Summary and My Take-away

My understanding of a global issue, climate change, has been broadened by 3 distinguished speakers on 30^th January 2009. After watching the video “The Inconvenient Truth”, I understood how the world is suffering from climate change and global warming. However, after listening from the perspectives of the speakers, my thoughts deepen about certain measures and implementations that we can take to counter climate change.

The first speaker, Professor Andrew Palmer, from the Centre of Offshore Research and Engineering spoke about the technology and politics of carbon dioxide capture and storage. He started off by explaining the effects of a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, about its nature and effects on earth such as absorbing infrared radiation from the sun and traps the heat in the earth’s atmosphere. He then touched on the response to climate change. One example would be switching to alternative energy sources (renewable resources, bio fuel, solar, nuclear). He also talked about measures that the UK government could take to mitigate global warming such as to tax petrol heavily. He then touched on the processes of carbon capture technology and its pros and cons. He added the political views of the technology and explained why it has not been widely implemented yet.

The second speaker was Associate Professor Benjamin K. Sovacool from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He talked about using Science & Technology System (STS) to address energy and technological problems. He started off by highlighting the traditional analysis of technology. He then elaborated more on the 4 kinds of determinisms; structural, autonomous, consequential and normative determinism. He suggested that a technological problem will never be a simple technological problem alone. He went on explaining about the factors contributed to technological problems such as political and regulatory obstacles, cultural and behavioural challenges, technical challenges, economic challenges, political challenges and social/cultural challenges. He ended off with a conclusion of how STS methods provide a useful lens to evaluate new technologies.

The third and final speaker was Dr Rajasekhar Bala. The main key point of his speech was the difficulties in dealing with global climate change. He talked about earth’s natural greenhouse effect and the consequences of enhanced greenhouse effects (global warming). He showed evidence of global warming and a simplified model on how to determine average temperature and greenhouse gases content on earth’s atmosphere. He also explained the possible effects of a warmer earth and suggested mitigation measures to counter global warming. He ended with the explanation about the difficulties in dealing with climate change and showed a slide of what we can do to reduce carbon dioxide emission.

In my point of view, all the speakers came to one conclusion which is, politics hinders technological advancement that can mitigate climate change. One good example would be the suggestion of changing to alternative energy such as nuclear power. Not only has it caused to a rise in political problems, it also deemed as unethical eventhough it is for a good cause. Another example would be carbon capture and storage technology. Some governments oppose the idea due to political and economical reasons although it is technically feasible. Therefore, I conclude that climate change will always be global problem unless everyone around the world comes to their consensus to mitigate it.

Global Warming: Are you willing to change?

The video, Inconvenient Truth, has great impact on me. Initially, I was aware that Global Warming is a major International crisis. However, I was not aware that it could lead to such a catastrophe to the extent of extinction of living things, including mankind. It stimulates my thinking on how I can be a better citizen of earth hoping to tackle the effects of global warming.

Without a doubt, I agree with the former United States Vice President, Albert Gore that global warming is a major problem in today’s world. The reason for mankind to enter this “period of consequences” is mainly due to technological advancements. In my point of view, it leads to major deforestation to cater for expansion of civilisations, more production of greenhouse gases due to rapid urbanisation and it also lead to overcrowding of population thus increasing the “stress” on earth. This “stress” weakens earth’s capability to sustain its citizens. Knowing all of these facts would not rectify the problem of global warming but it helps us identifying the root of the cause, greenhouse gases.

Having to know the root, Singapore government has implemented some policies to help reduce the problem. Singapore declared its commitments to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which is responsible for addressing climate change at global level. We also adopted the Kyoto Protocol in 20^th November 2007. We have implemented appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures such as encouraging development of clean technology, an international joint research and development to minimize impact of climate change and promoting public awareness. Other implementations include the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), the use of cleaner energy including renewable resources, to develop cost effective carbon mitigation technologies and to promote usage of hybrid cars. All these measures strive to reduce emission of greenhouse gases as a strategy to tackle the effects of global warming.

In my point of view, the most important measures to counter climate change or global warming would be education. I think it is important to educate people about the cause and effects of global warming. Through understanding the big picture, only then people would feel the need to change. Education can be a form of public awareness, word of mouth or even good habits. Such education should encourage people to save energy, recycle products and to use public transports. However, the government or an environmental interest group can only do so much. In Michael Jackson’s song, “Man in the mirror”, it says “I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror, I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways, And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer, If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place, Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change”. The song translates that to change the world, you need to change oneself. So, are you willing to change?

The Expanding World of Engineers

The world is changing and so do men and women of this global era. People are evolving every minute of every day, constantly facing new problems and challenges. This concept also applies to engineers. Engineers have evolved from being makers of cars, windmills and dams to being a designer for efficient transport, security and information management systems.

For today's world, engineers are labelled as problem solvers, not only in manufacturing sectors but also in the service sector. Based on Prof. Ramakrishna's article, "The Expanding World of Engineers" where he states that "the traditional scope of engineers has been broadened considerably to encompass the service sector, where engineers now contribute significantly to its overall growth." This "change", challenges engineers to travel to new heights of thinking and problem solving which can be achieve through an engineers' education system itself. In Singapore context, engineering students are exposed to a robust tertiary education which trains the mind to systematically analyse complex sets of information and to apply systems thinking in designing solutions. In lame man term, engineering students are not only taught how to design and build, but they are also taught how to rectify problems, improve and market.

In an engineering tertiary education, engineering students have to undergo various trainings in their respective engineering fields such as mechanical, electrical or chemical. These trainings help to equip them with the necessary skills for the engineering industry. Apart from a designed training curriculum for the students, they are also expose to real-time problems to train their problem solving skills and also aim to upgrade their level of thinking. Some universities encourage students to diversify their learning by having them to take electives from other fields of education which provides an all rounded education system. This is a great strategy to prepare the students for the working world.

In short, the level of engineers the world produce is dependent on the engineers' education itself. "The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." a quote from Albert Einstein.