor it from work. I know, those aren’t green. They’re just the most obvious examples of a wired house. For green examples: your house will be able to tell you how much energy you are using in a more friendly way. Your car will give immediate feedback on your gas mileage (not new, but most cars still don’t do it) and your hypermiling techniques (new). These things will need programs to operate, and perhaps more importantly they will need smart, easy and friendly interfaces for the non-tech savvy to be comfortable enough to use them.
- Green Lawyers - Environmental lawyers will be en vogue. Not just those fighting FOR the green, but also against it. Yea, something tells me the oil companies can, and will, afford better lawyers.
Know of any green jobs not listed here? Share your ideas!
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Is Wikipedia Among Your Domaining Tools?
So, my wife and I are about halfway done with building a house. We’re having one built just outside a booming suburb of Houston. It’s taken up a lot of my time and energy as of late, but it will be worth it. (<— excuse for lack of posts)
While researching ways to make our new house energy efficient, I came across an interesting Wikipedia article on the Passive House. This article is a great example on how you can search for new hot keywords on Wikipedia.
This idea originates in Sweden and Germany, and is otherwise known as Passivhaus. In short, it’s the idea of making your house energy efficient using passive means of heating and cooling. While reading the article, I was bombarded with new ideas and keywords that I haven’t heard before. Immediately, my Domainer-Sense (much like Spidey-sense) kicked in and I found myself checking to see if any of them were registered.
This article is loaded with info for a hot niche: green energy. Whether you trust in the accuracy of Wikipedia or not is moot, really. These articles can provide you with new avenues to research.
I took a screenshot and circled many keywords in the article: click here to view the image. (I’ve tried making a thumbnail and a nice popup, but it’s either too early in the morning or my mojo is rusty)
So, after reading the article you now have:
- New ideas to hand register domain names
- Recognition of keywords that will help you identify domain names on drop lists and auctions that other domainers may pass up
- Tons of extra content for an existing green site
- Several small niche ideas, such as a site about passive solar design or one about ground heat exchangers
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Copenhagen Is The Next Kyoto
Americans don’t really know about the Kyoto Protocol, as the U.S. isn’t a part of it. Well, technically we are; we just didn’t ratify it. So it’s not in the every day vocabulary of regular Americans. Anyways, the treaty, ratified by 183 countries, legally binds the signatories to higher emissions standards in an effort to solving the global warming issue.
It’s been a sore spot really, as nearly everyone is pissed that the U.S. refuses to participate. Would you like to know why we won’t ratify it? Bush was upset that China, the worlds second largest carbon emitter after the U.S., was given an exemption. And that wasn’t fair!
So… because we aren’t participating, most Americans don’t even know about Kyoto.
Enter: Copenhagen.
The Kyoto Protocol effectively expires in 2012 and needs a replacement. 15,000 officials, advisors and diplomats from 200 countries will meet for 2 weeks this December for the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Their primary goal is to create a new protocol to replace Kyoto. Now, they don’t have a name for it, and they aren’t even guaranteeing one will even be signed. But lets face it, there is absolutely no way they are leaving there without a replacement for Kyoto.
The Copenhagen Protocol has not been made the official name, but you can almost count on it. The reason why it will blow Kyoto out of the water is that the U.S. will ratify it, and it’s a possibility China will too. Because of that, it will become a monstrous keyword in the environmental industry.
CopenhagenProtocol was already registered under .com, .net and .org. I picked up the .us and .info. I know, I’m not a big fan of these two either. But for $8 total at Name.com I figured it was worth a shot.
Keep a close eye on this conference. I have a feeling it will spawn some great green keywords.
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Another Local Trend Needs An Internet Presence
It’s been long predicted that the internet is going local. I don’t know of anyone who disagrees with this. People are dumping their Yellow Pages and are increasingly gathering their info from the net. And the best part about it is that the quantity of local areas combined with infinite types of business, lets you have unlimited choices when you want to purchase a domain name, or start a local website.
Today I want to tackle something that has been around forever, but has grown in popularity in the past year or so. More and more people are taking responsibility for the food they eat. And this trend I have today sees the colliding of several trends that’s driving its popularity through the roof.
- The demand is high enough for organic food products that they have made their way out of specialty markets and into the big box Wal-marts and Krogers.
- People are conscious of their carbon footprint, and, perhaps more specifically in this case, food miles. This may be new to the U.S., but it’s going to be huge. They are conscious of the footprint of the products they purchase.
- People want local. Most people would prefer to support local businesses. The general thought is that your putting back into your local economy.
- People are increasingly disgusted with the treatment of animals at mega-farms both here in the U.S. and overseas.
- Fear. Fear is the most powerful motivator. And people are afraid of salmonella and e coli. And they are afraid of foreign grown foods.
Combine all of these and what you get is a great trend: local farming. I’m talking produce, dairy and meat all being grown in your own city being sold in… your own city!
Mega-farms did away with this quite some time ago. But local farming has made a comeback. People are finding that if eggs are grown by a local hatchery in Houston and sold in Houston, they can:
- Support a local business
- Receive fresher product
- Have a significantly smaller carbon footprint
- All with the knowledge that the chickens weren’t mistreated in a mega-farm.
You see, if eggs are grown in Iowa, which is the largest egg producing state in the U.S., then are shipped to a primary distributor in Florida, who then ships them to a local distributor in Georgia, who then sells them to local markets, they leave a pretty large carbon footprint from all the trucks that have to take them to their destinations. This also takes time. And never mind the fact that Florida has one of the largest hatcherys already, only this distributor has a deal with an Iowa hatchery.
