Read the two articles describing the future of engineering, 1 and 2. Which idea in these two articles do you think is the most important to the profession? Briefly explain in your choice in about 300 words.
After reading through these two articles relating to the importance of engineering profession and its diversifying roles in present world, I forthrightly believe that the points being addressed in article 1 deem to be of higher importance towards to engineering profession as compared to article 2. This is due to the fact that article 1 covers a wider spectrum of concerning issues encountered in present society. The issues could be categorised into social, environmental, political, economical, info-communication, healthcare and external man-threat (terrorists’ attacks) aspects.
Essentially, article 1 depicts that “engineers face the grand challenge of renewing and sustaining the aging infrastructures of cities and services, while preserving ecological balances and enhancing the aesthetic appeal of living spaces.”(National Academy of Engineering, 2008) This is what we termed as ‘sustainable development’ in which most countries have been discussing ardently over the past decade but yet still in search of means to fully implement this policy. As this issue concerns about the survival of human beings, I suppose that it should be granted the topmost priority as of utmost importance and certainly, it is one level above the rest pre-mentioned. If nothing has been done and problems still persist, the Mother Nature someday will not be able to support the needs of all living things and as a result, lives will be at stake! Thus, the engineers should place the emphasis and try their best to work out on possible methods to bring out ‘sustainable development’ to full-gear mode.
To illustrate this point, the annual G8 summit was held in Tokyo, Japan this year and respective G8 leaders had come out with common consensus, aiming to reduce an overall carbon emission level which was responsible for global warming. (Wikipedia, 2008) This plays a significant role in sustainable development as the consequences of global warming are undesirable and as well, causing immense damage to the environment. Therefore, engineers have to step in to alleviate the problem of surging carbon emission level. Sustainable development could then be possible with a ‘healthy’ environment.
In summary, no matter how brilliant the ideas/solutions generated from the engineers it could be, without the ample support of government and its people, nothing would be actualised and sad to say, it would go into waste ultimately. Hence, they should work together as a whole for the well-being of everyone.
-National Academy of Engineering (Feb, 2008), “Introduction to the grand challenges of engineering” Retrieved June 3, 2008 from http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221.aspx
-Wikipedia (Aug, 2008), “34th G8 summit” Retrieved August 17, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/34th_G8_summit
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5 comments:
Indeed, engineers have to face lots of challenges ahead of them. I have to agree that engineers need support from governments and the people for the future well- being of our globe.
Governments should assist engineers in the disperse of their inventions to benefit the world. A standing country will not last long compared to a standing world in the long run for civilization.
In addition to haoz's comments, i agreed with him to a great extent. Without the support from governments and the people, the hardwork of the engineers might face "resistance" while "processing". Thus, everyone should assist our great engineers to help smoothen the path for them.
yup~ the sustainable development is quite important. In my country, it is now the main policy of the environmental department and economy department. we have to keep our resource and work better in future~
Sometimes solutions are ideally adequate for certain problems. We need to do practise in real world to see if they are really workable. Govenrment will not give any support if they judge any solution as wasting the money of taxpayers.
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