Melchior Huijts
This week I will not touch upon the way sustainable engineering is shedding a new light for me on the way a technology can be designed for use in a society. No, I will take you, the reader, to something that might be a little more familiar. A little closer to home, so to speak.
Sustainability is not something of the last few years, it is a topic that has been around for a few decades already. Jimmy Carter, late President of the USA, already stated in 1980 during his State of the Union Address that the people of the US should ‘Conserve energy. Eliminate waste.’ and ‘Make 1980 indeed a year of energy conservation’. As we can see today, the whole world, including the USA, has not yet really proven to be one of energy conservation and waste elimination. However, as with most changes, this doesn’t happen instantly.
I hope that you are already familiar with the S-curve that describes a change. If not, it works in the following way: at first, a change is initiated and followed only by the few for a while, after which it hits the main public, is adopted widely and then the system (society) smoothens out the ride to a new equilibrium-state. The same holds for this transition. So already for a few decades some pioneers are letting the world know that we cannot continue the way we are going. After which the technology-world as started developing ways for us to reduce polluting energy use and waste. This has marked the beginning of the S-curve.
It feels to me know as if we have started the acceleration-part of the curve. The whole environment and sustainability problem is no longer one for the hippies and the early adopters, it has become one that is now also getting to the companies and world leaders. Only look at the Climate Summit starting tomorrow in Paris where the heads of most of the countries in the world will come together to agree on legislation that will halt/decrease climate change. Many politicians are starting to feel the pressure and are making themselves heard in the media on their plans. [2]
It is a good thing that governments start to change, but it is the people that can speed up the process and help a lot themselves. They can also get the companies to change, since these will listen to what the needs are from society, to maximise their profit. So start close to home, and change, without even needing to change your lifestyle much. This is the great thing, you don’t need to be living like someone from the stone-age to be living sustainably, but it can just be from the comfort of your warm house, only with the warmth coming from the sun for instance, instead of oil or gas.
Since there are more people than ever on this planet, shouldn’t we be able to make a change?
[1] Jimmy Carter, State of the Union Address 1980, 23rd of January 1980, (http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/speeches/su80jec.phtml, consulted on 29/11/2015)
[2] (dutch) Robert Giebeld, Samsom en Klaver schrijven nationale klimaatwet, De Volkskrant, 24-11-2015, (http://www.volkskrant.nl/politiek/samsom-en-klaver-schrijven-nationale-klimaatwet~a4193318/, consulted on 29/11/2015)