Engineering Principles For a Living Planet

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Engineering Principles For a Living Planet

• Bill Vitek
• Clarkson University
• June 14, 2007

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The End of the World As We Know It

• Vital Signs
• Up Carbon Creek With a Paddle
• The Task of Philosophy/Ethics in Times of
  Transition
• A Necessary Revolution In Engineering, Education
  and Beyond
• High Stakes and a Long Shot

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The Paddle A Failed Mental Model Applied
Correctly

• Nature as Boundless Source and Sink
• Human Mind/Knowledge as Sufficient
• Human Concerns First and Foremost
• Transgression of Limits
• Science
• Engineering
• Economics
• Ethical

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Vital Signs

• Doomsday clock two minutes closer to midnight,
  reflecting global failures to solve the problems
  posed by nuclear weapons and the climate crisis.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states
  that there is a 90 chance humans are
  responsible for climate change."

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Vital Signs

• Peak Oil first trillion barrels consumed in last
  100 years last trillion barrels in next 30
  years. (A 22 year old today has lived through a
  time in which 540 billion barrels of oil has been
  consumed? 437 trillion lbs of new CO2 in the
  atmosphere).
• The current rate of species loss is being
  compared to the five known mass extinction waves.
  This sixth wave is anthrogenic.
• One billion people lack access to fresh water.
• Soil destruction now claims 24 million acres a
  year world-wide, about half the size of Kansas, a
  quarter the size of California or 3.5 Marylands.

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Vital Signs

• Two of the most populous nations are becoming two
  of the largest economies.
• Human population growth continues to follow an
  exponential curve.
• There are currently 27 million slaves in the
  world, more than at any other time in human
  history.
• Eight nations possess nuclear weapons, and two
  are working to acquire them.

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Problems in Carbon Creek

• Interconnected
• Technology often makes matters worse
• Early daylight savings increased energy use
• The recipe for success is broken
• Unleash human ingenuity
• Harness and commodify natures immense and
  complex forces (90 million acres of US corn in
  07)
• Enjoy the new and improved world that results
• Repeat

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A Trip To Exponentialville
http//wolf.readinglitho.co.uk/mainpages/consumpti
on.html
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http//www.oilcrisis.com/midpoint.htm
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http//www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
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http//www.susps.org/overview/numbers.html
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http//www.whole-systems.org/extinctions.html
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Beyond the Rock is a Hard Place

• We are nearly at the end of a line of thinking
  that is no longer supportable by the material and
  energy conditions upon which it rests.
• We need to dismantle the worldview that is
  dismantling the world.
• Ethics Across the Curriculum is one way to
  describe it.
• Engineering Education is a great place to start.

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Changing Our Minds/et

• New Conceptual Models
• New/Old Standards
• Renewed Respect for Boundaries
• Ethical
• Epistemological
• Ecosystemic

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What is Engineering?

• Engineeringis the direction of the sources of
  the power of nature for the use and convenience
  of man. It is the link, the bridge between man
  and nature a bridge over which man passes into
  nature to control it, guide it, understand it,
  and the bridge over which nature and its forces
  pass to get into mans field of interest and
  service
• Nicholas Murray Butler, Nobel Laureate and
  President of Columbia University, 1901-1945

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What is Engineering?

• Engineering is the art of modeling materials we
  do not wholly understand, into shapes we cannot
  precisely analyze so as to withstand forces we
  cannot properly assess, in such a way that the
  public has no reason to suspect the extent of our
  ignorance.
• A.R. Dyes, British Institution of Structural
  Engineers, 1976

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Assumptions

• Mind-Reality Interface
• Knowledge is Possible
• Knowledge is Power
• Divide and Conquer
• Nature is Passive
• The Whole is Equal to the Sum of its Parts

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Assumptions Continued

• Technical and Scientific Knowledge are Value Free
• All Mistakes are Fixable
• Cross that bridge when we come to it
• Knowledge accumulates and drives out ignorance

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Assumptions Challenged

• Nature is not passive
• Whole not equal to the sum of the parts
• Knowledge is not value free
• Ignorance increases with increased knowledge
• Some mistakes are less fixable than others
• Greater KnowledgeGreater Responsibility

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Engineering and Environmentalism

• Sources 1880s-1940s
• Conservation
• Sinks 1950s-1980s
• Pollution Control
• Systems 1990s-Present
• Sustainability
• Life Cycle Analysis
• Industrial Ecology

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Ethics and Environmentalism

• Sources
• Conservation
• Utilitarianism
• Anthropocentrism
• Sinks
• Rights
• Individualism
• Systems
• Species
• Ecosystems

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An Ecospheric Ethos

• Engineering is a tool for living well in the
  world.
• This world is alive, interconnected and crowded.
• The tool is limited by ethics, ignorance, and the
  net primary production of ecosystems.
• Or science, politics, economics, etc.

