The world in our hands

The affects humans have on the environment is always in the news, and there are always new ways being discovered of causing less harm to it.

However, I don't think everyone sees all that is out there and the careers linked to them, so here's a snippet.

Energy production and use, is one of the biggest impacts on the environment and comes up in the news regularly. For a long time solar, wind and waves have been utilised to produce energy, which has continued to grow over time. These changes then make the skills required change and the skills shortage become bigger. Although I can see that there are some related part-time courses at my local college, these aren't ideal for the next generation of the UK's workforce. However, there arefull-time courses and careers that are already in place and widely available, that will provide transferable skills. So, hopefully this will bridge that gap and support the transition into new services and careers.

Other ways of reducing our carbon footprint are continuing to be invented and developed, and even though I named a couple of things in my Halloween Blog, I wanted to share a few more things that I have seen in recent months that try to createv more sustainability and less of a carbon footprint. -

1) The halloween costume I brought for my young child was made from plastic bottles (it appeared to be fabric).

2) A number of rain coats on the market that are made partially from plastic bottles.

3) A restaurant (possibly more) that do not own bins. They do not buy produce in plastic and make a lot of their own products (i.e cream, yogurt, flour), they calculate produce per serving to avoid left over waste and try to use all of the produce. Any scraps of food leftover by diners is sent back with the supplier for composs. Some scraps of produce are used to make oil and energy for the restaurant.

4) Thermal glass to keep the heat in.

5) A machine that reverses/retrieves the cotton in garments that have holes and tares in, to make new garments.

These then leading to new careers of inventors and designers, researchers and producers.

I see more and more degrees with sustainable/sustainabilty in the course title as a lead into these new careers too (there are too many degree courses to name them).

As I'm sure most of us know, each person doing little things to help reduce our carbon footprint is just as important as those mentioned above. Easy things like turning off lights when you leave the room, reusable shopping bags, and turning the heating down and putting a jumper on, can be little tasks that make a big difference in trying to save our environment.