Discussion: View Thread

Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

  • 1.  Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 05-17-2022 04:42 PM

    The article in today's Source Water crisis, power cuts worsen misery in Pakistan's hottest city Jacobabad in arid Sindh province is in the grip of an intense heatwave – peaking at 51 degrees Celsius at the weekend caught my attention. This situation and associated misery, suffering and undoubtedly fatalities certainly gives one pause. Furthermore, it makes some of the issues de jour pale in comparison. It feels like we are rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks.  I'm not sure what specific actions CEs can take. At a minimum, I think developing literacy in global events and having a world view is essential to be an engineer in the 21st century. What do others think?



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    Mitch Winkler P.E., M.ASCE
    Houston, TX
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  • 2.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 05-18-2022 08:02 AM
    Having witnessed what long-graduated students retain from their schooling and what insight current students get from their schooling (some haven't learned the content, let alone extrapolate from it), I do not believe that education will help. Politics and systemic influences (say a company that makes plastic or even paper bags) make it very difficult for individuals to translate their convictions into action, especially in political systems where the popular will is not represented (say a country where 30% of the population will soon elect 70% of certain representatives). Where subject literacy is viewed skeptically as indoctrination attempts, it's hard to see education practices revamped anyway.

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    Tsee Lee, A.M.ASCE
    United States
    New York, NY
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  • 3.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 05-23-2022 11:06 AM
    Middle and Southern Pakistan has always been hot areas in summers. The record of highest temperature on earth is also held by the city of Jacobabad (Jacob-abad) in the province of Sindh. But other area of Pakistan like southern Punjab also face this acute heat wave in summers every year. When the British colonized the sub-continent, they used to send their "non-conforming" bureaucrats in this area as a sort of punishment. So one Mr Jacob was also sent here as Deputy Commissioner and hence the name Jacob-abad.

    Now coming to the problem. The rains in most of Pakistan are seasonal starting generally in end May till September. Almost 80% of the annual rainfall happens during this period. The major hydropower dams that also act as storage, fill their reservoirs during this period. As most of the water is used for agriculture, hence for the winter crops water is released and during March-April and part of May, the reservoirs are almost depleted and along with it the dip in hydropower generation. With the advent of summers, the demand of electricity also rises due to use of air conditioners. Though Pakistan has both fuel based thermal plants and nuclear plants, these do not fill the gap between the demand and supply of electricity. Efforts are underway to solve this problem. The climate change is also having an effect as the pattern of rains is changing as is the shift in the pattern of seasons, with the increase in maximum temperatures.

    As a developing country, Pakistan is trying to meet these challenges. At present three mega dam projects are under construction including a 272 m high RCC dam (Diamer Basha)  on the Indus River with an installed capacity of 4500 MW and reservoir capacity 8 BCM, Mohmad Dam ( 242 m high CFRD) on Swat river with installed capacity of 800 MW and Dasu dam (RCC) on Indus river with an installed capacity of 4320 MW, in addition to scores of others. In addition the government has started and completed the world renowned "Billion Tree" project in which the trees were planted to mitigate the effects of climate change.

    Tahir M. Hayat, Ph.D., P.E, MASCE
    Lahore, Pakistan

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    Tahir Hayat Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
    Chief Executive
    Nespak
    Lahore
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  • 4.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 05-26-2022 12:17 AM
    Yes. As much as I marvel at the engineering that builds dams, they do have a downside.

    I read recently about the changing rainfalls from monsoons. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220517-the-uncertain-fate-of-asias-monsoons

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    Tsee Lee, A.M.ASCE
    United States
    New York, NY
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  • 5.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 05-31-2022 08:01 AM
    Government should be working on many more small dams to store rain water and produce electricity in the mountains of Baluchistan area.

