Tuesday, February 26, 2019

So you want to save the world?

When they eventually open the Barack Obama Presidential library in Jackson Park Chicago, I don't expect there will be any mention of the speech he gave on March 30, 2011 at Georgetown University. The energy plan he unveiled that day has not proven historically consequential, and the speech nowhere near "A More Perfect Union"-type fame. In fact, watching it in today's context feels like opening a capsule to an alternate timeline. With the price of oil at $104/barrel that day (it's around ~$57 on 2/22/2019), Obama's plan focused on energy independence. He mentioned solar and wind as longterm aspirations, and even proposed incentives to oil companies to expand drilling. Less than 8 years later, the rhetoric surrounding global warming has changed dramatically, even if the enacted policies have not.

It's the 44:30 mark, closing his speech, that leads to my writing today. Addressing the students:
"I think that precisely because you are coming of age at a time of such rapid and sometimes unsettling change - born into a world with fewer walls, educated in an era of constant information, tempered by war and economic turmoil - because that's the world in which you're coming of age, I think you believe as deeply as any of our previous generations that America can change and it can change for the better. We need that. We need you to dream big. We need you to summon that same spirit of unbridled optimism and that bold willingness to tackle tough challenges and see those challenges through that led previous generations to rise to greatness. To save a democracy, to touch the moon, to connect the world with our own science and our own imagination. That's what America is capable of. That's what you have to push America to do. And it will be you that pushes it. That history of us ours, of meeting challenges, that's your birthright. You understand that there's no problem out there that's not within our power to solve."
As a graduate student at Georgetown at the time, you can probably see why I was inspired by this.  I was already leaning towards a career in sustainability, but here was confirmation from the leader of the free world that I should go for it. Obama provided this external pillar that I could latch onto and give my ill-defined life some direction.

I barely got a job coming out of school. With my criteria of "sustainability" and "Asia" and my skills (none), I'm lucky to have ended up at Arup, on a group that specialized in designing energy efficient buildings. What I did have was this compelling narrative, which I've told countless times over the years. I had ended up in Beijing just to watch the Olympics, loved the experience, realized how terrible the pollution was, and wanted to return to combat that. I thought that that narrative and my position now in this Building Sustainability team in Hong Kong would allow me to go forth and change the world.

My idealism was out of place even on that team. My coworkers had studied mechanical or civil engineering and learned how to design buildings. The fact that there was now this marketability around "green buildings" was largely incidental to their original career interests. Of course it made sense that the people put in charge of designing green buildings were the ones who knew how to design buildings, but it didn't seem in line with Obama's message to change for the better.

That job was not easy. The hours were long, the pay wasn't great, and the work frequently tedious. Ideally the higher purpose would keep me going, but oftentimes, I couldn't draw a link from my work to any meaningful reduction in energy use.  I spent many hours simulating wind flow around buildings, finding documentation to prove environmental compliance, or finding tricks to simulate as much energy savings as possible. Green building certification was the worst. Although cool in theory, LEED and other certification standards have struggled to balance promoting good practices while not impeding development. The Hong Kong local standard was even worse, incredibly "腌尖", or nitpicky. I still remember the horror I felt when they rejected my certification points on water reduction, because I had not included this one disabled restroom's faucets in the calculations. As I called the contractors in apprehension, about to explain in Cantonese that they needed to go back to the completed building with a bucket and measure the water flow of that faucet, I thought to myself, "What are we doing here? This ain't saving the world."

But it was in my search for a new job where I really hit hurdles. I had happened into engineering by accident, a byproduct of my passion for sustainability. Turns out passion isn't necessarily the best guide during job searching. The jobs that interest made ranged from carbon trading to reforestation to policy research to building management to solar financing to supply chain responsible sourcing to energy markets. These roles passed my muster of meaningfulness, but rarely did I pass theirs. With these jobs requiring such vastly different skill sets and experiences, I struggled to write unique cover letters and position myself. I thought I had built up goodwill from having chosen to work in sustainability - this never got very far. For several years in Hong Kong, I struggled as a math major working in engineering who had know idea what he could do next.

I had to reinvent myself. Instead of searching for jobs that matched my interests, I searched for jobs that matched my skill set. And when that didn't work, I changed my skill set and became a data scientist.  Since then, the primary aim at my recent jobs has been to develop my data science experiences, but luckily I haven't gone too far from sustainability. With GE, I was exposed to the hydro and wind energy business. At CiBO, I worked on simulation technology that could help manage fertilizer runoff and minimize destructive agricultural practices. I got a foot in the door because of my expertise, and then theoretically could have then found a role making a direct meaningful impact.

From a distance, I can see how frustrating trying to save the world tends to be. First of all, the problem is massive and the more you know about it, the more depressed you become with the gravity of it all. Second, in many jobs like policy and engineering, the most intellectually challenging tasks make up a minuscule portion of the total tasks. You go through the challenges of crafting clever policies that benefit multiple stakeholders with good measurement and enforcing mechanisms, and then spend 95% of your effort getting those policies passed or publicized. You spend 5% of your time designing a beautiful smart building with all sorts of advanced energy saving features, and then the rest of time being told to remove them from the architect or developer, then documenting and coordinating to get your stripped-down design built. These are difficult jobs that are both taxing on one's morale and rarely glorified. The people I know that are deeply committed to careers in sustainability are the hardest working, most educated, most multilingual and generally most overqualified people I know. 

If I were offering advice to someone who wanted to work to save the planet, I would tell them to be strategic. If they knew a specific type role they wanted, they could position themselves for that. If not, I would recommend just becoming as much of a badass as possible and to try to get into a position to make decisions. While sacrifice, determination and passion can be strong forces in shaping one's own life, capitalism is run by other forces. It is only by understanding and playing with these forces that one can really affect change.

But despite my evolution into CyniCal, somewhere deep down there's still that "spirit of unbridled optimism." I can't help it, even though I know how awful the challenges are. In writing this I hope to make those realities very clear, that we need to understand the existing systems before we can change it, and to help people avoid the frustrations that plagued me. I hope that people are not burdened, but emboldened, to remember the enduring challenge of our time as they progress along their lives and careers.

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