Newsweek on the growth of the green job market: Graduates of the class of 2007 are finding the job market is receptive to those who want to do good by the environment. As public awareness of global warming grows, companies are scrambling to put in place greener practices, to present themselves as more eco-friendly and to develop products and services to fill a new demand for all things green. The phenomenon is creating jobs in fields like urban planning, carbon trading, green building and environmental consulting. And our very own jobs columnist, Kevin Doyle, contributed this bit of good news: …

I usually don't pay much attention to ads, but I happened to notice this banner advertising the new Dell Inspiron laptops that come in eight different colors. It's interesting that the marketing execs would think to use the concept in a national ad campaign -- that "green" is so part of the collective consciousness and the term "vegan" well enough known. Is this just another jump on the green-trend bandwagon, or a sign that green is becoming normal? And speaking of normal, is that what a stereotypical vegan looks like? Flannel? Kerchief? Really?

GE unveils carbon-offset credit card, other companies pondering same move Some people say you can't shop your way to happiness, but they haven't met the new GE credit card. Yes, the company that brought us "ecomagination" has imagined a way into wallets everywhere. The GE Money Earth Rewards Platinum MasterCard -- hang on, have to take a belly-laugh break. OK, whew. Sorry about that. The GEMERPMC offers a 1 percent rebate, which cardholders can donate to carbon-offset projects. Similar cards are offered in Europe, and companies including Bank of America and American Express are said to be considering issuing them …

Wal-Mart environmental practices changing shrimp farming in Thailand Latest practice impacted by omnipresent Wal-Mart: Thai shrimp farming. Crustacean aquaculture, long demonized for destroying mangrove trees and polluting waterways, is the focus of new standards penned by the Global Aquaculture Alliance and backed by Wal-Mart, Red Lobster, and other big seafood purveyors. To make the grade for Wal-Mart -- the U.S.'s biggest single shrimp buyer -- farmers must improve water testing, treat discharge, discontinue antibiotic use, and plant three times as many mangroves as they chop down. As with all Wal-moves, there's controversy: around 80 percent of shrimp farms in Thailand …

Pacific Gas & Electric is buying 550 MW of concentrated solar. It's one of the biggest solar purchases ever, from what will be the world's biggest concentrated solar plant. The company is trying to conform to California's mandate that it get 20% of its power from renewables by 2010. According to Mr. [Fong] Wan [VP for energy procurement], about 12 percent of P.G.& E.'s electricity today comes from renewable sources, divided somewhat evenly among wind, biomass, small hydropower and geothermal. (California does not count traditional large hydroelectric dams toward the quota.) The contract with Solel would add nearly two percentage …

GM is planning to bring diesel Saturns and Caddies to the U.S. market in 2010. (A Caddie that gets decent mileage? Who'd have guessed?) They join Nissan, Honda, DaimlerChrysler, and of course Volkswagen in planning to market clean diesels that will meet the new 2008 regulations on NOx and particulate emissions from diesel vehicles. Missing from this list of diesel adopters is Toyota, which is saying that clean diesels "... would end up being more expensive than gasoline-electric hybrids," a market segment which it dominates.

Robert Peoples. What work do you do? I run a nonprofit called the Carpet America Recovery Effort, or CARE. I serve as the executive director. I am also the director of sustainability for the Carpet and Rug Institute. Finally, I manage an environmental engineering and consulting company in Florida. I am a Ph.D. chemist by training. The reason I share this is to establish the idea that I try to deal in facts and information. I love to share and teach. I am not a salesman or a marketing guy. I always tell my audiences that I am a human …

Sleeping Bear Dunes, Lake Michigan. In an effort to keep expanding the flow of oil, companies such as BP have been trying to extract oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, which is like trying to drink coffee after you've dumped it into sand. The process is so energy-intensive that there is talk of putting the world's largest nuclear power plant on top of the tar sands in order to heat them up enough to use them, and lakes of toxic water have been created there. And where will that goop go to get processed? BP has decided that …

John Mackey. Photo: Whole Foods Market In a high-profile exchange with Michael Pollan last summer, Whole Foods Market CEO and founder John Mackey took an avuncular approach to farmers' markets that might take business from his company. "Whole Foods Market is committed to supporting local farmers' markets across the United States (and also in Canada and the U.K.)," he wrote. Elsewhere, the executive has displayed a zeal to crush competition that might make his counterparts at Microsoft blush. Last spring, Mackey sent a blunt email to the Whole Foods board, explaining his intention to buy Wild Oats -- Whole Foods' …

It's a pretty short step from here to letting OnStar drivers pay for auto insurance by the mile; that's a plus everywhere, but especially in states like Michigan, where it would help turn what had been very high fixed costs into proconservation variable ones. Now if only the state would stop charging all drivers the same flat fee (about $125/yr) for the catastrophic claims fund -- put it into the price of gas or something. GM's inspiration was to realize that OnStar's global positioning satellite technology gave GMAC a reliable, low-cost way to measure the actual mileage of GMAC policyholders, …