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

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.