We know at Green Prophet that environmental sustainability and stewardship is a top issue in our world. With an ever increasing demand for solutions comes a huge number of job opportunities. Choosing to work in environmental science not only opens potential candidates to a secure career with longevity and much potential for progression; it gives the feel good, impact factor and job satisfaction that most spend their whole lives trying to find.

Undergraduate programs in Environmental Science are available at most top universities. Your studies will include examining the consequences of living and non-living things on our environment and look at how to apply biological, physical, and information sciences to fix these issues.

This is a large, varied and fascinating field of study that can lead to many different career paths. Areas of study will usually include: ecology (observing the interaction between plants and the earth), economics (observing how people use the earth), geology (the history and physical elements that make up the earth) and sociology (interactions between societies and the earth).

After these studies, graduates may find themselves working from home as a consultant or traveling around the world with large organisations.

Environmental Policy, Planning, and Management involves a lot of research-heavy work, Environmental Lawyers may find themselves in the exciting confines of a courtroom, Oceanographers and Meteorologists tend to slip their time between the lab and the sea and Microbiologists, Soil and Plant Scientists, and Ecologists might decide to teach in universities or market their knowledge to big name brands. Environmental science is all about identifying problems and creating solutions. This can involve collecting and analysing soil samples to analysing human behaviour data, so there really is a whole host of positions to suit interests and specialised knowledge.

Environmental scientists are future sustainability crusaders for our planet. So what do the people already working within the sector have to say to anyone considering this as a career? Professor Steve Schein talked to big names in the business and said,  “Sustainability executives are both optimistic and frustrated. They have had great successes, but all have run into resistance as well. Most recognise this is part of their job as a sustainability change agent.”

This shows that although much progression has been made, there is still a long way to go. It is the minds of young professionals that can carry on this promising and exciting work.

Both governments and businesses know just how big an issue sustainability is. An encouraging incentive for prospective employees is that governmental jobs offer very similar high salaries as the private sector, and both offer a high volume of vacancies.

With this in mind, a career in environmental science is worth every consideration.

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My precious ring!

King Gyges of Lydia ruled over what is now western Turkey from 716 BC to 678 BC. The legend of his rise to power began when the young shepherd Gyges entered a cave and found a magical ring which gave him the power of invisibility. He used this ring to seduce the queen, murder the king and take his place. In his Republic, Plato used the ring of Gyges to argue that no man is so virtuous that when given the power of invisibility, he would do no evil.

Our technological ring of Gyges

In ancient times our environmental impacts were obvious. Smoke and soot from cooking and lighting fires filled the air and stained the walls of homes. People lived amongst the middens of their own waste. No one could secretly consume more than their share or secretly poison their environment. The invention of agriculture led to cities and trade which increased the distance between populations and their ecological impacts. The invention of plumbing and sanitation removed people from their waste. Electricity allowed people to bring heat and light into their homes while sending our soot and smoke out of sight and out of mind. Like the magical ring of Gyges, technology gave us the power of invisibility. We rely on frail human morality to save our planet. It’s no wonder we’re in trouble.

Abundance isn’t enough

The simplistic solution is to build more power plants, drill more oil wells, desalinate more oceans. But this will fail. Somewhere in Ireland it is probably raining right now. As much as three meters of rain fall on Irish hillsides each year, ten times the average rainfall of Jordan. And yet, Ireland faces water shortages. Even if we had perfect weather control and sufficient nuclear power plants to desalinate the Red Sea, we would face Jevon’s paradox. That is, as supply of a resource grows, demand also grows– often at a higher rate. Ireland’s water shortages are not caused by lack of water. Ireland faces water shortages because the true cost of water is invisible. In 1997 the Irish government decided that citizens have the right to free water. Environmental economists could have predicted the outcome. More than half of this unmetered water leaked away before reaching a consumer’s tap. There is no incentive for conservation, so one of the rainiest countries on earth faced water shortages.

Information technology can destroy the ring

Technology gave us the ring of Gyges but technology can also destroy it. What do the ozone layer, the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the high arctic and Taiji Japan have in common? Each of these remote places concealed environmental disasters which were revealed through information technology. Information is also the key to solving society’s energy and water problems.

Avoiding information overload!

Paper or plastic. Free-range or organic? GMO or hybrid? Consumers already feel overwhelmed with environmental choices. Fifty-three percent of Californians voted against proposition 37 which would have required labels on GMO food products. How can we help consumers make wise choices without overloading them with information? Fine-grained water and electrical metering, carbon taxes and other economic tools can help us factor invisible costs into our personal choices. Big Data is another powerful tool. Dieters use smart phones to simplify healthy food choices. The same technology could reveal how much water and oil is consumed to get food onto your supermarket shelf. Government’s role should be to facilitate a truthful database. Our role should be to become environmentally literate so that this information is understood.

Image of Gollum by Todd Schweitzer (Todd1000) via worth1000.com

This article is entered in Masdar’s http://masdar.ae/engage competition.

The post The Environment and the Invisibility Ring of Gyges appeared first on Green Prophet.

According to Mercer’s latest Cost of Living survey Tokyo has become the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, pushing Luanda, Angola to second place while Karachi, Pakistan is ranked as the world least expensive city. The survey covers 214 cities across continents in the world and measures the relative costs (using NYC as base) of the 200 most significant expenses for expatriates. Mercer’s cost of living survey “is the world’s most comprehensive and is designed to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees.”

Interestingly most Middle Eastern cities have dropped in rankings, according to Nathalie Constantin-Métral, Principal at Mercer this is “mainly because price increases on goods and services have been more moderate here than in our benchmark city, New York. Slight decreases in expatriate accommodation costs were also observed in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.”

Nevertheless, this is not true for Beirut (at spot 67), where living expenses are now the highest after Tel Aviv for the region. Beirut has gone up eight places from last year, and has overtaken Abu Dhabi (76, down nine places from last year) and Dubai (94, falling 13 places). These rising living expenses in Beirut are not hurting expatriates only, but locals too that face costs and prices that are not in line with average wages.

The large inflow and scale of investments from Gulf States in Beirut, are partly to blame for inflating the retail markets and creating a largely inflated economic situation in Lebanon, which is witnessing a shrinking middle class and a considerable exodus of young students to the US, Canada, Australia, Argentina and the UK.

In any case, if you are looking to work in the Middle East, North Africa region Tunisia (ranks at 209) remains the least expensive city in the region! Time for a change?

Image of Lebanese Lira from Shutterstock

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