THE emerging green economy promises to create clean energy, cut carbon emissions and provide well-paid jobs.

   To get from here to there, Jeana Wirtenberg is connecting people with these opportunities through her work as the co-founder and director of the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the president of Transitioning to Green, an organization that helps accelerate the switch to green jobs.

   ”We are in the very early stages of inventing a new green economy,” she says. “If we sit back and do nothing, it’s not going to be good. That’s why I’m so inspired. I see the possibility of a much better future for the world. For future generations we have to leave the world in a better place than right now.”

   Ms. Wirtenberg will be one of eight panelists and moderators appearing at the symposium Filtering the Green Noise Oct. 17 at the Suzanne Patterson Center in Princeton. The event is hosted by We Are BOOST, whose founder, Tim Razzaq, was motivated to offer guidance and knowledge to people interested in green careers and other environmental topics. He envisions Green Noise to be the first in a series of forums.

   ”We see this series as a way to offer timely, relevant, reliable and well-structured information to a wide range of audiences who have diverse needs and interests when it comes to understanding the emerging environmental economy and their role in it,” Mr. Razzaq writes in an e-mail interview.

   Five main topics will be discussed: energy efficiency and renewable energy; sustainable business enterprises; clean indoor air quality; the design and financing of green building; and sustainable products and services.

   Mr. Razzaq’s goal is that people will obtain a big-picture view, enabling them to discover how they can enter the conversation, contribute to it and gain from it. “We are going to create a series of forums to help facilitate personal, organizational and social empowerment through our consortium of academic and industry leaders by offering everyday citizens innovative yet practical ways to use green technology and sustainable design in everyday living,” he says.

   Ms. Wirtenberg says she is well suited to help individuals find their place in a green economy. She has worked for the federal government (the National Institute of Education and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights), the private sector (AT&T and PSE&G), as well as for nonprofits. She also holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles and was the lead editor of The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook: When It All Comes Together.

   ”I have a certain advanced perspective from the rest of the world,” she says. “I’m working like a maniac. This isn’t about money. It’s about helping people, serving, giving back. I have a very rare combination of experience and talent, because I’ve been in different places. I can see the whole in a way a lot of people don’t see it.”

   She compares the new economic model as being “on a par with the industrial revolution.”

   ”We have to reinvent how we manufacture, how we live, how we consume,” she says. “The entire economic system is being remodeled.”

   The changing world can be confusing, Mr. Razzaq says. As green becomes a trend and a lifestyle, its concepts become marketable and face the danger of losing their meaning. A term like “sustainability” may become so overused as to become powerless. Knowledge, Mr. Razzaq says, is the only way to overcome the message influx.

   Homeowners, for example, can save money and reduce their carbon footprint by ordering an energy audit. At Green Noise, “We will offer our audience access to the subject-matter experts to help guide them in setting goals and developing their own energy-efficiency action plan,” he says.

   Bordentown-based We Are BOOST (We are Building Open Opportunity Structures Together) was founded in 2005 and works to plan and promote educational and public awareness events.

   Other Green Noise panelists include Alex Argento of Pura Terra, a sustainable products and technologies organization; Kyle Van Dyke, principle of Kyle Paul Van Dyke Architecture; and Ira Eisenstein, a licensed inspector with Strictly Business Inspections, Energy & Environment.

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  Filtering the Green Noise will be held at the Suzanne Patterson Center, 45 N. Stockton St., Princeton, Oct. 17, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free, registration required; 206-202-2883; localwisdom@weareoost.org; www.weareboost.com