A gap in communication and language

I was in Montreal all of last week for a biofuels and aviation workshop. It was a fascinating time to say the least, particularly because I experienced first-hand how large scale technologies, particularly those that are meant to address environmental issues (biofuels are aviation's response to climate change), supported by the government and industry are implemented. At the same time, a block away, Occupy Montreal was growing in strength.

Here are pictures of Occupy Montreal from Square Victoria. The movement there was completely democratic, super peaceful, yet incredibly energetic.

 

 

The Occupy movement I have written about in the last couple of blog posts. I appreciate it, especially after seeing a large one such as that in Montreal, because it has been peaceful. And although the individual messages of the movement is changing in time and location, the rhetoric and sentiment expressed is resolute, constant, and resoundingly clear--that people (and the environment by extension) have been treated unfairly, that "the system" is set up in such a way that it maintains a power gap between decision-makers and the larger public, that there is a concentration of power and influence the higher and higher up you get. "The system" is comprised of government, of industry, of military.

More broadly, though, the Occupy movement raises questions that I think all of us need to be thinking about, which are, What's the point of it all? Why do we choose to live our lives this way and be bound to this system? Such questioning is of course social and environmental. The answers to these questions make our lives unfold in ways that affect people and the environment. In response to such questions, take a look at the following picture, which is of a massive poster (six feet by eight feet maybe?) by We Are Beings.

In stark contrast to this is how and where the powerful make decisions that affect all of our lives, our environment. The workshop I went to was put on by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which is a UN body that governs all international aviation. The meeting was full of business persons, economists, technologists, government officials, engineers, and so on. As you can tell by the venue, the workshop showed privilege and power--sixty foot ceilings, big, cushy, comfortable chairs, individual microphones in front of every attendee, suits, suits, and more suits.

But the most important difference and gap between the Occupy movement and its demands, and "official" meetings and its way of operation is the language being used. If you take a close look (you can here) at the sentiment being expressed on the We Are Beings poster, it is one of compassion, of care, of respect, of kindness, of empathy. On the other hand, the language that the people at the workshop use is that of economic and technological efficiency, of growth, of money. The point is, the people that social and environmental activists are trying to get to listen to them just don't use language that the activists are using. They probably don't understand it. I doubt that government officials think about compassion, I doubt that they think about power dynamics.

And so, if activism is to have a chance, we must first of all communicate using a language that they can understand. In no way does this mean we "turn into" one of them. Instead, it means that the movement must be adaptable and thoughtful enough to speak to those that really need to listen.

On the scarcity argument for technology

One of the key arguments in favour of technological "progress" is the notion of scarcity. Over time, the concept of "progress" has become synonymous with technological advancement. Aidan Davision, in his book Technology and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability, says, "...social stability [became] synonymous with dynamic progress, for stability is thought to be founded upon the ability of social activity to overcome external limits." Scarcity is an external limit, one which moved with us everywhere, all throughout time. Humans have continued to have a remarkable tendency to deplete what sustains them, more so than any other creature than I can think of. If we were to look at some of the negative manifestations of our behaviour, we would note overfishing, deforestation, soil erosion, nutrient depletion in soil, water table decline, and so on. What this favours is then a new look at the technologies that allow us to deplete and overextract, and we of course find out that there are "better" ways to deplete and extract, such that we can get the same amount out for less input. Davison writes, "...fear of scarcity becomes fuel for progress. Scarcity is the goad that stimulates the productive fervor necessary to prevent technological society from collapsing on itself."

Biofuel research is a great example in which the notion of scarcity is fueling technological advancement, without a deeper understanding of social and behavioural dimensions to the problems facing us. Biofuels are being investigated as alternatives for traditional fossil fuels in combustion applications, the reasons for doing so differ depending on who you talk to. One of the reasons is that biofuels may have the ability to have "net-zero" carbon dioxide emissions, that is, the carbon dioxide emissions that occur through burning the fuels will then be reabsorbed by those very plants, that will then be converted back into fuel, and so on. Yet what seems to me equally, if not more, fundamental drivers of biofuel research are 1) an inability to move away from technological systems already in place (cars, planes, etc.) and 2) the drive to overcome external limits, in this case, limited fossil fuel stocks. This second point leads to all sorts of national security arguments, which I talked about in a previous War and the Environment post. In fact, much of the work being done in biofuel research is being done by the Air Force and Department of Defense.

