I watched the CNN media-blurb on their 2013 Hero of the Year. This was a man who devotes his life to any number of recycling initiatives. I think the world needs an army of these people. A viable and official career path that falls under the title Recycler would be good for the Earth. No, we're beyond "saving" but there's prolonging. There's redefining. There's helping where we can. There are unemployed people who could be on the reclaiming side instead of the raping and consuming side. And it could pay in several ways.
It would be part social justice/social work, part educator, part leader and influencer, etc. A person could specialize in any particular aspect of Earth nurturing. I acknowledge there are jobs that do this to some extent, like park ranger. Like recycling center operator. But maybe more on the consulting/sub-contracting, proselytizing and lobbying, engineering (although there are already Environmental Engineers, this might be more opinionated and militant, bent toward the Earth side designing super-efficient and elegant design for every single thing from books to electronics to buildings to everything else).
I believe the political side of things is by far the biggest hurdle, so becoming an army of public opinion and capacity in order to sway the political will is going to have to be central to the initiative, but within corporate America -- that's the hardest because their profit-first motivation wants to be wasteful rather than efficient. When we make it politically dangerous to be wasteful, we are on the right path.
Criticize and poke holes in this argument, then spackle and fix them so it becomes a yes instead of a no. You armchair quarterbacks, so smug and smart -- turn your cynicism into strategies to make it work instead of throwing your hands up and saying it can't. Use your 20/20 hindsight to solve this issue. And then act.
