No Compromise Required Between Career and Climate
Jobs that moved the needle on climate used to be limited and lower paid, but now the clean tech industry is huge and affluent
A regular feature of my life is having long-term friends, co-workers, collaborators and even complete strangers reach out to me to ask how they can pivot or start their careers to help with climate change or the environment more generally. Most recently, a recent sciences graduate from Cambridge, Hari Kukreja and I spent an hour talking, and I realized that my guidance had changed over the years, so I thought it was worth writing down and sharing a bit more broadly.
First, a bit of history. About three decades ago, I was asking the same question. I was passionate about environmental concerns. I voted for NAFTA as I believed, and still believe, that globalization and greater trade across nations were fundamental to addressing the Malthusian risks we were facing. I’d read Brundtland’s Our Common Future, and I knew bring the impoverished globally out of that economic state was an essential part of reducing population growth and hence critical to sustainability. (If you feel an urge to argue with this thesis, please read my full thoughts in the article Globalization is essential to sustainability.) I was dabbling with vegetarianism…
