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Layoffs at big tech companies are an opportunity to fight climate change


Layoffs at big tech companies are an opportunity to fight climate change

thomas turnbull
|December 2, 2022

A view of the Twitter headquarters office

A view of Twitter’s headquarters office in 2019. photo: SBT4 Now

I work in the tech industry, which has mostly enjoyed high wages and job security during the recent economic turmoil. But over the past month or so, we’ve started experiencing some outages. Bloomberg reports 120,000 job losses Work at tech companies including Twitter, Meta, and Amazon.

While this is stressful for those who have lost income, healthcare and work visas, it is an opportunity for talented individuals to focus on solving the biggest challenge of our generation: climate change.

Climate technology is the field of technology dedicated to combating climate change. While many focus on the need for engineers to design wind farms and solar panels, or for chemists to invent more efficient batteries, software is an essential part of tackling the climate crisis.Software engineers, product managers and designers are building everything Carbon Accounting Software to Electric car charger on a lamppost. Skills developed in building complex systems, designing intuitive user experiences, and marketing products at tech companies translate directly to climate technology.

Climate technology is evolving. $30 billion to be invested in climate tech in 2021, Washington Post reportsand Inflation Reduction Act Will Bring Hundreds of Billions in New Investment, According to Bloomberg.

A year ago, I switched to climate technology. I worked at Google for years as a user experience engineer, but the sound of ambulances echoing through the empty streets of Brooklyn during the pandemic made me realize I needed my work to have a bigger impact.I started grad school, took night classes at Columbia University Sustainability Management Plan. I found a climate-related position at Google, using machine learning to improve weather forecasting.

While graduate school is valuable, anyone working in tech already has the skills to help fight the climate crisis.Every week I receive from climate base Hundreds of new jobs for software engineers, designers, sales, marketing, and communications.

While Mark Zuckerberg is spending $15 billion to create a virtual reality metaverse and Elon Musk is spending billions sending people into space, I hope many of the recently fired tech workers will decide the best use of their It takes time and talent to save our planet.

Thomas Turnbull is a part-time student at Columbia University MSc in Sustainability Management program, and full-time employees of Google.




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