To Teach … Is to touch a life, forever! Some food for thought?

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 DurlikSurvey 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?

• 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 MembersSteve Dennis BASc (Civil) 9T9+PEY MSF

Agnes Durlik BASc (Chemical) 0T5+PEY MEngLesley-Ann Foulds (Civil) 0T10 EWB

Mike Klassen (Engineering Science) 0T10 EWBMarianne Touchie (Civil) 0T9Ekaterina Tzekova (Civil) 0T9

Additional Contributors:Erika Bailey BA, MA candidate (OISE/UT)

Ashley Taylor BASc (Engineering Science) 0T5+PEY MEng

Faculty AdvisorsGabe 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…