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    Syed Masood P.E., M.ASCE
    Construction Maanger II
    Franklin WI
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  • 6.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 05-24-2022 03:24 PM
    A world view is absolutely essential, granted, suspicion of education slipping into indoctrination is a problem, but a world view is what management definitely needs and hopefully a majority of executives in engineering firms are not purely financial or legal majors because this barge is listing pretty badly and damage control isn't reporting. I have to ask some CEO's "do you  actually have children?, and their future is???" when they export engineering hours, close up shop, liquidate tooling, take a bonus and run. A world view says that's just not healthy in the long run. You goin' down bud. CE's, ME's, Chem E's, whatever, need to raise concern. We're not stupid. We've seen industrial arts disappear from high school curriculums, industry after industry shipped out, corporate officers take an exorbitant bonus, then exit leaving our colleagues with a life changing event. A world view says everywhere this has happened before has become a client state, not for the better. The disparity between wage earners and upper tiers widens. No thanks, I like democracy, I like opportunity, I like my profession and the economy it built. I am not about rearranging the deck chairs, I know elsewhere in the world people are desperate to gain an advantage because they are under the thumb of opportunists instead of a halo of opportunity. I want the problem confronted. That's not an extreme view and I'm not alone.

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    William Bala P.E., S.E., M.ASCE
    Owner
    Hawkins TX
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  • 7.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 05-27-2022 12:17 AM
    Excellent points. You are not alone.
    Navigating the opportunist, trusting and being trusted. Change can be a dangerous business when it has the potential to interfere with the financial dealings of the status quo no matter the country; resulting in Charitable paralysis.
    Over 30 years ago, talk was that this country was moving to a focus on management and reduction in skilled labor. How and why did high school systems systematically eliminate industrial and vocational arts programs? Where is that 4-H program with a focus on future farmers? All of which creates a challenge for self-reliance or personal independence.
    I will check out the article.

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    James Williams P.E., M.ASCE
    Principal/Owner
    POA&M Structural Engineering, PLC
    Yorktown, VA
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  • 8.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 05-31-2022 08:01 AM
    Ah yes FFA, Future Farmer's, we know we need them, so maybe all the doom and gloom about farming as a future needs to be dealt with. effectively. Good points. The high school I went to had an avid FFA program, still lots of farms in the area. I wonder if the FFA program is still going, or as strong as it was. The loss of industrial arts to me is just painful. If you don't want to buy every manufactured item via container ship, well training is where it starts.

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    William Bala P.E., S.E., M.ASCE
    Owner
    Hawkins TX
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  • 9.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-02-2022 07:57 AM
    No one wants to train for jobs that don't exist. No one can fund such a jobs program without a demand from employers.

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    Tsee Lee, A.M.ASCE
    General Services Administration
    New York, NY
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  • 10.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-02-2022 10:19 AM
    No one wants jobs to go out of existence because employers are busy contracting them abroad for higher short term gains. We will continue to see shortages and other symptoms when we eliminate a skilled workforce in favor of a cheap one abroad where safety and human rights issues have a dubious present let alone future. If it takes a baby formula shortage to highlight just how precarious the situation is, we have the blinders on way too often.

    The thread started out talking about our lack of understanding of global events and it's consequences. When a popular cell phone manufacturer has to put nets around the roof of it's overseas manufacturing plant to keep the workers from attempting suicide since working conditions are so horrid, that's a global event we need to pay attention to. Global events and the application of ethics thereto, are sorely lacking in the present culture. CE's have to take continuing education hours in ethics to maintain a license in a few states. Time to branch out and apply the lessons. All of us need to raise our awareness of global events and how it effects our potential locally, how we can best keep our economy viable and not just push the plus column on this month's balance sheet. Rearranging the deck chairs. Think and act with the next generation in mind.

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    William Bala P.E., S.E., M.ASCE
    Owner
    Hawkins TX
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  • 11.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-07-2022 12:26 PM
    Inexpensive cell phones are a good example.  Every day people want to purchase cell phones, despite earning an income which isn't commensurate with the true cost of the cell phone.  This demand incentivises cell phone makers to lower production costs and conceal the sacrifices they had to make to do so.  Governments demand equal access for everyone.  People come to expect that lower income persons ought to have the same access to expensive cell phones as wealthy persons.  (Wealthy persons have the means to pay the full cost of a cell phone manufactured with environmental and worker safety protections).  Stating this view immediately opens me up to criticism that I am opposed to equal rights or that someone I advocate that only the elite should be able to purchase cell phones. That is to say, analysis of this state of affairs is squelched.

