Where are the Green Jobs?

As wildfires burn across Siberia and temperatures in Antartica soar 70 degrees above normal, people are paying more attention to the environment. It is high time to ask an obvious question: “Where are the green jobs?” A concerned developer wants to know.

Life is fragile. Image credit: Author

There are lots of jobs out there for software developers: recruiters have recently messaged me regarding openings in Fintech, for-profit healthcare, and sports betting to name a few. But do any of these positions help heal the planet? Or are they quietly complicit in its ongoing destruction? There are no jobs on a dead planet, so I ask again, where are the green jobs?

Developer interviews are famously difficult for their questions where candidates must demonstrate proficiency in technical esoterica to land the job. So here’s a softball that any competent person should be able to knock out of the park. Ready?

Question: How can we maintain sustainable growth on a finite planet?

Growth cannot be infinite in a finite world: our planet, like any petri dish, has limits. Image credit: https://philschatz.com/

Answer: We can’t. A finite system has limited resources.

Most of humanity seems to have failed this simple interview question. Take a moment for this to sink in. Entire economic theories are invalidated by…