As director of program development at The Environmental Careers Organization, Kevin Doyle knows a thing or two about job searching. In this recurring column for Grist, he explores the green job market and offers advice to eco-job-seekers looking to jumpstart their careers.
I have been working in the environmental consulting field for several years now. I must admit, I'm quite disillusioned due to clients who simply don't care about the environment. I turn away projects when I realize the goal is to use me to produce an assessment that removes their responsibility. When I explain that the data cannot be altered, many attempt to offer more money, but end up choosing to find another consultant. I want to return to why I entered this field in the beginning. I'm 40 years old now, and I need to make a change. Where does this idealist go from here? -- Jacqueline M.
Is there something in the water, Gristers? Recent calls and emails are bringing plaintive cries from 40-something environmental professionals all over the country.
It's not only people like Jacqueline in the so-called "environmental industry." I'm hearing from federal, state, and local government employees, environmental officers at corporations, academics, and even a few activist types. Just this week at a pollution-prevention conference in Atlanta, I listened to a state government environmental leader declare flatly that the permitting work her team spent "thousands of hours on" was producing little or no additional benefit for people or the natural world. No one seemed shocked and appalled. No one suggested she was being too negative. Most everyone nodded and shrugged as if to say "tell me something I don't already know."
The message I'm getting is that many of the people who have been toiling in the greener part of the vineyard for years have begun to suspect that they may be part of a game -- one that's better at keeping expensive professionals gainfully employed than it is at creating a sustainable world.
