It is essential to understand the causes and impacts of climate change in order to respond effectively to it. She is particularly interested in how climate change may affect extreme weather events, notably heatwaves and how they affect human health.
As a student at Durham University in the United Kingdom, Lo initially became interested in this field when her final-year research project focused on how to calibrate telescopes to compensate for the effects of the atmosphere. With greenhouse gases trapping outgoing longwave radiation, “Climate change is also about radiation transfer through components of the atmosphere,” she says.
At the University of Reading, Lo pursued a PhD in atmospheric, oceanic, and climate sciences. Having studied physics in college, she was able to jump right into the job because she already had some knowledge of atmospheric mechanics and had worked on her computer programming skills. The first year of Lo’s PhD was also spent taking Master’s courses in meteorology. This helped her transition from a theoretical background to one in which she applied her physics skills to the real world, she says.
Lo now creates climate models and studies how global warming may affect the frequency and intensity of heatwaves using Python and R programming languages. Given that heatwaves have the potential to cause disease and even death, she uses those future scenarios to make predictions about human health outcomes.
The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Report, which is issued every five years and is used by government officials to make national mitigation and adaptation decisions, frequently includes Lo’s findings. Additionally, she has contributed to a chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s current report, which she believes will lead to new legislation to reduce emissions.
Creating a more sustainable future isn’t just a matter of government action; businesses must also take action. According to Mark Crouch, a senior engineer at the UK-based Mott MacDonald engineering consulting firm, there is a growing realization that corporations have an obligation toward society.
A decade ago, Crouch adds, “the conversations with clients were a lot more immature than they are now.” “Sustainability is no longer viewed as an afterthought for the sake of good PR.” They see climate change as a significant threat to their company.”
Crouch studied physics and astrophysics at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom before pursuing a career in environmental engineering. I became acutely aware of the significant role played by global warming as I worked on flood modeling and mitigation strategies. “You can’t just keep building bigger dams,” he says of flood risk. What sparked my interest in mitigation and tackling the core causes was this realization.
A master’s degree in sustainable energy from Imperial College London prepared Crouch well for his current role at Mott MacDonald’s global carbon management practice. He and his colleagues in the United Kingdom collaborate closely with government agencies like the Environment Agency and National Grid to assess the complete life cycle carbon implications of large infrastructure projects like HS2 and provide advice to customers on how to decrease them. Emerging technologies are also examined.
Even when infrastructure is not in use, it can have a significant carbon impact due to the materials and processes used to build and maintain the infrastructure. According to Crouch, the US and China are the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, but if the cement industry were a country, it would be in third place. New materials and procedures must be developed to deal with this problem, he argues. For those with a scientific background, particularly physics, that’s a new area of possibility.
Crouch’s advice for students interested in sustainability is to take advantage of all chances for industrial placements and to establish your network through webinars and industry forums. Climate change is a multidisciplinary problem, thus he advises reading widely in a variety of fields.
Crouch describes it as a “really booming” market. Graduates who are passionate about making a difference are critical to the sector’s ability to respond to the climate crisis. It’s important for physicists to understand how to work with numbers and uncertainty, as well as to be able to think big, he observes. You learn to think outside the box when you study subjects like cosmology and astrophysics.
A growing number of organizations are putting out their own sustainability plans and recruiting employees to help them achieve their goals. Rosemary Pickering, a senior sustainable business analyst at Farfetch, a premium fashion platform that sells everything from handbags to activewear by high-end designers, combines her environmental ideals with her love in fashion.
If you want to learn more about environmental technology and policy, you can enroll in an MSc in environmental technology and policy at Imperial College London while you’re still in school. “It gave me a new perspective on sustainability and the environment,” she says. A initiative on sustainable clothes was part of that.”
As a member of the Farfetch team, Pickering focuses on the company’s three-pillared sustainability plan. One way is to provide information on the environmental and social implications of various products to persuade customers to switch to more sustainable solutions. By reducing the distance products travel, utilizing the greenest transportation methods, and shipping each item in the smallest possible box, we can achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030. It’s also possible for clients to resale items they no longer need or have them repaired or updated rather than purchasing new ones through Farfetch’s new circular services.
It is Pickering’s job to report on trade performance and assess at which more sustainable products, such as those made of organic cotton, are gaining traction in the marketplace. She also keeps tabs on how Farfetch is doing in terms of its sustainability goals and the services its consumers are using in the circular economy.
It was “one of the projects I’ve really enjoyed working on,” she says. People in the [fashion] industry often mention shifting patterns and styles, but it’s fascinating to be able to see it reflected in the data.
Since Pickering has to know how to calculate the data she reports and write code in Python for her daily work, having a physics background has helped her get the job done.
Pickering adds that there are more chances than you might expect for graduates looking for green work. Often, a small business’s marketing or operations staff has a 50% focus on sustainability because it’s a core part of their goal. More than simply “sustainability”-related occupations are out there, according to the author.
