The Climate Change Educational Partnership: Climate Change, Engineered Systems, and Society: A Report of Three Workshops (2014)

Chapter 3
INTERVENTIONS: EXAMINING THE RANGE OF SOCIOTECHNICAL RESPONSES

The next session at the initial workshop concerned interventions to address the problems set forth in the earlier presentations (Chapter 2). Speakers and participants considered adaptation, mitigation, and geoengineering, placing them in their social contexts and recognizing that they pose challenges for social justice as well as governance, sustainability, and trust. They examined their policy and educational implications in light of the network’s goals.⁹ Junko Munakata Marr, associate professor of environmental science and engineering at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), chaired the panel and introduced the topic and speakers.

Mitigation Strategies: Potentials and Problems

Ed Rubin, alumni professor of environmental engineering and science and professor of engineering and public policy and mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, opened with remarks on setting goals and determining effective options.

He mentioned four mitigation approaches: reduction in demand for energy-intensive goods and services, improvement in energy efficiencies, expanded use of low and zero carbon energy sources, and direct capture and sequestration of CO₂ from ambient air (a geoengineering approach). All of these methods are available to some extent in various forms; all have behavioral as well as technical components.

The focus of his presentation, however, was policy and education options. His discussion of policy options drew heavily on a 2010 NRC report, Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Changes, for which he served on the authoring panel. In addition to making policy recommendations, the panel considered issues of equity and environmental justice and the importance of flexibility in designing policies that are both durable and consistent.

Setting a Climate Change “Budget”

In recent years there has been some international political consensus on a roughly 2°C long-term increase in global temperatures. To set mitigation goals, the NRC panel considered what a safe amount of climate change would be and calculated how that would translate into atmospheric concentration, when change is likely to stabilize, and how that in turn establishes limits on the total amount of greenhouse gases that can be added to the atmosphere. The panel then sought to determine a reasonable allocation to the United States from a global “budget.”

One key message of the study was the concept of a budget—people generally understand budgets. With 2050 as a timeframe, the United States would have about 40 years to meet the targets. Budgets from two recent studies¹⁰ would establish targets of 50–80 percent reductions below recent levels. On the current

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⁹ The agenda with links to slides from the speakers’ presentations at the first workshop is available at http://www.nae.edu/Projects/CEES/57196/35146/60202/47874.aspx. All the workshop agendas are available in Appendix A.

¹⁰ Based on results from Energy Modeling Forum -22 (EMF, 2009) climate-change-control-scenarios; and National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and National Research Council. America's Energy Future: Technology and Transformation: Summary Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2009.

trajectory in the United States, that budget would very quickly be “spent” well before the middle of this century, meaning that the current pace of efforts to address climate impacts has to change, he concluded.

Technical, Policy, and Education Options

The human activities and two energy sources that give rise to most CO₂ are electricity and transportation (i.e., coal and oil), which are 75 percent of the domestic and international problem. So the climate problem requires tackling the two things that people love most: their cars and their wall sockets. Electricity is the relatively easier problem, because there are more options and fewer sources—in the United States there are about 500 power plants and several hundred million automobiles. A variety of technical options are available for both.

Rubin grouped policy options into carrots and sticks. Technology policy options were characterized as voluntary incentives (carrots), covering R&D and other popular programs such as voluntary recycling or thermostat resettings. Resolving the climate problem will also require thoughtful discussion of regulatory policy options (sticks) to drive actions that would otherwise take much longer or not occur. Policy recommendations from the NRC study included a mechanism for economywide carbon pricing coupled with other types of regulatory policies, new research centers, and heavy investment in R&D.

He applauded public and private sector initiatives (such as that of former President Clinton and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg) focusing on climate issues in cities, and recognized the European Union for its efforts on international targets, although he noted that these are mild considering what is needed to reach an 80 percent reduction in CO₂ by 2050.

