Engineering Principles For a Living Planet

1. Engineering Principles For a Living Planet Bill Vitek Clarkson University June 14, 2007

2. The End of the World As We Know It • Vital Signs • Up Carbon Creek Witha Paddle • The Task of Philosophy/Ethics in Times of Transition • A Necessary Revolution: In Engineering, Education and Beyond • High Stakes and a Long Shot

3. 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

4. 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."

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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 nature’s immense and complex forces (90 million acres of US corn in ’07) • Enjoy the new and improved world that results • Repeat

8. A Trip To Exponentialville http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk/mainpages/consumption.html

9. http://www.oilcrisis.com/midpoint.htm

10. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

11. http://www.susps.org/overview/numbers.html

12. http://www.whole-systems.org/extinctions.html

14. 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.

15. Changing Our Minds/et • New Conceptual Models • New/Old Standards • Renewed Respect for Boundaries • Ethical • Epistemological • Ecosystemic

16. What is Engineering? “Engineering…is 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 man’s field of interest and service” Nicholas Murray Butler, Nobel Laureate and President of Columbia University, 1901-1945

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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 Knowledge=Greater Responsibility

21. Engineering and Environmentalism • Sources: 1880’s-1940’s • Conservation • Sinks: 1950’s-1980’s • Pollution Control • Systems: 1990’s-Present • Sustainability • Life Cycle Analysis • Industrial Ecology

22. Ethics and Environmentalism • Sources • Conservation • Utilitarianism • Anthropocentrism • Sinks • Rights • Individualism • Systems • Species • Ecosystems

23. 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.

24. 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 Leopold’s injunction to keep all the parts.

25. 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 world’s inner workings. • We should behave as if our ignorance will always exceed our knowledge. It will. • (Dyes’ definition of engineering)

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. 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 can’t speed up natural processes. • Our only option is to slow ourselves down.

29. Engineering 21st Century Curricula • Acknowledge 19th Century Discoveries • 2nd Law of Thermodynamics • Evolutionary Biology • Ecosystem Complexity

30. Engineering 21st Century Curricula • Five Years • Biology-Ecology Sequence • Precautionary Principle • Engineering Forensics Course • History of Engineering

31. Engineering 21st Century Curricula • More Liberal Arts • Public Service Requirement • Public Orientation of Graduate Education • Limits Credo: No Harm, No Hubris, No Hurry

32. Engineering 21st Century Curricula • Integrate Green Engineering Principles • http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/article.cgi/esthag-a/2003/37/i05/pdf/303anastas.pdf • http://www.epa.gov/oppt/greenengineering/pubs/whats_ge.html

33. 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_creek_without_a_paddle.asp

34. A Necessary Revolution • A New Founding • Revolutionary Thinking…and 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 • There’s Still Time • Revolutionary Thinking is in Our Heritage

35. 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

36. The Precautionary Principle • History • Hippocrates (5th Century BCE): “Do No Harm” • Public Health • Germany in 1970’s: “Vorsorgenprinzip” or “Foresight Principle”

37. 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

38. 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/et0398s4.html

39. 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/et0398s4.html

40. The Precautionary Principle • In action • EPA and OSHA in 1970’s • Canada: Federal Policy (2003) • Quebec Pesticide Laws (2002) • American Public Health Association endorsement (2000)