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how much posturing on inequality is unfounded, how many environmentalist claims around deforestation and natural disasters are misleading

This, I'm pretty sure, will get your application tossed in the virtual bin. The bolded sentence is great and I think you could tuck this into it:

"Like the 'someone is wrong on the internet' meme, I'm often drawn to challenging prevailing narratives by grounding arguments in evidence: i.e. pushing back on misleading claims about inequality or deforestation."

quite possibly. Or when they open up my prev employer and see the arch-drifter Bailey there... oops.

No, but on a serious note: on the offchance I have anything to bring to them at all (=stand out), it is precisely that opposing, non-doomerism outlook. And if I remember correctly, Hannah Ritchie has written things along those lines too:

  • deforestation bad, but improving rapidly
  • not as bad as you'd think

also, here is the most striking note from her book:

the "biggest risk of climate change" (p. 72) isn't polar caps, wildfires, or crop failures but that "not everyone is richer."
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The issue isn't what positions you're taking. In fact, it will be an advantage that you take unpopular positions and have a substantial track record of doing so. The way you wrote it initially will set off red flags that you want to use their platform to grind your ideological axe.

It's a bit of a fine line, but you want it to be clear that you have no sacred cows and will push back on anything that is at odds with the available evidence, rather than that you're coming in to push for a particular perspective.

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riiiight, that makes sense yeah. Tricky thing to convey in a quick, first-glance filtering stage.

Over beer in the park? Easy peasy

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You're getting there. These letters suck to write.

I'd actually recommend asking someone who knows you well and understands what you can offer this sort of job to write a draft of the letter for you. Sometimes our friends are better at singing our praises than we our.

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already doing that. He wants me to get this job more than I do, lol

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