Research has developed analytical solutions, and Rubin showed five computer models that found solutions to reach the 2050 target. While the solutions differed and involved a variety of technologies, all showed that major changes in the energy system would be needed. The proposed emission budget range for 50-80% reductions was technically possible but could be very difficult to achieve. It would also be costly, as all the models showed the GDP growth rate slowing to 0.5–2 percent. Developing advanced technologies or innovating more quickly than has been achieved historically could substantially lower the cost of mitigation.

Discussion

In response to audience questions, Rubin indicated that the kinds of new educational initiatives proposed in this project can make a difference. His program at CMU has developed an interdisciplinary course that brings together technical and policy students, graduate and undergraduate, to work together on solving a problem; the effort builds teamwork and interdisciplinary understanding in a project environment to which students are unaccustomed. Surveys well after graduation show great appreciation for this course.

He also reminded the audience that other problems that warrant attention include the lack of political consensus on some key issues; the role of developed versus developing nations; the costs of mitigation, the best way to do it, who might win and lose; the availability of options at a meaningful scale; and social acceptability (e.g., comparing nuclear to coal with carbon capture and sequestration or storage or other options). In fact, although the NRC report underscored the urgency of the issue, it is not being attended to and organizations and countries today are generally not really willing to do what’s necessary, he said.

Engineering Perspectives: Toward Structural Change

Jackie Kepke, a consulting engineer working on public infrastructure projects and global technology leader of CH2M Hill’s water management portfolio, looks at climate change risk assessment and

adaptation planning. She spoke about public infrastructure designed for water and how to keep it functioning through challenges associated with climate change as well as urbanization, growing developing-country populations, and water scarcity, among others. These pressures compound each other and influence the management of natural resources and infrastructure.

CH2M Hill is a global company with clients of all scales that does big infrastructure projects in a sustainable and climate resilient way. The company does work for city governments, for private and public entities, and may be involved in responding to an energy challenge, constructing a building, or modifying a water system. It works to bring those parties together for integrated systems and solutions. It also educates its 25,000 employees about the challenges of climate change and works to inculcate these challenges in their thinking. And because its consulting engineers have an ethical obligation to think about them, the company takes its approach to clients who may not be asking for climate-resilient solutions.

Temperature increases, more extreme floods, droughts, and storms, rising sea levels, and ocean acidification all impact water infrastructure, the natural water system (source water, storm water, water treatment, waste water), and agriculture. What is the best way to consider all these components of water management in the context of climate change?

Unequal impacts of climate change present a further challenge. Geographic impacts, needs for community support, and questions of social justice require attention. Balancing agricultural, rural, and urban water needs will be difficult. In an increasingly urbanizing and drought-prone environment, how can resources be allocated fairly and ensure food security for growing city populations?

The Need for Systems Approaches

Kepke stressed the need to break down traditional engineering silos in favor of integration and systems thinking. Public infrastructure requires thinking about transit, waste, energy, water, and buildings as integrated systems, using tools that help balance resources to optimize city infrastructure. It is not adequate to build water infrastructure to handle whatever is sent down the sewer; it is better to engineer buildings to produce less sewage and reuse it and to pursue associated recycling strategies for the city as a whole.

Similarly, more informed public policy will require breaking down silos in the public policy arena. Many cities have a department of environment for energy and climate planning and a separate water department for water services and waste water. These different city services need to communicate with each other. Unfortunately, communication between cities or between city and state is even less common.

Water Management

Kepke explained the need to bring back the water cycle in water portfolio management. The water cycle is continuous and integrated: humans today are using the same water that the dinosaurs used, and drinking water, waste water, and storm water are not dissociated, as different engineering programs present them. The water cycle is a way to track different units of water through the system for optimized management; it requires thinking about recycling, rainwater capture, and system integration. The water cycle approach should be incorporated in engineering education and adopted by practicing engineers.

Kepke presented some examples of the scale of the challenges in water management. The lower Colorado water supply system, because of decreasing water availability, presents conflicts between agriculture and urban use and between the cities of San Antonio and Austin. Parties to the disputes have vastly different ideas about how the system should be managed and about the implications of climate change for the

system. And California is trying to solve longstanding problems of declining smelt populations and other ecological challenges in the San Francisco Bay Delta system. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan uses probabilistic modeling to do climate projections to balance urban and agricultural water needs, ecological and human needs.

