Transcript Sustainability… A Path to a Better Future

To Teach …
Is to touch a life, forever!
Some food for thought?
Sustainable Thinking:
A Time for To Make
Future Generations Proud!
Engineering for Educators
K.D. Pressnail,
Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto
November 19, 2010
Back to the Future…
Imagine the World in 2020?
World Oil Production Profiles…
Courtesy:
Greg Allen
P.Eng. 2008
Designer of
“Responsible
Buildings”
See
“Engineering a
Post Carbon
World”
CO2 Levels from10,000 years ago to 2005!
SET DATE: August 13, 1941
August 13, 1941: Muir Glacier, Alaska. Photo by W.O. Field
SET DATE: August 31, 2004
Muir Glacier, Alaska, August 31, 2004, photo by B.F. Molina
Sometimes people act like they’re
the only life on the planet…
Blind to Science*?
“84% of Scientists agree that human
activity is responsible for global
warming…”
“49% of ‘ordinary Americans’ agree that
human activity is responsible for global
warming…”
*
Pew Research Centre for People and the Press and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science as cited in Globe and Mail’s Green Living Magazine, Sept. 14, 2009
Time for a Low-Carb Diet?
Ontario’s Energy Vulnerability?
Life
Without fossil
fuels
(17%)
Imagine your world with 1/6 of the
energy…
Long Distance Travel?
Heating/Cooling?
Commuting?
Hot water?
Shopping?
Food?
Shelter?
“ If peak oil merely threatens industrial
civilization, climate change promises to
destabilize the planetary biosphere.
The two solutions are integrally related, and
solutions to peak oil can also address climate
change.”
Twins…
(Whitney and WhiteSocks)
“Peak Everything: Waking Up to a
Century of Declines”
Richard Heinberg
In addition to Oil and Natural Gas, globally we’re
approaching peaks:
1) copper,
2) phosphorous,
3) fish catches,
4) grain production,
5) per capita fresh water,
6) uranium to name but a few …
“This is no coincidence. We have been consuming the
world's resources at an unprecedented rate.”
In the next 10 years, we will
all have to face the reality that
ALL resources are finite!
Resources are finite, but our
imaginations are not!
The Paradigm Shift? Challenging
the “Automohulk Mentality”
The Automohulk: An icon for selfish behaviour!
(It uses 25L of gas to go 100km and to crumple others)
How do we move from the “Age of
Selfishness”…
…to the “Age of Responsibility”?
Rays of Hope?
Consumers? Builders? Politicians?
Engineers? Education? Student Initiatives?
Photo by Agnes Durlik
Survey Camp, 2008
More Sustainable Thinking?
In 1987, the Brundtland Commission
articulated Sustainability:
‘..meeting the needs of the present generation without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their needs.’
Consumers Are Awakening?
According to a November 30, 2007 IPSOS Reid Poll:
73% of homeowners would be willing to pay a 10%
premium for environmentally friendly features.
The poll also found that 95% of home owners/buyers
believed that environmentally friendly changes should be
included in building codes.
Reason? 67% were concerned about future energy costs.
Has all this been forgotten because of the recession and
oil at $80 a barrel?
Obama’s Inaugural Address!
January 20, 2009
And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative
plenty, we say we can no longer... consume the
world's resources without regard to effect.
…each day brings further evidence that the
ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries
and threaten our planet.
What is required of us now is a new era of
responsibility.
David Orr on Education and Sustainability
It is a matter of no small consequence that the only
people who have lived sustainably on the planet for any
length of time could not read.
My point is simply that education is no guarantee of
decency, prudence, or wisdom. …
The worth of education must now be measured against
the standards of decency and human survival …
It is not education that will save us, but education of a
certain kind.
-More- Orr
The plain fact is that the planet does not need
more "successful" people…
It needs people of moral courage willing to
join the fight to make the world habitable and
humane.
Sustainable ‘Legal’ Thinking?
“Riparian Rights”… a landowner on a river had
the right to use water in the river.
To protect other downstream “riparians”, the
landowner was legally obliged to ensure that the
water was not degraded in quality or quantity!
“Rivers don’t just flow through
space!
They flow through TIME as
well!”
Thames River, Ontario
A ‘Legal’ Opportunity?
Trustees for Future Generations:
“A trustee is a legal term that refers to a holder of
property on behalf of a beneficiary”.
“A trustee carries the fiduciary responsibility and liability
to use the trust assets according to the provisions of the
trust instrument.”
So far… in LAW Future Generations cannot be
beneficiaries???
First Nations Thinking 101?
The Mohawk of Akwesasne believed in a +/- Seven
generational view…
They looked forward in time, up to 7 generations and
asked, “What will the people of tomorrow think of our
decision today?”
They looked back in time as well…
The Mohawk Test: The Automohulk?
Test the McMansion?
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6 Bedrooms
5 Bathrooms
4 Car Garage
3 Occupants
2 Furnaces
1 XL Carbon
0 Care for Future Generations
U of T’s CCBR
Designed as a DF
(Double-Façade)
Completed 2006
Cold in winter, hot in
the summer!
Heating and cooling
costs are more than 2
times the costs of the
Galbraith Building…
The Galbraith Building
was built in 1960!
“A Promise to Future Generations”
A Student Initiative Inspired by Adapted from The Cousteau Society’s “Bill of Rights for Future Generations”
Student Members
Steve Dennis BASc (Civil) 9T9+PEY MSF
Agnes Durlik BASc (Chemical) 0T5+PEY MEng
Lesley-Ann Foulds (Civil) 0T10 EWB
Mike Klassen (Engineering Science) 0T10 EWB
Marianne Touchie (Civil) 0T9
Ekaterina Tzekova (Civil) 0T9
Additional Contributors:
Erika Bailey BA, MA candidate (OISE/UT)
Ashley Taylor BASc (Engineering Science) 0T5+PEY MEng
Faculty Advisors
Gabe D’Eleuterio (Engineering Science)
Kim Pressnail (Civil)
Lisa Romkey (Engineering Science)
“A Promise to Future Generations”
A step toward more sustainable behaviour as we move
from the “Age of Selfishness” into the “Age of
Responsibility”.
A voluntary promise that looks beyond “me” and
“now”.
Creates an ethical duty to consider the “rights” of
future generations.
“I believe that all generations should have the opportunity
to enjoy the bountiful world that I have come to know.”
“I believe in the worth and dignity of all people,
present now, and in the future.”
“I believe that the path that humankind is following can threaten our
environment and the ability of future generations to meet their
needs, to fulfill their dreams, and to determine their destinies.”
Yesterday
Tomorrow?
“If I can do something to change this world, let me
begin now. Today, I declare this promise. Tomorrow,
we shall face these challenges together.”
My journey, a product of my choices, shall not be bound by the practices of the past.
Guided by the best foresight that our wisdom can provide, together we shall find
responsible solutions that will make future generations proud.
“I believe that all life is precious and inseparable
from the environment…”
How Can You Make a Difference?
“I believe if we all do our part to make the part of
the world that we can influence better… then
collectively, we can make our grandchildren
proud.”
It is “A Wonderful World !”
(Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong … 1901- 1971)
The time will soon be here when my grandchild will long for
the cry of a loon, the flash of a salmon, the whisper of spruce
needles, or the screech of an eagle.
But he will not make friends with any of these creatures and
when his heart aches with longing he will curse me.
Have I done all to keep the air fresh? Have I cared enough
about the water? Have I left the eagle to soar in freedom?
Have I done everything I could to earn my grandchild’s
fondness?
Chief Dan George, 1899 - 1981
Thank you…