Who’d have believed it? Engineers advocating non-technical solutions

Plumbers and civil engineers (I’m one of the latter, so I can whisper our secrets) are fond of saying more lives have been saved through the introduction of indoor plumbing, sewage treatment and water treatment than from all the medicines and medical treatments that have ever been invented. Prior to the use of these civil engineering techniques, dirty water diseases such as cholera and dysentery were so common that it was almost expected that a few family members would die before they reached adulthood.

The engineers’ boast is probably not entirely true, but there is a ring of truth to it, and it makes for a good self-congratulatory laugh. The source of the self-congratulatory laugh is a good reflection of the mind set of most engineers.

The engineers’ mind set is, “Give us a problem and we will solve it”. The popular image of engineers is the nerd with glasses, a pocket protector and a calculator on his belt. Such an engineer probably exists, but the reality I am more familiar with is the hairy-chested breed that works 30 hours straight to get the factory or construction site back on line, by replacing a motor, redesigning a broken system, organising a concrete pour and reinstalling a pump from another part of the operation to where it is needed. Such engineers never stop to think that something can’t be done or that they should just give up. They use the gear available and get the job done.

More than once I have called a construction company or an engineering company and when I asked, “What do you guys do?” the response was, “Whatever needs to be done”. I think that attitude is admirable and has benefited society greatly, but there is another side to it.

In 1981 my first boss showed me how engineers solve problems so well. He drew about 15 little boxes on a sheet of paper and said, “These are the problems to be solved”. He then drew a curvy line around about 12 of the boxes and then crossed out the boxes inside the curvy line. He said “Engineers draw a line around the TECHNICAL problems that need to be solved and then solve them. We pretend that the other problems don’t exist, or say it is somebody else’s job to fix them.”

This is oversimplified, but it makes the point: engineers solve technical problems. Politicians, businessmen, teachers, social workers and others solve other problems. This does not denigrate engineers at all. Engineering problems are not easy to solve. Engineers have been so successful at it for many years consequently society tends to believe that it is easy when it’s not.

Given this understanding of engineering, imagine my surprise at the Institution of Engineers, Australia Conference of the Society for Sustainability and Environmental Engineering recently.

The first keynote speaker was Professor Peter Newman from Murdoch University who is a pioneer in the concepts of sustainability in engineering. Newman advocates a method of solving engineering problems in a sustainable way. He calls it “JAZZ”.

JAZZ is intended to get business, community groups, government and all other interested parties to each contribute to the complete sustainable solution to the problem - like the members of a jazz band - each playing their own instrument in their own way, but all combining to play one musical composition.

This involves working with people to understand concerns about a new project and adapting the project to best meet the needs of all stakeholders. It includes looking at social and economic problems as well as the environmental and engineering ones. Newman calls it interdisciplinary synergies. (Not as I thought - that interdisciplinary synergies were when civil engineers worked with electrical and mechanical engineers!)

Looking around the room I did not see 150 engineers waving their calculators and wondering when the formulas, calculations and rules of thumb were going to be introduced into the presentation as I had expected. Instead they were all nodding their heads in agreement with Newman’s ideas. Engineers with a program to help solve social problems: I had to duck outside to see if pigs were flying past.

The second keynote speaker was Ian Lowe, the incoming president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and a long time advocate of sustainability. He started off as an engineer, but these days is more of a scientist but I suppose he still counts. He said he does not think we can solve the problem of sustainability without a change in community values and social institutions.

But wait a minute. Engineers solve technical problems. We just need to know which technical problems there are.

Need more cheap energy - we can do it; need more clean water - we can do it; need more food, more transportation, more waste management, more anything - we can do it. But now here is a guy, and not just any guy but our keynote speaker, who says, “We can’t do it alone” and, “The lesson is that it is possible to move toward sustainable futures, but it will require fundamental changes to our values and social institutions, as well as technical innovation”.

Moreover he is saying that we can’t do it with just technical innovation. Unless we stabilise population and use fewer resources, our children will have a very difficult future.

Can this really be an engineering conference?

During question time, none of the engineers stood up and said, “This is crazy, we don’t need to change social institutions, we can solve these problems”, we will get nuclear fusion going; we can make geosequestration of carbon dioxide work; we’ve got new ideas for farming and soil management to provide more food. The questions were, “How can engineers be involved in making these changes to community values?” and “How does this meeting with all the community groups work?”

Many in our society, including business and government, don’t agree with the engineers. Most people think engineering solutions are continuing as they always have, to solve the environmental and resource problems we face. Some business groups and economists say the free market will provide solutions. When goods and services become scarce, the price goes up giving bigger incentives to provide those goods and services. The result is that new innovations and technologies evolve to provide those goods and services. Talk of any other system, is talk of socialism, and we all know socialism failed.

Other economists and commentators point out that a side-effect of free markets includes failures as well, like pollution and fraud. They point out too, that many business people who try to scare the public with talk of socialism are really angling for more short term business-as-usual without any concern for future generations.

In the past, engineers have agreed with the “free market will provide” view. Any technical problem that needed to be solved would be solved. The new attitude seems to be different.

This new attitude really highlights the seriousness of becoming sustainable. Changing our values won’t be easy. Even though we are willing to make sacrifices for our children, those sacrifices usually don’t include a change in lifestyle. Hardly anybody thinks cheap fossil fuels will last another 40 years but very few are getting out of their big fossil fuel burning cars for the benefit of their children. That might be because we expect (or at least hope and pray) engineers will develop something to replace cheap fossil fuels. It is also because we know that if we are the only person who drives less, it won’t make any difference, so we might as well enjoy the ride while it lasts.

Having been an engineer for so long, taking all this in has been difficult. Engineers embracing non-technical solutions while society thinks that there are more technical solutions just around the corner - it is all mind-boggling.

But then I thought of a similar situation. It was at the lunch for a conference on chemotherapy. The discussion was about the fact doctors have been searching for a technical solution to one of the great problems of our time, cancer. All the doctors, nurses and hospital administrators around the table were lamenting the fact after 50 years of expensive technical research, there still was no cure for cancer. A doctor at the table said, “I’ve discovered a cure for lung cancer”. Everybody at the table dropped their conversation and whipped their heads around to see who could make such an incredible statement. “The cure for lung cancer is simple - don’t smoke.”

The doctors have embraced a non-medical solution to one of society’s greatest problems and thinking back, they also embraced a non-medical solution to the problem of water borne diseases. That problem was solved with indoor plumbing and wastewater treatment. When the doctors embraced these changes, our values and social institutions changed to make it happen. Maybe the engineers are going in the right direction. This time, though, its not just an individual’s health that we are trying to cure, it is all of humanity.