What are the best ways to bring together the needed scientific and public policy perspectives in order to address these complex problems, and, using appropriate communication strategies, provide recommendations to adjust the capital planning strategies of these cities and their water utilities so that they accommodate the myriad ways in which changes in climate and weather patterns affect water supplies and uses? How can science and engineering promote decision making that allows forward movement on such challenges, rather than further delay and yet another study to try to resolve disagreement?

Investment and Other Strategies

Infrastructure investment is critical. In 2009 CH2M Hill prepared a study to inform Congress on the investments needed from US waste water and water utilities to adapt to climate change by 2050 (the calculation did not include the $500 billion estimated shortfall for public water and waste water infrastructure investment).¹¹ The study sought to make the point that climate change legislation should consider not only how to mitigate climate change but also how to fund public infrastructure adaptation.

Utilities and other public and private entities are making huge investments to maintain and upgrade their infrastructure, Kepke observed, and may not believe that they have the time or money to figure out how climate change would change their plans. CH2M Hill tries to help its clients see that climate is one risk among many that they already deal with. Utilities are comfortable with the concepts of security risks, vulnerability assessments, and asset deterioration. Climate is another risk to manage in that adaptive context, so utilities must identify the hazards (e.g., resource management during more frequent severe storms, pump failure because equipment is too old or rusty), do the risk assessment, and manage the risk. Though it is difficult to think of these risks in the same context because the timelines are not the same, this is a sensible approach.

Kepke proposed an adaptive management strategy: Rather than laying out all the investments now, make sure that the monitoring and data are in place to identify initial impacts of climate change on the system and think about what investments to make at certain trigger points as changes occur. But with this type of incremental adaptation it is important to ask, At what point will the strategy no longer work? At what point will a strategy to make wet wells and pipes just a little bigger fail and will facilities need to move out of the floodplain? When does a paradigm shift happen?

Mitigation strategies are also needed. In cities water and waste water treatment is a significant source of greenhouse gases because of the energy demand associated with treating and pumping water.¹² A combination of mitigation and adaptation approaches is essential so that new infrastructure systems do not require even more energy; for instance, water recycling based on reverse osmosis is very effective for combating climate change because it is a resilient supply, but it uses a lot of energy. In some cases, rather than moving straight to desalination, fixing leaks in the system has adaptation benefits: not as much water needs to be pumped, and less water means less electricity for treatment.

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¹¹ See http://www.ch2m.com/corporate/water/climate-risk-resilience/confront-climate-change.asp.

¹²http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/sources.html.

Discussion

In the question and answer session, Kepke mentioned the importance of long-term savings to influence near-term public planning toward sustainability. Organizations spending $2 billion to put new pipes or green infrastructure in the ground want their work to last as long as possible under all conditions; so spending $20,000 to do an analysis of the projected future climate record, and a sensitivity analysis of how it differs from the historic climate record, is a worthwhile investment. To make such planning a priority the US Environmental Protection Agency may need to work with the states to encourage these investments.

Kepke called on the engineering education community to help engineers learn how to integrate policy contexts into engineering decisions because that is what they will face in practice. They will see that decisions are made not based simply on the best engineering solution but by bureaucracies and policymakers based on financial constraints, and that the best engineering solution in that context moves forward. Helping engineers understand and deal with this reality is important.

Asked how common her thinking is in the engineering community, Kepke said that large companies typically have many different kinds of expertise available in-house, to achieve both competitive advantage and public welfare.

For outreach and education, she suggested communicating with relevant professional societies such as the American Waterworks Association, the Water Environment Federation, and the International Water Association in the water management field. Greater academic input in their conferences would be valuable for consulting engineers who attend since their clients are there. Academics also have much to learn from practicing engineers who work in the United States and abroad.

