{"id":335,"date":"2013-01-23T18:39:41","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T18:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/?p=335"},"modified":"2013-01-23T18:39:41","modified_gmt":"2013-01-23T18:39:41","slug":"sustainability-making-engineers-giddy-by-christine-kennedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/2013\/01\/23\/sustainability-making-engineers-giddy-by-christine-kennedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainability: Making Engineers Giddy by Christine Kennedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Reposted from TriplePundit<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

Creating change is one of the most adrenaline producing thrill rides available.\u00a0 It\u2019s scary, exhilarating, stomach churning and makes you feel alive. It is exciting for me to be at such a point in history.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The control room during the moon landing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a scientist and engineer, challenge is invigorating. I watched the Moon Landing on Discovery channel with my daughter. The footage of the control room, with engineers, physicists and computer nerds of the time rallying around their achievement inspired us both.\u00a0 The recent Mars rover landing replicated the experience.<\/p>\n

Imagine if that assemblage of talent and dedication was unleashed on climate change and poverty.<\/p>\n

There is an argument that it would be over-engineered and waste resources, but not if that was part of the problem statement, \u00a0like in Apollo 13, \u201cYou have to make this square filter fit into this round hole with only the materials on this table<\/a>,\u201d \u00a0and, \u201cfailure is not an option<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the important things for pioneers to remember is the long stream of pioneers that have come before us in the sustainability journey. They sometimes disagreed amongst themselves or with society as a whole, but they pushed through and paved the way.\u00a0 Part of me feels like they are cheering us on, which is fantastic because it\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n

Sustainability, for me, has always been about people.\u00a0 It\u2019s about community and connectedness.\u00a0 It\u2019s about breathing and eating healthily.\u00a0 It\u2019s about eliminating poverty and realizing that throwing money at poverty isn\u2019t the only solution; emotional poverty can affect those who have plenty of financial assets.\u00a0 A strong example of a poverty solution is what Van Jones did with solar cell installations in the poorest neighborhoods in Oakland; he empowered people with employment in an industry that gives them a sense that they are making the world better.<\/p>\n

I feel strongly that you need to meet people where they are on their sustainability journey.\u00a0 And it is a journey.\u00a0 There are many who have moments that are mind changing but for most it\u2019s a slow process of realization; of being hit with too many facts to ignore or giving grudging respect for the persistent.<\/p>\n

One of the better tools for this, is\u00a0The Way Out<\/a>: Kickstarting Capitalism To Save Our Economic Ass<\/em>. Its discussion on efficiency presents a reasonable and affordable step that everyone can take and all can profit from. \u00a0We\u2019ve lost the art of frugality; the desire and ability to be good stewards of what we have; an appreciation of the precious.<\/p>\n

For me, though, the problems facing us are the sorts that make engineers giddy. Doing the impossible? Where do I sign up? My goal as a sustainability professional is to make sure that more people feel this way.\u00a0 It\u2019s about the problem statement. The correct problem statement should engage the audience \u2013 we need to make change happen.\u00a0 For economists and politicians, it\u2019s a way out of the mess.\u00a0 For scientists and engineers, it\u2019s this century\u2019s greatest technical challenge.\u00a0 For humanity, it\u2019s the creation of a life giving community.<\/p>\n

Christine Kennedy\u00a0is a current student in the Bard MBA in Sustainability<\/a>, Class of 2015, and is currently Sustainability Manager at Unilever. She is a Chemical Engineer by training and has more than 15 years experience in Product Development. The opinions in this piece are entirely her ow<\/em>n.<\/p>\n

[Image credit:\u00a0NASA<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Reposted from TriplePundit) Creating change is one of the most adrenaline producing thrill rides available.\u00a0 It\u2019s scary, exhilarating, stomach churning and makes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,73,72,7,50],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","tag-business","tag-community","tag-engineers","tag-sustainability","tag-sustainability-books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}