Our country is facing serious times. Fires, floods, foreclosures, and now a massive Wall Street financial bailout are the latest signs that we are caught in twin crises: economic downturn and environmental devastation.

Crisis No. 1: Radical Socioeconomic Inequality
The country has long been deep in the throes of a socioeconomic crisis, one characterized by contracting economic opportunity for working people, growing disparities between the races, and the hording of immense wealth and privileges at the very top of our society.

These features are getting worse, not better.

Crisis No. 2: Rampant Environmental Destruction
It is no longer a question of whether or not climate change is happening; it is a matter of how soon -- and how hard -- it will hit. When it comes to the looming climate crisis, everything is a question of degrees.

By burning fossil fuels to meet our ravenous hunger for power in our homes, factories and means of transportation, humanity adds about seven billion tons of carbon (26 billion tons of carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere every year. Meanwhile, we keep chopping down trees; those trees are the lungs of the planet, pulling carbon out of the air and breathing out oxygen. Therefore, clear-cutting whole continents undermines the earth's overall ability to soak up the carbon dioxide. In effect, we are running the carbon faucets at full blast while we plug up the carbon sinks. As a result, our carbon cup runneth over.

In 2009, the job market will be full of contrasts: some industries will be eviscerated while others face shortages of workers. The good news is that despite the recession, there are still real jobs to be had. The bad news is that you may have to change fields to find one.

The trick to job hunting in 2009 will be to figure out how your skill-set can translate across industries, says Elaine Varelas, a managing partner at Boston-based outplacement firm Keystone Partners, so that you're not confined to searching one sector of the economy. "People are frustrated because it's taking them a while to assess the job market," she says. "They'll have to figure out other things they can Ð and want Ð to do." Successful job-seekers will be the ones who can figure out how to take skills learned in one kind of job and translate them into assets in others.

Here are the top five areas where work can be found in 2009:

1) Nursing & Medical Services

Perhaps the best bet in 2009: Becoming a registered nurse or medical technician. With over 50,000 new nursing jobs to be created this year alone, med techs and nurses will have their pick of jobs and salaries, the latter averaging about $57,000 per year.

Social services jobs will see a boom too, as a swelling number of retirees check-in for medical care, says the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report. But not all health care jobs will see equal growth. "The growth here will be more about the services and delivery people--nurses and technicians--than administrators," Varelas explains. "Hourly workers interested in changing roles should get into any role that services the elderly," she suggests.