None of this is necessary with a local supplier. The food miles of products in major supermarkets is 27 times that of a local market. Supermarkets are starting to realize this as some of them now offer local produce, dairy and meat. They are jumping on the bandwagon. Next time you visit your Wal-mart, keep an eye out for the signs. I was at one today and saw local produce and cheese.
The number of farmers markets have grown 50% in the past decade, according to this NPR article. I know the article is relatively old, but it gets the point across. Here is a more recent success story. People can literally buy produce that was picked that day or the previous day. On top of that, they can meet the farmers that grow them. And in many cases, can even visit the farm where their food is grown. You can’t beat that for customer service. It’s all part of making the consumer comfortable. And right now, they are growing more comfortable with local farmers than a beef rancher from New Zealand.
I recently visited a Houston farmers market to see what the hubbub was about. This one has been around for a long time, but I’ve never been there. We arrived at 10am on a Saturday and most of the booths had already sold out for the day. One booth still had apples, and others had some produce I’ve never even heard of, but most of the others were in the process of closing down. You have to admire these people. They grow this food AND have to spend the time to sell it. How could you not want to support them by buying what often amounts to be a superior product? Sure they may cost more, but wouldn’t you pay $.10 more per onion for that? That’s what I mean when I say that people want to support local businesses.
Here is a guide on how to buy local from, get this, Kraft!
I think this topic would make a great site, whether you want to cover the entire country or just a state or city. A directory of farmers markets and other places where you can buy local, as well as the farmers themselves, would be ideal.
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Labor Day Recap: Vinyl Wall Art Is Now My Top Search Term
Nice to have a day off! Good luck to people being affected by Gustav today and the upcoming days. Being in Houston, what has happened to New Orleans could just as easily have happened to us.
Back on June 21st, I revisited trends from previous posts to see how they were doing. Well, I’m doing it again. I won’t bore you with a recap of every post, but there are a few I wanted to go over starting with the most important one:
Aug 11th - Vinyl Wall Art
I never would have expected it, but the vinyl wall art post has become my most popular post of all time in just under 3 weeks. Not because domainers love it or are linking to it, but because of loads of organic traffic. Vinyl wall art is my number one search term now, even higher than domain related keywords (geodomains is second, in case you were curious). I suppose that’s kind of embarrassing for a domaining blog to admit.
But I think this shows how hot this trend really is. And to give you an idea of what people are typing to find vinyl wall art (at least the ones that got to my site):
- vinyl wall art
- vinyl wall designs
- vinyl art
- vinyl wall
- vinyl sticker wall art
- uk vinyl wall art
- big wall art
- vinyl people wall art
- vinyl wall art home
- how to make vinyl wall stickers
- vinyl wall art blog
- vinyl wall looks real
- vinyl for wall art
And these are directly related to my suggesting that ’80s vinyl wall decals were going to be a big subniche:
- nes vinyl wall
- star wars vinyl wall decals
- star wars wall vinyl
- wall decal big nickelodeon commercial
- ghostbuster wall art (yea, for real)
- mario vinyl wall art
- andy warhol wall decal (Hate to say it, but I told ya so!)
Yea, people really typed those in to get to my blog. Perhaps I should change my focus? hehe…
If TrendDomaining.com is ranking real high for these keywords and people are clicking on them, then the supply is not meeting the demand. Hint hint.
Aug 14th - Olympics
I said that Michael Phelps could do for swimming what Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods did for basketball and golf, respectively.
Of course, it’s too early to tell. But this NY Times report proves this trend is on the right track. From the article: “I don’t want this sport to be an every-four-years sport,” said Phelps. “In between the four years, there’s really not as much exposure as I’d like.”
Aug 7th - Oil Bubble
Well, on August 7th crude oil was about $118 a barrel. Yesterday, August 31st, it was at $120. Not a burst. But it’s still almost $30 lower than it’s high in July. The price of gasoline has gone down, but it doesn’t seem to reflect the huge drop in crude these past 2 months. That’s because these crude oil barrels are futures; the current price of crude is for Octobers gasoline. So don’t fret, the bubble is bursting, even if the price of gas doesn’t reflect it completely; it should come October. Yes I said “should.” Hurricane Gustav or many other things may have a say in it.
Either way, speculators are moving on to something different. Soon we should start seeing reports of money being pumped into alternative energy like never before.
July 7th - Home Servers and Movies-on-demand Boxes
Of course, not long after I wrote this post, news of a Netflix box hit Yahoo. Genius. Blockbuster announced their kiosk business model, which is identical to Redbox and too little too late. It’s just not enough. Netflix gets it, Blockbuster doesn’t.
Vudu has a sleak new box, but it’s still not comparable to what Netflix has.
I feel that eventually every (fortunate) home will have either a home server, movie box or both.
June 30th - Bamboo
I still think bamboo will be one of the biggest trends of the upcoming decade. It just has so many answers for the world.
Though not a site of authority, here is a post that claims bamboo clothing is the next big eco-trend. Here is another company putting it all in on bamboo clothing.
Bamboo is helping computers go green with ASUS finally rolling out it’s bamboo notebooks, Dell’s Hybrid and SimpleTech releasing these nifty external drives.
Since the post, I was able to pick up a couple decent bamboo names:
- BambooRoofing,com
- ShopBamboo,com
Grab bamboo domains now while they’re cheap.
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