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Proposition One No Harm

• Thoughtlessly and/or willingly destroying life or
  limiting the diversity and co-evolution of life,
  especially at the level of species, is a moral
  wrong.
• Aldo Leopolds injunction to keep all the parts.

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Proposition Two No Hubris

• Human beings are the unintended offspring of
  evolutionary biology, and as such lack any
  special or pre-ordained tools for divining the
  worlds inner workings.
• We should behave as if our ignorance will always
  exceed our knowledge. It will.
• (Dyes definition of engineering)

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Proposition Three No Hurry

• All life depends on sunlight and the complex and
  integrated chemical and thermodynamic processes
  it powers.
• Net Primary Production (NPP) is the term that
  describes the energic and organic material
  production of these ecosystem processes.

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Proposition Three No Hurry

• NPP is constrained by many factors and cannot be
  substantially improved, increased or sped up over
  time without the addition of inputs from outside
  the system. (Haber-Bosch Process)
• The Wells are more important than the Pumps.

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Proposition Three No Hurry

• Across the board this drawdown is increasingly
  noticeable in the exploitation of soils,
  aquifers, oil and natural gas.
• These are one-time draw downs.
• We cant speed up natural processes.
• Our only option is to slow ourselves down.

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Engineering 21st Century Curricula

• Acknowledge 19th Century Discoveries
• 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
• Evolutionary Biology
• Ecosystem Complexity

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Engineering 21st Century Curricula

• Five Years
• Biology-Ecology Sequence
• Precautionary Principle
• Engineering Forensics Course
• History of Engineering

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Engineering 21st Century Curricula

• More Liberal Arts
• Public Service Requirement
• Public Orientation of Graduate Education
• Limits Credo No Harm, No Hubris, No Hurry

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Engineering 21st Century Curricula

• Integrate Green Engineering Principles
• http//pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/article.cgi/esthag-a/2
  003/37/i05/pdf/303anastas.pdf
• http//www.epa.gov/oppt/greenengineering/pubs/what
  s_ge.html

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Why This is So Difficult

• Flashy Brains
• Genesis
• Prometheus
• The Enlightenment
• Manifest Destiny
• Geological Inheritance
• Crediting the Brains (the Pumps) rather than the
  Inheritance (the Well)
• Bacteria in a Petri Dish and the Evolutionary
  Disposition to Live to Excess
• http//www.cartoonstock.com/directory/u/up_the_cre
  ek_without_a_paddle.asp

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A Necessary Revolution

• A New Founding
• Revolutionary Thinkingand Action
• At the Outer/Inner Most Boundaries
• The Ecosphere
• The Human Mind
• Using the Tree of Knowledge to Protect the Tree
  of Life
• A True Test and Testament of a Well-Developed
  Neo-Cortex
• Theres Still Time
• Revolutionary Thinking is in Our Heritage

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The most meaningful work that we can do is
to Build receptivity into the still unlovely
human mind. Beginning with our own.. Aldo
Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
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The Precautionary Principle

• History
• Hippocrates (5th Century BCE) Do No Harm
• Public Health
• Germany in 1970s Vorsorgenprinzip or
  Foresight Principle

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The Precautionary Principle

• Definition from 1992 Rio Conference
• "In order to protect the environment, the
  precautionary approach shall be widely applied by
  States according to their capabilities. Where
  there are threats of serious or irreversible
  damage, full scientific certainty shall not be
  used as a reason for postponing cost-effective
  measures to prevent environmental degradation."
• Ref http//habitat.igc.org/agenda21/rio-dec.html

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The Precautionary Principle

• Principles
• People have a duty to take anticipatory action to
  prevent harm. "If you have a reasonable
  suspicion that something bad might be going to
  happen, you have an obligation to try to stop
  it.
• The burden of proof of harmlessness of a new
  technology, process, activity, or chemical lies
  with the proponents, not with the general public.
  
• Source http//www.sdearthtimes.com/et0398/et0398s
  4.html

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The Precautionary Principle

• Principles
• Before using a new technology, process, or
  chemical, or starting a new activity, people have
  an obligation to examine "a full range of
  alternatives" including the alternative of doing
  nothing.
• Decisions applying the precautionary principle
  must be "open, informed, and democratic" and
  "must include affected parties."
• Source http//www.sdearthtimes.com/et0398/et0398s
  4.html

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The Precautionary Principle

• In action
• EPA and OSHA in 1970s
• Canada Federal Policy (2003)
• Quebec Pesticide Laws (2002)
• American Public Health Association endorsement
  (2000)