Engineering, in general, is responsible for the situation the world finds itself in at the moment. Rising CO2 levels in atmospheric air, pollution, damaged land, industrial illness and numerous other ills of this world can point at "Engineering" (in very broad terms) and rightly point a finger.
That said, Enineering in general has done an awful lot for the world, and has improved quality of life in many ways. It's hard to imagine a world without electricity, motor vehicles, and other engineered products.
Now that we find ourselves in the situation that we do, the world looks to Engineering to get us out of this situation. "Green Technologies" are all the rage, "Environmentally friendly" ways of doing things are wanted, and in general people are receptive to making some alterations to the way they live their life in order "not to damage the planet".
Which, to be quite frank, is utter crap. Given the way that the western world lives at the moment, the slight changes of fitting energy saving light bulbs and driving fuel economic cars is not only a drop in the ocean, but also fails to recognise the real issues.
Yes, fuel economic cars are exactly that, fuel economic, but they have to be built, and the older less-economic car has to be scrapped. This uses huge amounts of energy. Huge stonkingly massive amounts of energy, and causes further pollution. It has been proven time and time again that the "environmentally friendly" thing to do is to maintain the older vehicle and prevent a new one being built. But does this happen? No, of course not. Why? Because the western world wants to have nice new things, and wants to try to justify doing so by calling it environmentally friendly. Actually, if you really wanted to be environmentally friendly, you could just not drive. Or heat your home. Or light your home. Or indeed even have a home, as building houses consumes huge amounts of energy, and causes massive amounts of pollution.
So where do you go from that argument? The answer is that people themselves by their very nature are not environmentally friendly, as they require homing and feeding and transport and the like. The percentage improvement that a person can possibly achieve by being genuinely environmentally friendly is completely irrelevant to the difference it would make if that person simply didn't exist.
Ironically, the reason that the world population is as high as it is and continues to grow is because we have an Engineered life. Having homes with central heating, decent healthcare and comfortable transport means that mortality rates are exceedingly low, along with life expectancy being the highest it has ever been. Compare life today with that of 300 years ago: Infant mortality was very high, and life expectancy was very low. Despite being at the top of the food chain, we had natural predators, they were things like food supply, bad weather and illness. These days we have all-but eliminated these predators, and so the population increases massively.
This could be taken into further detail, but it's fair to say that because of the engineered world we live in, there are many millions of people alive today who would not be otherwise. Many millions of people who now believe that living in an engineered world is a right (which it clearly is not) and who all take their toll on the planet by using said engineered world. It's a self-perpetuating situation that is a bit like the sourcerers apprentice. Now that we have started and perpetuated this situation, how on earth do we stop it?
The answer is that we won't. People in general are selfish, and want to have heated homes, nice vehicles and a generally comfortable lifestyle. What will stop it is the fuel supply for this engineered life we have. Practically everything we do and every bit of energy saving technology that we have is powered (at some point) by fossil fuel. And the cost of that is rising. And not just by a little bit. It's rising by a lot. Eventually oil will cost $1000 a barrel, and then $5000 a barrell, and so on. Natural Gas will be similarly expensive, and consequently electricity will cost £1 a unit, and then £10 a unit.
So what of "green technologies"? Surely they can save our way of life, by generating cheap clean electricity, allowing our engineered world to continue? Well, maybe they can, but the infrastructure of the world as it is at the moment is simply not set up for that to happen. Our reliance on fossil fuels to power our engineered world is still absolutely massive, and there doesn't appear to be any major change on the horizon... and yet again.. The reason for this lack of visible major change? People in general are selfish and greedy, and place too much importance on having new things. A case in point:
I recently discovered that many people change their white goods on such a regular basis that they never get a chance to wear out. A washing machine, for instance, for many people is something that is changed every few years, for "the latest model". This is done under the guise of it being environmentally friendly to have the latest model, with the best energy rating. Again, utter crap. The energy used to manufacture the new machine is massively more than the new machine could possibly save over its lifetime. What is actually the environmenally sound thing to do? Keep the old one working of course. Keep it going for as long as you possibly can, thus preventing the manufacture of a new one, and the disposal issues of the old one. Same is true for things like refrigerators, ovens, etc. etc.
So how do we convince people that they should keep older "kit" in working order? The only way to do so is through cost. Campaigners can "bang on" about anything they wish, but the only way you can effectively ensure that people value and look after pieces of engineering is to make them expensive. Very expensive. A washing machine should not be able to be bought for £150. A washing machine should cost £2000. If it did, not only would people not buy a new one every year, but older models would still be valued. Same is true of other equipement, it is all mainly too cheap. A new car for instance should cost £50'000 for a basic model, and £200'000 for an expensive one.
This didn't used to be the case. Modern Engineering methods have allowed cheaper "kit" to be available, which is what has lead to the very blase attitude we now have to engineered products. Anyone who knows me will know the story that I love to trot out when I get on my soap-box about this subject: I still have a fridge-freezer that my parents bought new in 1972. It cost my father £120 when it was new, which is fairly meaningless to most people (IE what is that in current money?) until you add the fact that it was £120 for the unit, and £1 to be delivered about 20 miles. It was (very) expensive, and consequently it was looked after. It still works perfectly some 39 years later, and I intend to make it last a lot longer. In that period, many people would have probably bought anywhere between 5 and 10 new fridge-freezers, and whilst those newer units would absolutely have used slightly less electricity in their life, they would have caused a much larger environmental burden by having to be manufactured and then disposed of.
My Message to anyone who actually wants to "do their bit" to be environmentally friendly? Stop buying new stuff when you don't need to. Stop throwing stuff away that works, and start re-using things that can be re-used. The motto of the environmentally concious is "re-use, re-cycle, re-place", in that order. Given that we barely ever "re-use" properly, there's an awful lot that can be done BEFORE re-cycling or re-placement of an item should even be considered.
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