As a physics student coming to the end of my undergraduate MSc, I'm looking to go into sustainable development. What really strikes me when looking at much of the economic problems with globalisation, the credit crunch, the environment, peak oil... etc is that a new economic model is needed. Whereas until now the Friedman 'Free Trade' model worked, now so many of the big players cross borders of countries to get the most profit, which completely nullifies the point of free trade, which is to benefit both countries the companies are based in.

We need a new economic model with more emphasis on sustainability of business, of personal happiness over profit, of small footprint and steady-state over consuming and perpetual growth. The thing that needs to change for the world to change is economic theory, as much of the decisionmakers use economics to decide what they do. Change economic theory and you change the world. That's why I'm looking into going into economics when I graduate. The trick is finding a job that promotes sustainable economics rather than the 'take advantage of anything' laissez faire economics many firms run on.