Engineering, Engineering Education, and Climate Change

David Daniel, a geotechnical engineer serving as the fourth president of the University of Texas at Dallas, talked about the challenges climate change poses to engineering education.

Limitations of Data-Based Approaches

Engineers are trained to demand facts and data: if a salesperson tells engineers that a new reinforcing steel bar is stronger and more corrosion resistant than the old steel, their reaction is to demand test data, the long-term corrosion tests. This demand for evidence makes for safe bridges and reliable function. But the insistence on retrospective data to drive design is actually an important educational challenge, because climate change poses unprecedented conditions that do not have historical data.

Daniel described two categories of engineers who design structures in light of uncertainty. One uses a probabilistic analysis of past data and judgment about a design criterion. For example, they might review runoff data in a river over a period of time, draw a histogram, and make probabilistic decisions such as design for 100- or 1,000-year flow. Unfortunately, many people without technical training do not understand probability or the meaning of “100-year flood.” So another approach is simply to look at the historic records. In New Orleans, for example, the levees were originally sized in the mid-20th century based on the worst Gulf hurricane of record at that time—which was not a 100-year hurricane. Similarly, all of the water design in Texas is based on the worst drought in the last 100 years, with no rationale except that legislators could understand it and so they wrote it into law.

Practicing engineers have a hard time, he said, embracing probabilistic designs and are much more comfortable with deterministic designs. For a building designed in a deterministic way, the strength of a

piece of steel or concrete has a number: loads on the building from wind, people, and the weight of everything in it generate a number, and the engineer makes sure the building strength is greater than all the loads on it. That is a straightforward deterministic analysis.

Probabilistic analysis involves combining histograms of the strengths of the concrete, steel, wind, and other loads to yield a probability of the circumstances where the loads exceed the strengths and the building collapses. But this more rational way to design is harder to communicate; it is much easier for engineers to say that something will or will not break, as opposed to providing a probabilistic analysis and communicating it in a way that people can understand.

Lessons from New Orleans

New Orleans is of critical significance to engineers because rising sea level in heavily populated and industrial low-lying cities has such enormous and obvious impacts. In addition, the city will probably sink about a meter over the next half century or so and face increasing maximum-intensity hurricanes as the Gulf of Mexico warms.

The Corps of Engineers has talked about upgrading the New Orleans levees for the 100-year flood. As a point of comparison, the Netherlands designed its levees for the 10,000-year flood, but the difference there between the 100-year and 10,000-year storm surge is not that great as there is no huge range of differences in North Sea storms. In contrast, in the Gulf of Mexico the difference is enormous, so going from a 100-year to a 10,000-year design is far more difficult.

The challenges to New Orleans have never been dealt with very well, according to Daniel. The levees are designed at best for a 100-year storm; worse, they are designed not to be overtopped and in fact are built of materials that will self-destruct if overtopped. While it is only a question of time before the levees are overtopped, it is politically very difficult to expand them.

To prepare for climate change, an upgrade to the levees should provide for the likelihood of raising their heights. The design should be reasonably easy and economical. If money isn’t available now to make them higher, engineering education and practice should recognize the probability in the future.

Designing for Change and Resiliency: Educational Opportunities

Engineers design for change all the time. For example, they design for a deteriorated material, such as a plastic pipe exposed to sunlight and degraded by UV radiation: they test for accelerated UV degradation and use retrospective information to project into the future.

But engineers have not been taught to think about designing for something in the future with no historical basis for that design. Even in homework problems engineering students work with specific numbers. Take sea level in the year 2100, for example; a homework problem on the topic would require a number or a range of numbers. Where does that number or range come from? Might a set of design criteria provide an educational tool? One of the great opportunities with education is the leeway to do almost anything as long as it is reasonable. Thus an instructor could ask students to pick sea level in a few cities, incorporate a median estimated curve and a range of numbers, pick the loads, and design the building for those loads.

