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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: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Sunday March 19 2017, @01:04PM (4 children)
we should do is smart to do *anyway* for completely unrelated reasons.
The evils of authoritarianism .... setting up a culture oriented toward mindless belief in the supreme authorities where any statement from authorities beginning with "Jesus said ..." or "The Fuhrer said ..." is inherently true because of who said it and is mindlessly implemented, and it being a great idea even 99% of the time is really nice, HOWEVER inevitably historically seems to lead to serious issues during that 1% of the time they're wrong. Unless you're claiming in public that "Hitler did nothing wrong" in order to remain consistent with a belief in the doctrine of strict religious style authoritarianism.
"The climate change scientists said ..." is going to get abused, like that kind of thing has always been abused, and always will be abused. Even if its good almost all the time, history as its indoctrinated today shows that's not good enough and we're better off without it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:55PM
.... Your fear is so irrational it is kinda scary. "The big bad scientist is gonna tell me to sacrifice my first born child nooooo!" Are you just mad that trump is compared to Hitler therefore you'll try the same thing??? Crazy VLM, crazy.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 19 2017, @09:14PM (2 children)
What. The. Fuck. That is deranged. You're trying to couch this in terms of rational, well-deserved caution, but it came out sounding half like a petulant teenager and half like the crazy guy on the R train I used to run into who would tell all and sundry about the chip in his head.
Personally I don't think you said that in good faith. Which is to say, I don't think you're actually afraid of authoritarianism at all, but rather the authoritarianism that doesn't advance YOUR agenda. And I'm rather insulted you think I'm dumb enough to fall for that, let alone the average SN reader.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday March 20 2017, @01:50PM (1 child)
I admit I am greatly enjoying seeing you not countersignal your own authoritarian arguments even if it required a little mental gymnastics to get in position to see it.
And I'm rather insulted you think I'm dumb enough to fall for that, let alone the average SN reader.
I'm just pointing out what you wrote.... you could have at least accused me of misquoting you, or taking your comments way out of context. "U think I'm dum" wasn't much of a retort, wasn't unusually convincing that my argument was wrong. You can do better, probably.
I don't think you're actually afraid of authoritarianism at all
Once in awhile we do agree, nice to see that, and have a nice day.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday March 20 2017, @04:12PM
Go fuck yourself, VLM. You've disappeared so far up your own RWA asshole you eat every mean twice. How the hell did you get authoritarianism from "Gee let's get ourselves out of self-destructive alliances with the Middle East" anyway?
Seriously, get your head examined. Your responses are not sane, rational, proportional, or even on-topic. You sound like someone wrote a Markov bot and trained it on the chat logs of a bunch of alt-right IRC channels.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...