Dwayne:
I am compelled to respond to and build on your post, even though some of my comments may sound self-serving.
Your expressions such as "creation of lasting infrastructure," "people can really live in," and "without thinking about it" all point to a weakness in engineering (and other professions) thinking called design fixation, Einstellung Effect, reproductive thinking, etc. That is, our dominant mindset is, when faced with a challenge, ask how have we dealt with similar challenges? Then we deal with this one that way. We tend to have a
fixed mindset.Instead, we need the discipline, knowledge, and tools to adopt an
exploratory, creative, innovative mindset.For the past half dozen years, I have studied, written about, and spoken about ways in which engineers can change their mindset. My book
Introduction to Creativity and Innovation for Engineers (Pearson, 2017) is one result. My ideas are not well received by the engineering practice community -- too different. For example, in rejecting my suggestion to speak about how they could be more creative/innovative, the leaders of one firm said that they were in the trenches 12 hours each day and did not have time for theoretical, ivory tower, aesthetic stuff. So much for my communication ability!
Change is tough and I will persist.
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Stuart Walesh Ph.D., P.E., F. NSPE, Dist.M.ASCE
Consultant - Teacher - Author
www.HelpingYouEngineerYourFuture.comstuwalesh@...219-242-1704
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-20-2018 12:16
From: Dwayne Culp
Subject: Civil Engineering Roundtable
With the quality of our civil infrastructure declining in the world, civil engineers need to concentrate their advocacy time and energy on advocating for the creation of lasting infrastructure this is not required to be renewed every few years, rather than trying to get involved in the commentary about global warming or climate change, or the new buzzword carbon free.
The best thing we can do to impact all these things, is to try to design, and encourage construction of systems with longer lifespans. It is easy to see a less carbon impact of reconstructing roads once every 50 years, instead of once every 10-years. It is better use of all our resources to concentrate on real things like creating homes that last more than 30 years. Our fore-fathers designed buildings that lasted hundreds of years that people still live in. In America, the standard is to assume that the houses will turn over every 30-40 years.
It is better for us to spend time and effort attempting to design Cities that people can really live in, rather than Cities we go to in order to work. Look at the Cities in Italy. Even though they have a similar population to major US cities, they have much lower per capita energy usage. Why? Because people live, work, eat, buy groceries, etc. all within a short distance. Walking is possible as a most of the time solution. In the US, we don't think a 50 mile commute every morning is unreasonable. Most people in Europe would laugh at someone willing to drive 20 miles to purchase groceries. In the US, we do that without thinking about it. Additionally, the buildings many of them live in are hundreds of years old, so farmland is not constantly being turned into subdivisions.
You can probably tell that I am not a climate change advocate. My problem is that climate change experts predicted a rise in water surface from 1950-2010 of over a meter. Didn't happen. If we could figure out how to remove the climatic effect of two active volcanos, we could remove the climatic effect of all the carbon used by humans. I think developing effective point source solutions, which almost no one is working on, would be much more effective cost-wise than making each human reduce their individual carbon footprint.
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Dwayne Culp, Ph.D., P.E., P.Eng, M.ASCE
Culp Engineering, LLC
Richmond TX
Original Message:
Sent: 01-17-2018 12:09
From: John Tauxe
Subject: Civil Engineering Roundtable
It is my hope that two related civil engineering topics will garner more attention this year and into the future:
1) How shall we address development of realistic carbon-free and sustainable energy sources for the US and the world?
2) How will we mitigate the effects on engineered systems from increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, including increased earth surface temperatures and concomitant rise in sea level.
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John Tauxe P.E., M.ASCE
SR ENVIRON ENGR
Los Alamos NM
Original Message:
Sent: 01-11-2018 14:44
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Civil Engineering Roundtable
Join ASCE News' first Civil Engineering Roundtable. ASCE asked prominent members to discuss what issue will dominate the civil engineering industry in 2018. Their responses varied. What do YOU think will emerge as the most critical issue this year?
To view the original discussion, visit:
http://news.asce.org/ce-roundtable-what-issue-will-dominate-the-civil-engineering-industry-in-2018/
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Tirza Austin
Collaborate Coordinator
ASCE
Reston VA
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