In the absence of retrospective information, what ought to come out of this educational endeavor is a new way of thinking about changes in the future that cannot be predicted by anything that has happened in the past. Daniel gave the example of multiple megacities and the ways they might challenge the nation’s infrastructure. Nothing that has happened before can help predict the results. This new way of thinking would be a lasting contribution to engineering education, helping engineers to be forward thinking in

ways counterintuitive to the way that engineering usually gets done. It requires forecasting, which has scientific credibility and is different from standard engineering approaches, which rely on historical data and demonstrated capacities.

Fundamental challenges for climate change specialists are those of probability and risk, and these need to be conveyed even to skeptics of climate change in light of the associated risks. Daniel suggested using “resiliency” to label engineering for climate change. There is at the very least a risk that the climate change projections for sea level rise will turn out to be correct, so engineering should ensure resilient design and construction in the face of those projections.

In closing, Daniel urged consideration of global change in a quantitative way that is consistent with the way engineers are taught to think about data. Manufacturing provides business-driven opportunities that may be the most immediate recourse. Complex systems engineering for consideration of food chain issues, for instance, is imperative; the study of such issues would have spin-off benefits and relevance to a lot of other educational programs. He proposed a design goal for educational purposes; for example, an environmental engineering course might develop projections for sea level change that could be used in many kinds of courses.

Finally, he pointed to the need to build a network of people who come at the issues from different perspectives and can develop good lines of communication. With a focus on education, this network can encourage interdisciplinary communication and development of a common language, which is a great place to start.

Discussion

In the question and answer session, Daniel agreed on the urgent need to train engineers for the growth of the developing world; he predicted that private firms, not academia, will likely drive the response, with rapid development and enormous business opportunities in product sales for the rising middle class and global infrastructure needs. Certain industries understand that their business models need to include climate, such as the insurance, water, and earthquake design industries, which also have a history of using probabilistic analysis.

Professional societies will have a role in continuing education, given the limited hours available in the engineering curriculum. Different predictions of sea level rise pose a probabilistic problem that needs to be communicated well, he concluded, and expressed optimism about the ability of untenured and junior faculty to enter this field and gain tenure.

Geoengineering Potentials and Myths

Alan Robock, a distinguished professor of climatology in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University, began by asking, What shall we do about climate change? Some say that mitigation can slow climate change, and doing it now will be cheaper than waiting to study the impacts and adapt. Explanations for some cycles include the role of volcanic eruptions and atmospheric pollution (and recovery from them). Some people have argued that if this happens naturally, why not do it on purpose?

But Robock stated that geoengineering, or trying to control the climate system, is not the answer. He noted two technically different approaches to geoengineering with different ethical and policy implications: carbon capture and storage removes gases that cause warming, and solar radiation management blocks out the sunlight. He focused on the latter.

Solar Radiation Management

There are four techniques for solar radiation management:

• an aerosol layer in the stratosphere that mimics the climate effects of volcanic eruptions,
• the seeding of clouds in the troposphere to make them brighter so they reflect more sunlight,
• surface brightening to reflect more sunlight, and
• space reflector satellites or a “cloud” of satellites [not discussed].

Of these, the two most feasible methods, which have also gotten the most attention, are cloud brightening and the stratosphere aerosol layer.

Ships have been designed to spray ocean salt up into the clouds to make them brighter so they reflect more sunlight. Several climate model simulations have examined how this might work in areas around the world with low clouds—off the west coast of North and South America and off the coast of Africa; they found a large reduction in precipitation response over the Amazon. Advocates have said that the brightening can be quickly stopped, but drought in the Amazon may be more difficult to stop.

The stratosphere plan has gotten the most attention. With diminished hopes for mitigation, Robock indicated that several scientific papers have stimulated this attention by postulating that, since volcanic eruptions cause cooling, emulating them could help. (More on this approach below.)

Technical Challenges

Robock does not believe any of these proposals stands up to careful scrutiny. Ideas for surface brightening do not seem particularly promising. Painting roads white doesn’t last long and covers a small area. A model examining brightening leaves found that their surface would not get as warm, resulting in less evaporation and fewer clouds, so the effect would be warming and not cooling. Putting bubbles in the ocean to make it brighter has been proposed, but there are a number of technical difficulties.

