> >Dear Tweeters
> >
> >I have a request from a student (in high school)
> >who wants a career relating to environmental science.
> >Here are my two questions for you tweeters:
> >
> >(1) What should she study? (engineering, biology,
> > geology, environmental law?)
> >
> >(2) Where should she study?
> >
> >Here's your chance to tell someone what you wish
> >you had done yourself!
> >
> >Many thanks on behalf of this student!
> >
> >John Sidles


you should ask the student if she is interested in environmental
remediation/risk reduction or natural resources allocation/protection.
both are lumped under a general rubric "environmental science" but they
are in fact very different: the remediation/risk reduction has come to
focus on pollution control and clean-up (toxics, broadly defined); natural
resources has come to focus on biodiversity as the restraining factor.

if the student is interested in the former (trying to clean up our
increasingly toxic "lifestyle"), then engineering or chemistry seem good
choices; if she is interested in the latter, then biology is a preferable
discipline.

or so it seems to a law professor.

dale goble
moscow