Geologist, where art thou

This is interesting, someone standing up and arguing for geologists, AND it made it into the Australia:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20798804-30417,00.html

It argues some very good points:

1) Export earnings from mineral-energy in 2005-2006: $90 billion
Export earnings from agriculture: $29.4 billion

The "extractive" industries bring in more than 3 times more than the next closer competitor. This is why Australia has a great quality of life. This is why our dollar is so artificially inflated. This could also be our greatest weakness if these resource exports dry up.

2) To get at these deposits, you need geologists. If they dry up and you need new deposits: you need geologists to find 'em.
Someone straight out of uni with a geology degree can earn anywhere between $55,000-$100,000 at the moment. The companies are screaming for geos.

But there are no students coming through. Why? This brings me to point 3....

3) Geology departments across the country have been massacred. I know very few that have survived intact. They have been merged, downsized, staff not replaced... its a nightmare. No wonder students don't want anything to do with geology - its like backing a dinosaur.
Why are geology departments being hit so hard?
Student numbers. They are way down.

It all started in last economic boom. Resources take off, companies want geologists, lots of jobs, many students go through.
Resources plummet: first things the companies do - lay off non-essentials like geologists (ie. strip back operations to whatever it takes to run the mine you've got, rather than look for new ones). Lots of unemployed geologists. Students get turned off. Student numbers go down. The geology department gets downsized.
Its all a vicious cycle.

There's another reason to student non-interest. Mining companies typically get a bad rap. Who wants to work for a company that's polluting the world? A lot is, unfortunately, warranted. Just think of Ok Tedi.
BUT what people don't realise is that there is an entire industry for keeping mining (and other) industries from screwing the world too bad: environmental science. This includes site remediation after a mine's finished, sampling for toxic chemicals, water quality assessment, environmental impact statements (which you need to do anything these days...). Its a big - and important - industry, and it all falls under the category of geoscience.

Gregory Webb says it best in the article:

Although geoscience is commonly linked solely with the extractive industries, it is in fact a highly diverse field, encompassing the core disciplines in areas such as hydrology (water supply and quality), catchment and waterways management, mine remediation, hazard analysis (earthquakes, tsunamis, floods), geotechnical analysis for construction, soil conservation, inland salinity, coastal erosion, acid sulphate soils, and many others.

It is geoscientists who are playing the lead roles in research to understand our changing climate. The record of climate change during the past million years is contained in sediments from lakes and the deep ocean, corals from the Great Barrier Reef, stalagmites from caves, and ice cores from glaciers; all are studied by geoscientists.

This is important shit, and university bean-counters and public misconceptions are screwing Australia of an important intellectual commodity and essential skilled workforce.

What can be done? The article has a number of suggestions. Some of the best ones:

a) Government funding to provide adequate geoscience education. This requires some source of money to keep geoscience departments afloat before they all go under. Which won't be long.

b) Industry support. Companies scream for geologists during the boom years, but don't provide any support for departments in the bad. They're only kicking themselves in the arse. A lot of industry money goes into supporting engineering. The same needs to happen with geoscience.

c) Public views: there is a lot of work to be done informing potential students of the realities of geoscience careers. Its been a little lame. With the cost of going to uni these days, science needs to become a vocational degree, with clear, high paying job opportunities at the end - or else it will end up like arts, with some wit scrawling on the toilet walls next to the toilet paper "Science degrees. Please take one."
This will take some organization between the future employers, and the universities, and needs a program to address kids BEFORE they start uni (maybe final year school even - just to through the possibility out there).

All in all, its a difficult problem to fix, but its interesting people are starting to speak out on it.