One idea is to engineer particles that will not destroy ozone and place them appropriately in the stratosphere to achieve the desired effect. But stratospheric winds would blow them around and numerous negative consequences are likely—regional climate change (e.g., temperature and precipitation changes); rapid warming when the particle seeding stops; potential inability to stop the seeding rapidly, particularly in emergencies; continuing ocean acidification; ozone depletion and enhanced acid precipitation when the particles return to earth; whitening of the sky and less solar radiation for solar power; effects on plants of the diffused radiation; effects on cirrus clouds; and environmental impacts of aerosol injection.¹³

Using a state-of-the-art climate model from NASA, his research team modeled putting particles in the stratosphere over 20 years and then stopping for 20 years. Previous uses of the same model to simulate volcanic eruptions did very well, so this approach has some credibility. For precipitation changes the model found a reduction of precipitation over Africa, India, and China, where several billion people live (just as previous volcanic eruptions have resulted in lower river flows and less precipitation). And cooler continents and warmer oceans drive a weaker monsoon.

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¹³ Robock, Alan, Luke Oman, and Georgiy Stenchikov, 2008: Regional climate responses to geoengineering with tropical and Arctic SO2 injections. J. Geophys. Res., 113, D16101, doi:10.1029/2008JD010050. See also: Robock, Alan, Allison B. Marquardt, Ben Kravitz, and Georgiy Stenchikov, 2009: The benefits, risks, and costs of stratospheric geoengineering. Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L19703, doi:10.1029/2009GL039209.

Data also show that after volcanic eruptions chemical reactions on the particles release chlorine, which destroys ozone. Another effect of volcanic eruption is less direct light because of a lingering thin cloud that scatters the light, which may interfere with solar energy production.

Difficult Questions and Moral Hazards

The results of these simulations raise difficult questions. If global average temperature could be controlled, what should it be? Should it be constant? Set at a 1980 or an 1880 average? Suppose Russia and Canada want it a bit warmer, but islands in the tropics want it cooler—who decides? There is no governance mechanism for such decisions. What if the project were discontinued and global warming progressed much more rapidly than if nothing had been done? An increased rate of change would be really dangerous, he warned.

Robock cited further concerns: the potential for human error, and recognition that much is unknown. There are moral hazards associated with belief in technological fixes. People might embrace the possibility of geoengineering and ignore needs for mitigation. Geoengineering might be used for military purposes (although a treaty might prohibit such use). Stratospheric aerosol would interfere with Earth-based astronomy and affect star gazing, satellite remote sensing, tropospheric chemistry, and passive solar heating. It would increase sunburn and effects on airplanes flying in an acid cloud up in the stratosphere.

On the other hand, Robock acknowledged reasons why geoengineering might be a good idea. It could cool the planet and reduce or reverse sea ice melting, ice sheet melting, and sea level rise. It could increase plant productivity, provide an increased sink of CO₂, and have unexpected benefits. Can these potential effects be quantified so that society can make an informed decision about the use of geoengineering in the future?

Robock reminded the audience that continuing with business as usual will continue to put out more greenhouse gases, which will force more climate change. Mitigation can reduce the forcing. Carbon capture and storage can also reduce it and potentially solve the problem. But suppose dangerous levels of climate change are reached before then? So far the only reasonable approach is solar radiation management to temporarily reduce the most dangerous aspects of climate change. But would this approach add to the dangers? That is where more research is needed, as set forth by the American Meteorological Society and American Geophysical Union (Box 3.1).

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change convinced the United States to prevent anthropogenic interference with the climate system; the United States thought that such interference referred to the production of greenhouse gases, but, based on the concerns described above, Robock thinks geoengineering should be added to the Framework pledge.

Discussion

In the question and answer period, Robock pointed out that what is dangerous is different for different individuals. Climate change already is bad for some people, and for others it will get worse and worse. The idea to return to 2°C above preindustrial levels, which was agreed on in Copenhagen, is arbitrary and is a distribution, not a number.

