Training a Clean Energy Workforce

Hello! A friend of mine is replacing his furnace, so we got to talking about the benefits of heat pumps this week. That reminded me of an interesting fact about the clean energy transition: a shortage of workers skilled to electrify our communities, though the Dept. of Energy found these jobs grew in every state last year.

In this edition, find out how Nevada is working to fill that training gap, as states across the country deal with climate-driven smoke and fire.

– Michael Crowe, Editor/Project Manager, Covering Climate Collab

Reporting from Our Partners

Ines Martinez, 44, wraps fruit with plastic bags to protect them from pests on a farm in Homestead. MATIAS J. OCNER

KUNR Nevada: Nevada shows states how to build workforce for solar energy boom

Nevada is taking the lead in developing that workforce for its residents. The state has the nation’s largest solar workforce on a per capita basis and ranks eighth in solar jobs, with more than 7,500 people working. That workforce grew 5% last year alone, the energy council says.

Colorado Department of Transportation crewmembers work to clear a landslide of rocks from a highway in Boulder County, Colo., on June 23, 2023.

WRAL Raleigh: Wildfires and smoke waves fueled by climate change likely to become more frequent

A look at recent smoke, and the climate fingerprint of fire season.

Climate Central climate fingerprint analysis map

ABC 15 Phoenix: Climate change fueling Arizona's wildfire seasons

“We’ve really seen widespread increases in the number of fire weather days across the entire west,” said Kaitlyn Trudeau, a Senior Research Associate at Climate Central.

News from the Collab

Observations from SEJ: Connecting extreme weather and climate change

We all recognize that extreme weather events have become both more common and more severe. This increasing, and increasingly obvious, threat to communities also creates an opportunity to make the connection to climate change.

From Our Science Partners

Climate Change in the American Mind: Politics & Policy, Spring 2023

Climate Change in the American Mind is conducted jointly by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication.

What we're reading

From NOAA: a record 15 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters have struck the nation so far in 2023
Experts in The Guardian warn of record U.S. deaths from heat, the 'silent killer'
Gizmodo reports that 80 percent of people around the world experienced climate change-induced heat last month

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