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Discussion around limiting climate change primarily focusses on whether the best results can be gained by individuals changing how they act, or governments introducing new legislation.
Now though, University of Leeds academics Dr Rob Lawlor and Dr Helen Morley from the Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre suggest engineering professionals could also play a pivotal role, and could provide a co-ordinated response helping to mitigate climate change.
Writing in the journal Science and Engineering Ethics, they say engineering professional institutions could take a stand in tackling climate change by developing a declaration imposing restrictions and requirements on members.
"A strong and coordinated action by the engineering profession could itself make a significant difference in how we respond to climate change," they said.
"We know many engineers and firms make great efforts to be as environmentally friendly as possible, and research is carried out and supported by the sector to help reduce its impact on the world. We're suggesting that concerted action could improve this process further."
Quoting 2014 research by Richard Heede from the Climate Accountability Institute, they say nearly two-thirds of historic carbon dioxide and methane emissions could be attributed to crude oil and natural gas producers, coal extractors, and cement producers. These are industries typically enabled by the engineering profession.
They're looking at you, VW engineers.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:27PM (6 children)
Maybe engineers should look for more solutions that don't mean lifestyle changes. Hard to make people do lifestyle changes when the people telling them they must do it do not do it themselves (Al Gore). Instead look into ways we can cheat the system and get the environment how we want it.
Aluminum to block part of the sun, organisms better at getting rid of methane/CO2, doing this by chemical means, actually getting nuclear fussion.
As long as the solution is "just do as I say and not as I do" the average person will not change their ways.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:30PM (1 child)
> Hard to make people do lifestyle changes when the people telling them they must do it do not do it themselves (Al Gore).
The dude put his money where his mouth was by paying extra for carbon offsets.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @10:08PM
Gore should put something in his mouth - like a huge diseased donkey dick. Gore only established that the rules don't apply to rich bastards.
(Score: 2) by Alphatool on Sunday March 19 2017, @04:05AM (2 children)
It's pretty clear that any fix that requires a lifestyle change is never going to work, which means that active solutions are the only way to save the planet. Most options are either beyond our current capacity (like orbital sunshades) or have serious potential negatives, like adding iron to the ocean. I think that the most interesting and plausible engineering solution is to restore steppe ecosystems in the arctic, which servers to preserve permafrost and delay the release of massive quantities of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. There is an active experiment [pleistocenepark.ru] testing this in Siberia at the moment, it's well worth a look.
It's only a partial solution to buy time rather than a permanent fix, but at the moment a little more time is a very valuable thing.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @04:42AM
Dude. No need for any of that crazy shit.
Renewable power is already the cheapest source of new power in the majority of countries and is expected to be the cheapest source of new power in every country by 2025. Save the money from that pie-in-sky stuff and spend it on converting existing infrastructure to renewables - because its the already-paid-for power-generation facilities that are holding us back. So deep-sixing them is going to require subsidies.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday March 19 2017, @06:16AM
Nuclear power with a Molten salt reactor can be a game-changer.
It becomes practical to synthesize jet fuel by pulling CO2 out of the oceans, for example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @07:33AM
I've got a lifestyle change that many Americans can do. Stop getting healthcare - 24 million are signing up for that RIGHT NOW.