The environmental industry is expanding at rapid rates, and it is very common to find job opportunities and “Want Ads” today at the job sites, newspapers, and through other media. Being an environmentalist is a passion for many. It’s a hard job that requires plenty of discipline and passion for the environment. After you graduate with a degree in environmental science, you may choose to begin your internship or start communicating with other environmentalists to increase your job opportunities. It is very important to become a part of the environmental professionals’ network.
Your environmental professionals network
When environmental employers and recruiters hire new staff, they are most likely to use relationships that they already have with workers and social networks. Most employers will use internal contacts or references or personal contacts when hiring new crew. Therefore, building a network of environmental professionals is very important for any environmentalist.
How to begin networking?
If you want to become well known among the environmentalists in the environmental industry, there is no alternative for networking. There are conferences, meetings, and webinars held year round, which you can attend and connect with other environmentalists.
Fastest growing green jobs
Here are a few of the fastest growing green jobs, according to a recent survey by National Geographic.
1. Urban Gardening
Roof-top gardening is becoming very popular today among the high rises of downtown. Many of the green buildings contain a roof top garden for both farm fresh produce, and ecological balance. A chef can easily pick an apple from the roof-top apple orchard and make a fresh apple pie from it. Green buildings and roof top gardens can also help the environment and ecology by minimizing the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fossils fuels, and other natural resources. The two large sectors of the green-jobs movement, fresh food production and green building, are being exhibited at the Fairmont Water Front hotel.
2. Bio fuel jobs
Producing fuel from sunflower seeds, algae, and other bio waste materials is another sector of science that is rapidly becoming the focus of study around the world. Many scientists believe that it is possible to produce energy from any organic matter such as peanuts, algae, sunflower seeds, and so on. The technology has been around ever since Henry Ford designed motors for automobiles, but since petroleum has been a cheap source of fuel for decades, this technology was forgotten until now. Today, the need for bio-fuel is being felt again, due to the recent shortages of fossil fuels, rise in petroleum prices, and environmental concerns. The Phoenix Union Bioscience High School, with financial funding from Intel and collaboration from The Roosevelt Row Community Development Corporation, has been successful in producing bio-diesel from locally produced sunflower seed.
3. Solar power technicians
In the past decade, the amount of energy produced from solar cells has doubled every two years. Researchers are constantly finding better and improved technology to harness the power from the sun into cells and make it work for us. Solar energy is the cleanest and most abundant source of energy known to man today.
4. Wave energy producers
If you have been to any of the sea beaches, you might have thought about producing energy form the endless waves produced in the oceans. Scientists have invented devices to use the continuous motions of the sea waves and turn them into energy. In 2011, Hoy of Scotland became the first commercial scale device to produce energy from waves, and produced energy for over 500 homes.
5. Wind energy producers
The wind turbine industry is believed to become a giant part of power generation in the future. A large number of workers will join this industry as the technology for assembling, producing and distributing wind turbines expands in the future to replace fossil fuels.
6. Clean car engineers
Cars running on alternate fuel system are a booming industry today. Automobiles running on electric motors form various alternative power sources are a large part of today’s green engineering.
7. Recyclers
Recycling is gaining huge importance today among green industries worldwide. More products today are made from recycled raw materials, and the sustainable businesses are also becoming a major part of today’s corporate world. The United States recycles more paper and steel than all other materials combined.
8. Green builders
Buildings are being made with ecologically friendly materials and through sustainable methods more than ever today in the construction world. Buildings materials made with recycled materials, discarded tires, plastic, and other materials for better ecological balance, and materials that would otherwise pollute the environment for lack of better disposal methods, results in a sturdy building and a new worth for waste materials.
9. Water quality technicians
Keeping the water quality safe and clean is an increasingly important job for environmentalists around the world.
10. Natural scientists
Need for environmental scientists to measure the sea water salinity, or acidity of rainwater to monitor the global changes and the environmental impacts. As the world population becomes more environmentally aware and inclined towards sustainable products and lifestyle, there is no alternative to trained professional environmentalists to monitor and analyze our negative impacts on the globe, because both our wealth and health depends on the environment.
