Cav's Place

Over a year ago, I saw an article in a newspaper which mentioned that a committee had identified the greatest engineering challenges of the century ahead and had set up a site where people could rank them and offer their solutions. They admitted that it’s mainly a “public relations” move, meant to bridge the gap between engineers and the rest of the populace, but it’s an interesting idea nevertheless.

The poll is updated by hand, since they ask for comments and not just a simple vote, and they seem to have stopped updating it on June 30, 2008. The ranking at the time was:
1. Make solar energy economical.
2. Provide energy from fusion.
3. Provide access to clean water.
4. Reverse-engineer the brain.
5. Advance personalized learning.
6. Develop carbon sequestration methods.
7. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery.
8. Restore and improve urban infrastructure.
9. Advance health informatics.
10. Prevent nuclear terror.
11. Engineer better medicines.
12. Enhance virtual reality.
13. Manage the nitrogen cycle.
14. Secure cyberspace.

If I were to briefly analyze these results, I’d say the top two spots show that people seem to be extremely worried about energy. Clean energy, if possible, but their main concern is making sure energy will be available to them, whatever the means. Having the development of carbon sequestration methods also in the top half of the classification only emphasizes that. Clean water has a deserved top spot, nothing strange about that, but I find it interesting that reverse-engineering the brain comes next, considering the ways in which such knowledge could be used. Personalized learning is another challenge that obviously deserves to be a priority, but I find it odd that engineering the tools of scientific discovery ranks so low. Many people probably don’t truly grasp the meaning of such an abstract concept, because to me it seems to be a prerequisite for pretty much everything else!
Moving on to the bottom half, I find it rather pleasing that urban infrastructure isn’t higher on the list. It means some people are really starting to think about the bigger picture and to put global problems above their own need for comfort. Health informatics and better medicines might be more important than this ranking shows, but I think they’re placed so low because of the potential for misuse and the truly rotten attitude and practices of the large pharmaceutical companies. Nuclear terror likely ranks this low because most people don’t really see it as a threat anymore, so long after the last time its effects have been truly noticeable. Virtual reality could have plenty of important uses, but many people probably don’t see it, plus that it’s true that solving many other challenges from this list would have more significant effects immediately. The nitrogen cycle should rank higher, considering the effects it has, but this is another example of a problem that people are mostly unaware of. As for the last spot, that’s certainly caused by the fact that increased security means reduced freedom, and cyberspace should be a free place. There have been way too many bad things done in the name of security already.

So how would I rank them? That’s a hard question to answer, but I’ll make an attempt and also explain why I placed each of them where I did.
1. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery. As I said above, this seems to be a prerequisite for everything else. Better scientific tools pave the way towards better and faster scientific discoveries. The others might be hard to rank, but this one’s obvious!
2. Advance personalized learning. People don’t work the same, so they need to be treated as individuals and allowed to develop and make use of their skills and interests as they are, not forced to change in order to fit the mold society would want them to fit! This would also pave the way towards better and faster discoveries.
3. Provide energy from fusion. It does seem to be the best way to generate energy, having less environmental costs than even the cleanest methods available today. If this could be achieved and handled responsibly, we’d go a long way towards living in harmony with Earth.
4. Provide access to clean water. Lack of access to clean water is a major cause for disease. More importantly, wars over the control of clean water sources are already brewing, so a solution to this problem would save us from a lot of bloodshed and suffering. Of course, a prerequisite to finding a solution to this problem is a drastic reduction of the human population worldwide, but that’s another issue.
5. Manage the nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen pollution, generally caused by fertilizers and waste, plays an important part in the degradation of the environment. This tends to be overlooked by the general public both because other environmental issues make the headlines and because solutions for it involve major changes in lifestyle, which is something most people aren’t ready for.
6. Prevent nuclear terror. When a problem gets out of sight, it tends to get worse instead of better. There are way too many nuclear warheads in this world and the fact that some questionable governments already have or will soon develop their own only increases the threat. Also, this measure should include improving the safety of nuclear power plants and better nuclear waste management, both of which are certainly required.
7. Advance health informatics. This would go a long way towards understanding and solving health problems and improving the quality of life for all. However, it must be implemented very carefully, because there is a high potential for misuse.
8. Enhance virtual reality. Putting aside the military and recreational uses, which are also very important, virtual reality is a great tool for designers as well. With it, we could learn how to use areas more effectively and create better buildings and infrastructure, improving our lives and reducing our negative impact on the environment at the same time.
9. Restore and improve urban infrastructure. As I said, if we can improve our lives while also reducing our negative impact on the environment at the same time, why shouldn’t we? But we need to be careful to put the environment above our own interests when we decide what counts as an improvement.
10. Engineer better medicines. It’s a very important issue, but the large pharmaceutical companies already have too much power and the chemicals we pour into our bodies often do more harm than good in the end. We should first change the way medicine is viewed and practiced, then work on better medicines.
11. Make solar energy economical. It’d be nice, but before we make it economical we should make it sustainable. Installing enough solar panels to cover our energy needs would require a lot of space, and the planet isn’t getting any bigger. Also, the most efficient solar panels contain indium, which is an extremely rare mineral and mining operations aren’t exactly good for the environment.
12. Reverse-engineer the brain. It would be useful, but perhaps there are things we shouldn’t tamper with until we evolve into something better. I wouldn’t trust humans to properly use the results of such a discovery.
13. Secure cyberspace. As I said before, more security tends to mean less freedom, and cyberspace should be a free place. We already see the results of this approach and they’re not good. So, instead of trying to secure the whole medium, we should educate people to take care of themselves and offer them the tools needed to improve their own security when they feel it necessary.
14. Develop carbon sequestration methods. No. Period. We need real solutions, not means of delaying the inevitable! We need to stop putting so much carbon in the atmosphere and gather some of that which is already there in order to use the components for something else. Dumping it into the ground is not an answer!

This would be it, feel free to disagree… Since some of these things are equally important, I might even disagree with myself after a while. But it was a nice exercise nevertheless and you should try it too, if you’re reading this.