But as has been explored by myself and Dr. Jack Edelstein, Jevon's Paradox continues to rear its head in all technological applications. Now while there is nothing wrong with efficiency (shout out to Matthew L.=)), in many cases, we actually end up doing more harm trying to move away from scarcity by making something else more scarce, particularly because many engineering designs are not modular, and therefore not conducive to modification or reuse. With biofuels, while being a step away from fossil fuels, there have been increased tendencies to cut down trees to plant biofuel crops. We therefore deplete and make scarce trees, and consequently the ecology supported by those trees, let alone affect indigineous peoples and their homes.

I believe that something powerful that each and every one of us can do is consider more thoughtfully the impacts of our choices, because in today's world, many of our choices are technologically driven. Scarcity arguments will continue to be used to research and invest in ever more diverse, new technologies based off of extraction. Yet we continue to deplete and degrade with our quest for such technologies. It is important to realise that each one of us lends our patronage to this system if we choose to participate. Now while not participating in these systems may be difficult, as I wrote about yesterday, it is entirely feasible to limit our impacts and to continue to have discussions that will hopefully make those around you understand these points of view.

Engineering and sustainability ethics

One thing that I hope has become clear from this blog is that our decisions and choices have impacts far greater in scale, in space and time, than we think they do. This is of course quite obvious given global issues like climate change and biodiversity loss, but I have tried to link these global issues to our individual actions. With the added physicality of trash, which serves solely as a lens, I am hoping that people are encouraged to take actions themselves, not only for themselves, but for their neighbourhoods, their communities, their regions, our world.

To elaborate just a little bit more, with trash, for example (again, as a lens), much goes into making what we throw away (greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, mountaintop removal, fracking, processing), and then the trash itself is transported to places where those least (and not) capable of defending themselves - poor people, future generations, nature, etc. - are disrespected and treated unjustly (landfills, incinerators, their cities, etc.).This of course, calls for a new ethic, an ethic of a wider spatial and temporal scope, as Hans Jonas argues in The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age.

As an engineer, I am wholly aware that the engineering profession is complicit in this degradation of nature. We build bridges, missiles, cars, buildings, planes and nanoparticles, all of which have significant negative impacts on nature, regardless of whether they "serve the public" or not. The position of engineering in the society is an interesting and complicated one. As P. Aarne Vesilind and Alastair S. Gunn have written about in Engineering, Ethics, and the Environment, the public's perception of engineering is much different than engineer's perceptions of engineering. Engineers look at the net benefits of their actions, diminishing the importance of harm to the individual. Engineers tend to be utilitarians. That is the reason why cost-benefit analyses are frequently used in making engineering decisions. Yet engineers end up building things that do affect individual lives negatively. Engineers also tend to ignore or dismiss considerations that are unquantifiable. Engineers are positivists. Yet the objects that engineers build interact with people and groups of people. They consequently interact with minds and collections of minds, the emotions of which are unquantifiable. These interactions also might occur over long periods of time - bridges are built to last several decades.

As an aerospace engineer studying biofuels and air pollution, these thoughts are constantly on my mind. Therefore, part of my doctoral work will focus on sustainability ethics and decision-making using biofuels in aviation as a case study. While I am interested in why we choose to have technological solutions to social problems, I will specifically focus on how different ethical frameworks guide and change decision-making. And here is where I need your help. My advisors, Professor Wooldridge and Professor Princen, are interested in having this work open-source, easily relatable, easily understandable, and directed toward both younger and older audiences. Ideas of having this be a part of my blog, of being a magazine piece, of being an editorial piece, of being a Wikipedia page, etc. have been thrown around. What do you think would be an interesting and modular venue for this work? What do you think are important questions to be addressed? Please send me your thoughts. I really appreciate it.