A statement issued by the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union defines geoengineering as intentional control of the climate system. Robock believes there is a distinction between intentionally controlling climate and doing it inadvertently. He pointed out that direct air capture, which involves removing CO₂ from the atmosphere through some chemical means and burying it underground, can be done. However, it is more expensive and less efficient than taking CO₂ out of the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants, and much energy is needed to regenerate the chemicals for each cycle of direct air capture. There is also the question of where and how to sequester the CO₂. Mechanisms to remove something that is causing harm would be a great thing for engineers to work on.

Robock is a member of the UK Royal Society’s Solar Radiation Management Initiative, which has been discussing the ethical implications of geoengineering (which Robock notes could be viewed as intentional pollution in the name of science) in the atmosphere or in the ocean. A London Convention on pollution of the ocean stopped some experiments, but for much research, particularly in the ocean, there is no ethical guidance and there are no stipulations about what impacts to watch for. Within a country there may be regulations, but they do not apply to work at sea.

Remarks on the Presentations

Katie Johnson, an electrical engineer and director of the Center for Research and Education in Wind at CSM, saw four themes running through the session. One was the need for engineering education beyond the technical aspects. Social justice, for example, is both a domestic and an international issue, in terms of who “controls the thermostat.” The second recurrent theme is the urgent need for transformational, not just incremental, innovation.

Third is the question of public support of funding for the necessary research, and the need for engineers to clearly convey what they can do. The decision to fund the space program to go to the moon is an example of designing for future events with little to no historical record, but the societal support was there to do it. That excitement may be needed today to drive the necessary transformational changes.

The fourth key point was that problems involving food or water or health do not necessarily look like they involve engineering to people who are not engineers. Engineering education needs to prepare students to recognize and address this lack of understanding.

David Slutzky, a research associate professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning as well as the Science, Technology, and Society Department at the University of Virginia, agreed with Johnson and reiterated the theme of urgency: The timeline for improving the engineering curriculum is short, and incremental change will not suffice. In addition, the response needs to be broad and inclusive. Integration of climate change perspectives throughout traditional engineering education is necessary, as is integration of engineering with policymaking and business. Economic and social questions also have to be addressed, such as: Who pays and how? Who makes sacrifices?

Solutions will require integrating engineers’ thought processes and actions with those of other disciplines. Perspectives from the field of science and technology studies (STS) are relevant here, but will have to be

much more directed if they are going to help with engineering approaches to climate change. STS faculty members will have to teach engineering students how to be good ambassadors in this area.

Engineers also need to become comfortable with not just uncertainty but also unknowns, although it was not clear to Slutzky how that can be incorporated systematically in the engineering disciplines. Participants suggested a certification program and the use of case studies, which make discernible the necessary steps in a process to get things done. For instance, discussion of hurricane Katrina can illustrate the relationship between land use policy decisions about marshlands and the level of inundation that occurred in New Orleans, and highlight the political arguments about levee design.

What are the best ways to communicate about abstract—and sometimes hard to support—ideas about the projected negative consequences of not doing something, or of doing something poorly, to address a threat that is perceived as unproven? Slutzky posited that resolving this and other issues identified in this session would require involvement across multiple sectors—from undergraduate engineering education to the professional societies to practitioners and customer interfaces—to ensure that difficult choices receive adequate consideration.

General Discussion

In the few minutes remaining, participants noted that the need for innovation can conflict with the need for well-accepted standards for engineering practice, particularly in contexts where litigation is likely to be an issue. But careful research can promote innovation, and junior faculty in particular can be encouraged to undertake innovative projects.

Although improvements in weather forecasting enable better response to catastrophes, TV weather forecasters are just beginning to understand and come to grips with climate change in their reports. The American Meteorological Society committee that wrote the recommendations for undergraduate education recently added a requirement for the addition of climate change to the undergraduate meteorology curriculum to improve understanding among weather forecasters and other meteorologists.

