March/April 2020
NSPE Today: Policy Perspectives
A Grand Challenge Needs to Inspire Grand Solutions
BY STEPHANIE HAMILTON
“Climate change,” whatever the cause, is a phrase fraught with controversy. It has become so politicized that the important underlying issues often get lost. Rather than devote an entire column to arguments for or against climate change, I think it’s important to instead focus on the abundance of opportunities professional engineers have to invent creative, innovative solutions to issues surrounding environmental sustainability and resilience. And to look at some of the contributions engineers are already making.
The Opportunities
NSPE’s government relations team is tracking nearly 50 state bills related to sustainability and climate change. The subject matter is so varied, I’m willing to venture a guess that there’s a role for nearly every NSPE member to play in finding solutions to the documented issues. For example, Hawaii has a bill (H.B. 2704) that requires state government facilities to “reach goals of net-zero energy consumption and one hundred percent water reclamation” by the years 2035 and 2045, respectively. Washington’s H.B. 2811 calls for the creation of “a statewide environmental sustainability education program” to help K–12 students better understand the positive economic, social, and scientific impacts that sustainable practices can have on a community. And dozens of state legislatures are considering bills to establish working groups and task forces charged with studying climate change and sustainability, and developing innovative solutions.
The pending legislation, working groups, and task forces provide opportunities for professional engineers to put their expertise to work solving complicated problems. In order for sustainable living to be possible, in order for the environment to be protected and nourished, in order for cities, towns, and rural communities to have clean water to drink, clean air to breathe, and safe food to eat, professional engineers have to be about the business of innovative solutions. There are opportunities to create solutions that don’t currently exist; to develop technologies, systems, structures, and software that haven’t yet been dreamt of. Solutions that will clean the air, reduce carbon footprints, eliminate food waste, and increase the availability and efficiency of renewable energies.
The flip side, of course, is that if the profession doesn’t actively participate in the development and implementation of solutions, there are discoveries that won’t be made, inventions that won’t be created, communities that won’t be spared, and economic benefits that won’t be realized. The broader resilience and sustainability community will be trying to field a winning football team without its wide receiver—and in many instances, without its quarterback.
Solutions in the Works
Fortunately, many engineers and engineering students are involved, and they’re developing extraordinary answers to some of the toughest sustainability questions.
Here are just a few examples:
- An engineering professor at the University of Colorado Boulder is developing building material that can absorb carbon dioxide;
- An engineering team at UCLA is developing a process to convert carbon dioxide into buildable materials, like concrete;
- Engineering professors at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts have been awarded a nearly $2 million grant from the Department of Energy to develop efficient methods of converting food waste into biofuel;
- And a former PhD student who developed a low-waste water treatment process cofounded a company aimed at making the process more widely available.
Resilience, environmental protection, and climate change have been years-long foci for thousands of engineers who are dedicated to developing—or inventing—the necessary technologies, processes, infrastructures, and programs for protecting the public. But more engineers are needed. The United Kingdom’s National Grid recently estimated that, in that country alone, more than 400,000 energy-related jobs, including engineering, will need to be filled in the coming decades, if the UK expects to meet its net-zero goals.
The most important consideration for professional engineers, however, is that of the standard of care and liability. Questions are already being asked about whether PEs have, in the words of Nahom Gebre, P.E., a responsibility to “do more with the current state of scientific knowledge” than simply design to existing codes.
Gebre, a risk management attorney with Victor Insurance Managers Inc., adds: “Given the right set of circumstances, I can see people alleging that engineers didn’t meet the standard of care by not taking into account climate change issues.”
Additionally, a 2018 report from the Conservation Law Foundation, the Boston Society of Architects, and the Boston Green Ribbon Commission references a 1932 case in which a tugboat captain was found liable for losing his cargo in a storm because he didn’t have a weather radio on his boat. This, despite the fact that very few tugboats had radios at the time. “If harm [due to climate change] was foreseeable,” the report concludes, “design professionals could be held accountable.”
Protecting the public has to be about more than just protecting the PE license and the regulation of engineering practice. It has to also be about stepping into complicated issues like climate change, whatever the cause, and offering solutions. One of the best ways for professional engineers to protect licensure and improve the visibility and standing of the engineering community is through commitment to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems.
Stephanie Hamilton is NSPE’s manager of government relations and advocacy.