    So, governments take money from one group of people and give to others, to equalize things.  Civil engineers need to be aware that this is going on.  This is not to say that this is appropriate or desirable, or not.  We certainly don't need to go back to the feudal system of government.  But decisions like building dams in arid lands, to keep people fed where naturally no food could grow, or fossil fuel heating to keep people from freezing to death in cold lands:  these have ethical repercussions and require trade-offs.  If it were not physically possible to build dams in arid lands and keep people from starving, those people would pack up and leave.  How many people in Sindh really absolutely love it so much there that they refuse to leave and will pay a huge portion of their earnings to fund dams?  Or do they expect workers all over the world to pitch in cash to save them?

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    Dudley McFadden P.E., D.WRE, M.ASCE
    Principal Civil Engineer
    Roseville CA
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  • 12.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-07-2022 03:32 PM
    The world is going digital. Websites are moving from the password model, starting with the next iPhone. Only in (some parts of) America is broadband internet access still considered a luxury service.

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    Tsee Lee, A.M.ASCE
    General Services Administration
    New York, NY
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  • 13.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-07-2022 11:22 PM
    The thread seems to be drifting a bit off of the original premise.

    Cheap anything, not just cell phones, but the array of goods made outside the US that fill the ports and container ships anchored offshore are simply evidence of how we are being seduced into not providing for ourselves. This involves a massive transfer of wealth outside the country that is causing us some real damage under the guise of "we're getting a better deal", well we're not. Certainly not in the long run where you have to think past your wallet and on to the next generation's.

    What follows on is going to be even more of a hit to the professions. The principle players graduate engineers at rates approaching 8:1 and 12:1 when compared to US domestic engineering degrees conferred. Do we watch this year's graduating class's future start to dry up like what we've seen happen to skilled trades in this country? It will if the issue is left to "corporate policy makers" because they have no loyalty to the country as far as their operations are concerned. Their agenda is search  for the cheapest anything, manufacturing, engineering, whatever, that they can contract out in the global marketplace. What isn't clear is the consequences of what they're doing. How do we regulate, enforce ethics, license, even groom an offshore technical class that dominates our economy? How do we keep research going? We don't. We can't. We lose.

    Time to think Long term, not short term. If we can be pacified with rearranging the deck chairs, as the original post put it so well, our collective goose could be cooked as a profession, if nothing else it's in for a jolt that hasn't been anticipated. We need to make our concerns known through government, professional societies, stockholder's meetings, blogs, vlogs, and anywhere else we can. It isn't zenophobia, it's common sense.

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    William Bala P.E., S.E., M.ASCE
    Owner
    Hawkins TX
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  • 14.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-07-2022 11:22 PM
    I agree with that. I don't expect the free market to fix what the free market created though.

    Almost all the engineers I know who used Android phones are, as they gain seniority, switching to the manufacturer you're referring to.

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    Tsee Lee, A.M.ASCE
    General Services Administration
    New York, NY
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  • 15.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-08-2022 11:28 AM
    The free market didn't create poverty, selfishness, or disparities in wealth between nations; it is undisputable that communism makes things miserable for ordinary people and has a long track record of proven failure.  Notwithstanding, people and governments have long resisted efforts of huge mega-corporations like Apple to dominate and control:  just look at how strong their control is:  many people would have difficulty turning off the power on their beloved cellphones for just one day.  Apple is a ruthless competitor and one day it will catch up to them too.