Examining Interventions

In the capstone workshop, two speakers examined risk and adaptation strategies from engineering perspectives, a third presented a case study of adaptation to sea level rise, and the fourth focused on assisting climate decision making when facing scientific uncertainty.¹⁴

Armin Munevar, global water resources director, CH2M Hill, presented “An Engineering Perspective on Climate Adaptation, Risk, and Resiliency.” He noted that climate change is leading firms to recognize that past, prediction-oriented approaches to reducing and managing uncertainty need to incorporate approaches that accept irreducible uncertainties and emphasize resiliency, robustness, and adaptive management, for instance through flexible design approaches. He used scenario planning for the Colorado River system as an example and underscored the need for partnerships among science/academia and the private, public, and NGO sectors to address the problems.

David Lapp, P.Eng., manager, professional practice, Engineers Canada, Secretariat, Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC), discussed “Infrastructure Climate Risk Assessment in Canada: An Engineering Strategy for Adaptation.” Engineers Canada, the country’s national body for the

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¹⁴ Video and slides from these capstone presentations are available at www.regonline.com/builder/site/tab2.aspx?EventID=1155563. The summaries here point out the range of technical and policy options underway or under consideration to address issues of climate and infrastructure needs.

profession of engineering, accredits Canadian undergraduate engineering programs, is a member of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO), and chairs the WFEO Committee on Engineering and the Environment. Lapp described the protocol PIEVC has developed to examine the risks climate change poses to Canadian infrastructure and ways to mitigate and adapt to those risks.¹⁵

Greg Kiker, associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering at the University of Florida, looked at Florida’s vulnerability to sea level rise. He described the association between the state’s growth and development and sea level rise, and reiterated the difficulties that face decision making in complex, coupled human-natural systems. The use of numerous models, scenarios, and data sources is necessary to develop integrated information for use in decision making about managing habitat and development in Florida’s most threatened coastal areas in the 21^st century.

Using a case of storm surge, Robert Lempert, director, Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition, RAND Corporation, spoke about “Informing Climate-Related Decisions When the Science Is Uncertain.” He stressed the need to acknowledge unpredictability when dealing with the deep uncertainties of climate change and to face these challenges when making investment decisions. He recommended a backward analysis—looking at what happens if a strategy fails to meet its goals—and including stakeholder engagement as a way of moving ahead on infrastructure investment. He analyzed two cases, Port of Los Angeles infrastructure planning and the Louisiana Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, to demonstrate the merits of this approach.

The workshop also included a panel on uses and plans for Colorado River water resources as they affect the southwest region of the United States. Carly Jerla, comanager of the Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study, US Bureau of Reclamation, reviewed the study results, including a variety of criteria for assessing options in the near and longer terms as well as next steps toward implementation.

Kay Brothers, former deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), explained the effects of drought on the SNWA decision to construct an additional water intake lower in Lake Mead.

On behalf of Chuck Cullom, Central Arizona Project (CAP) geologist/hydrologist, Mohammed Mahmoud reviewed the history and characteristics of the CAP aqueduct, designed to divert the remainder of the Arizona allocation of the Colorado River for urban and agricultural use. A seven percent reduction in the Lower Colorado River Basin would result in a 30 percent reduction in CAP water allocations.. Planning and adaptation studies are under way.

Clifford Neal, water resources advisor for the city of Phoenix, reported that the city has adapted to growth by developing numerous programs to stabilize water demand and wastewater generation. Future shortages in supplies and impacts of climate change could require more interventions, such as expanded local well capacity, underground storage and recovery, demand management, fees, and river augmentation.

In Summary

Presentations and discussion indicate that a wide range of interventions to develop and use engineered systems in society are under discussion and underway. They are intended to address the influence of climate change on sociotechnical systems. The implications of these developments for engineering education and education more broadly may be a fruitful area for the CCEP to explore.

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¹⁵ For a more detailed account of Engineers Canada initiatives, see the section on Engineering Professional Societies in chapter 7.