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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: 4, Insightful) by julian on Saturday March 18 2017, @08:41PM (12 children)
Anthropogenic climate change is real, unlike your grasp of reality.
The only people still doubting it at this time are idiot ideologues, shills, and religious imbeciles. [wikipedia.org]
I'm going to make a statistically informed guess that you're not a wealthy industrialist. This site skews towards atheists or at least agnostic so you're probably not overtly religious. Yikes, running out of options that don't bely a shocking lack of intellect or even honest curiosity.
But in case you're one of the few who might be reachable with some sense
(Score: 3, Informative) by julian on Saturday March 18 2017, @08:43PM (5 children)
...you can read this. [skepticalscience.com]
(always check for links, folks. I just got too heated. Like our climate!)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:08PM
That link is rather old, I believe. More recent speculation on the part of climate change scientists is that sometimes, temperature has driven CO2 levels. See - the science isn't "settled". Science has a nice wad of facts, and some of those bright boys have made some educated guesses, but they don't have all the facts. Meanwhile, non-scientists have created a religion out of these half-understood facts and speculation.
You appear to be a believer. When anyone asks your religion, you should reply "climate changology, which is related to scientology."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:39PM
http://principia-scientific.org/climate-drives-carbon-dioxide-levels-not-the-other-way-round/ [principia-scientific.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:42PM
http://notrickszone.com/2016/08/04/non-existent-relationship-co2-temperature-correlation-only-15-of-last-165-years/ [notrickszone.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:44PM
https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=7&p=11 [skepticalscience.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @07:16AM
Why link to propaganda websites?
You guys never have links to a major site or a university with a reputation worth losing. Spare us the Koch.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:46PM
Anthropogenic climate change is real, unlike your grasp of reality.
In that case it also stands to reason that climate change is a function of population size. Therefore you should do your part and remove yourself from the population as soon as possible.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:01PM (4 children)
That's quite a "burn the heretic" inquisitional response for something that's supposedly not a religion, but obviously in practice is.
I find the argument hilarious given the usual response to creationism. Well, obviously something created the earth, and its not a signed legal statement in a court of law but we do have a book where some dude confessed to creating the earth in a week, along with some highly questionable documentation of methods and motives, anyway I see no particular reason to disagree with the written statement and we should probably be indoctrinating our public school kids with that particular story, I mean, whats the problem with that? A lot of really smart historical people believed in creationism. Certainly the authorities support(ed) creationism and they always have our best interests in mind so if the authorities say its right it must be right. The religious screeching against opposition and threats of punishment and demands of loyalty oaths and prayers/services are certainly the same between creationism and "climate change". Don't you care about your eternal soul or the soul of the planet? Lets go worship a tree together and bury our differences.
Its a fine line in that I like the environment more than most people for recreational reasons (not signalling reasons) so I dislike littering and toxic waste more than most people. Also I'm still somewhat social libertarian and I'm too tolerant of people who also live and let live, so if you want to hear lectures about creating the world in seven days or equally scientific lectures about climate change, I don't mind. But hey, call a spade, a spade, and climate change isn't about science anymore its purely religious in nature. The fact we agree on not wanting to ruin the planet does not imply they're not new age religion buffoons.
The problem is creation science turning into a religion, and the first thing that happens in an organized religion is always abandoning the original core message in favor of working real hard at creating an authoritarian hierarchy and enforcing an unchanging indoctrination and especially attacking the heretics and schisms. So nobody in the environmental movement cares about not having barrels dumped in my county hiking park, because its all about punishing the heretics and protesting Trump and whatever other BS. I would advise people who actually care about the environment to kiss up to the right / far right because we're the only people interested in listening. Nobody in climate change cares about facts or the climate or the environment, its all about how do we punish our enemies that we can, protest those we can't punish, indoctrinate the youth in order to control them via the usual religious cult control methods of gaslighting, mythology, and guilt, and squabble about authority and self importance. Just like in political speech or corporate speech what is said is often the opposite, so a group that takes John Muir's name in vain, for example, will make a big deal about speech supporting him while working against his original beliefs, thats just what political/corporate/religious speech is all about.
Meanwhile just like its easy to troll creationists or scientologists online, its really easy to troll religious acolytes of climate change. The point is that there's many things that are true but boring and no fun to point out, but its hilarious fun online to point out the truth of climate change being a religious belief system. Look just admit its no more scientific than dancing around a may pole or sacrificing burnt offerings (prototypical barbecue, I assume) and people will stop teasing.
I'll give them credit, for a religious belief system, aside from the usual human dysfunction about primate dominance rituals and punishing the outsider or nonbeliever and all that, its not the worst religion out there. Its as intolerant and close minded as most religions, but theres worse religions out there based on genocide or racial superiority or (historically) human sacrifice or martyrdom. So if the climate change religion can merely avoid dipping into those lower behaviors, I wouldn't mind them as neighbors or coworkers; although I'd still make fun of them of course, because most religions are pretty comical to the modern outside non-believer and climate change is certainly no exception.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 19 2017, @01:09PM (1 child)
> some dude confessed to creating the earth in a week
They don't teach religion anymore at school, I guess?
Psalm 90
Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. You turn man back into dust And say, "Return, O children of men." For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it passes by
2 Peter 3:8
Beloved, do not let this one thing escape your notice: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
What does this do to your "one week" idea?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @01:57PM
It means they upward adjusted their guess of the age of the earth by 7000 years, but still were way off.
(Score: 2) by julian on Sunday March 19 2017, @06:42PM (1 child)
Climate change is not, in any way, a religion. Your insistence that it is doesn't make you look like the "true" skeptic in the room. It makes you look like the smug teenager in a fedora who thinks he really knows what's going on because he watched the Zeitgeist video on Youtube and read some Ayn Rand.
As a plausible explanation of the world your wall of text is "not even wrong". [wikipedia.org]
Do better. Apply yourself.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 19 2017, @08:22PM
Climate change is not, in any way, a religion. Your insistence that it is
You make a fair point. I mean you completely fail to explain why I'm wrong other than you say so, but I did a pretty poor job explaining how one of many definitions of religions fit. In that constructive criticism you do me a service, thanks.
Lets have some Durkheim fun. Durkheim is always better after a couple bottles of hard cider and I rarely drink so this should be a fun one to write.
a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practises which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them
Well obviously he wrote that in hebrew or french but translation issues shouldn't matter as much as philosophical disagreements over the actual content. None the less:
"a unified system of beliefs and practices" That would be the whole climate change, um, issue, along with its rituals of struggle sessions like the red guards and massive greenwashing in marketing.
"relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden" That would be forbidden joys such as capitalism, industrialism, optimism, material prosperity, pretty much anything other than being hipster and anti-white.
"beliefs and practises which unite into one single moral community called a church" That would be blind faith in climate change, catastrophic change, end of the world class of change, the moral superiority of driving to ecology protests in one's SUV, social justice, veganism will save us all or whatever other form of ridiculous greenwashing.
"all those who adhere to them" Ah the good ole us vs them. Love it. Divide and conqueror, baby. We have some common cause in not wanting to F up my favorite hiking trails, but its more important to be divisive, to use vs them, to other, to argue over politics and in this case religion.
I didn't use the famous Stackhouse quote on purpose because its just too brutal but here it comes anyway. "accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted" I mean that's practically the self definition of the climate change movement as provided by itself. It must be binding on all, right or wrong thinkers alike enforced in the style of Mohamed's sword if necessary, by definition its statement makes it true, if it's progressive left which it is then its morally just because its progressive, and certainly none of the claims can be confirmed or denied but plenty of conversions at the point of a sword to believe the right facts...