    Again, people choose to be dependent on phones, dams for water supply, wastewater plants to sustain cities with population far in excess of what the natural environment can sustain,  highways to transport food and commodities, natural gas for heating and (via power plants) cooling, oil wells for all manner of plastics which we cannot live without.  Society looks to engineers to provide these things, meet these demands.  Many people are not in a position in life to want to become informed about the repercussions.  Engineers should be.  And China's government has huge incentives to do so too.  Hundreds of millions of intelligent and caring Chinese people are sustained by manufacturing products for other countries; if  manufacturing returns to Australia, US, Canada, Europe, India, then that industry, those jobs disappear. Hundreds of millions of people long-term unemployed.  Not good for China's leadership.

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    Dudley McFadden P.E., D.WRE, M.ASCE
    Principal Civil Engineer
    Roseville CA
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  • 16.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-09-2022 03:46 PM
    "The free market didn't create poverty, selfishness, or disparities in wealth between nations"

    Those are the results of competition, in capitalist AND communist nations and worlds.


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    Tsee Lee, A.M.ASCE
    General Services Administration
    New York, NY
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  • 17.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-24-2022 04:08 PM
    What I have seen in Communist countries couldn't be characterized as competition with anybody. Imperialism, for sure. The Party's way or no way. Corruption, if not from the outset, soon there after. 

    Makes me think of the "Peoples Cube", all sides of the Rubik's cube the same color so as not to intimidate someone with "competition" or other poisonous concepts from outside the party's sphere. It's Nonsense.

    When you leave the door open to simplistic notions, they will find their way in. Cultural dominance can be either unintended or ordained by force and intimidation. Step one for the latter is get you to agree to something that is not necessarily true so you can be kept busy with the deck chairs or something equally unimportant.

    Our problem as engineers is we exercise control over a very narrow scope of things by our nature, as masters of our own destiny, we can't be that narrow. Especially since our creed is protect the health and safety of the public. The thread started laying out that there is a problem and we seem to be thinking of everything else but fixing it. Agreed. We're sidetracked. Time to think of what's good for our own segment of the world because we can control that, and probably should get better at it. You have to act in your own best interest before you can be of much benefit to anybody else.

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    William Bala P.E., S.E., M.ASCE
    Owner
    Hawkins TX
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  • 18.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-25-2022 09:22 AM
    Politics is competition. Economics is competition. It doesn't matter what system a nation has in either sphere. That's why there are winners and losers in any country. That is why the struggles can be so vicious.

    If you look to the rest of the animal world, you'll find something similar. Intra-species competition is generally more lethal than inter-species competition. You're not fighting for a meal, but for your genes to be passed on.

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    Tsee Lee, A.M.ASCE
    General Services Administration
    New York, NY
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  • 19.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 06-26-2022 12:20 PM
    Politics is competition, hopefully so.
    Communism is the end of competition and politics, no more debate. The central committee ends all arguments.
    If it had been different anywhere it was practiced,  you couldn't say that. Facts say otherwise.

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    William Bala P.E., S.E., M.ASCE
    Owner
    Hawkins TX
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  • 20.  RE: Rearranging the deck chairs while the ship sinks

    Posted 05-31-2022 10:14 AM
    Often times we are taught the fundamentals - math, physics, chemistry, finances... we learn at the basic level and are expected to apply them at a massive scale.  Then we find ourselves quickly overwhelmed. While it is very tough to make sense of the global events that hit us in the daily news cycle, it is helpful to think in a global or general sense about how the world works before applying the basics in order to find a solution.  You will find the details in your textbooks, journals, and manuals... but your personal experience and local insights should guide your first moves.  Substitute "world view" with "community view" and you will find it much more manageable to grasp.  We are all people who deal with the same challenges... energy and climate being a couple... with that understanding you can apply at either the micro or macro level.

    There is definitely a juice box shortage at the moment.  I think it mostly relates to packaging... but coincidently enough, "Product of Ukraine" does appear on some apple juice labels.  I live in Apple Valley Rhode Island!!! So now you know that there are parts of Ukraine and Rhode Island that are known for apples.  It might seem like over simplification, it tells us so much about global supply chains, which we are told are beyond our comprehension.  You may have the resource at hand, but processing and distribution is required to deliver it.

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    Chad Morrison P.E., F.ASCE
    Professional Engineer
    Greenville RI
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