Change or Collapse? – Transforming Society and the New Engineer
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Change or Collapse? – Transforming Society and the New Engineer
01.02.2010

The current societal paradigm of economic growth through ever increasing consumption of material and energy resources is clearly unsustainable. We are fast approaching the apex of this splurge; a ‘perfect storm’ of climate change, water, food and energy shortages has been predicted by 2030.

According to Dr Edmond Byrne who will deliver the next lecture of the 2010 College of Science, Engineering and Food Science (SEFS) Public Lecture Series at UCC, society requires rapid transformation to avoid environmental, economic and social collapse. Supply and demand must both be tackled and engineers will design technologies to help realise this change. However the old engineering approach of optimising well-defined problems will not emancipate us from the current trajectory. The ‘new engineer’ must embrace an ethos whereby sustainability becomes the context of engineering practice.

The lecture titled: “Change or Collapse? – Transforming Society and the New Engineer” will be delivered on Wednesday, February 3rd at 8pm in Boole IV Lecture Theatre.

Edmond Byrne lectures in Process & Chemical Engineering at UCC.  He is qualified with a BE (Chemical) and PhD in Process and Chemical Engineering.  He is chair of the 3rd International Symposium on Engineering Education to be held at UCC on 1-2 July 2010, under the theme “Educating Engineers for a Changing World - Leading Transformation from an Unsustainable Global Society”.

Organised by Professor William Reville, Public Awareness of Science Officer, UCC, the highly popular lecture series, continues weekly until March 10th 2010.

Admission to the lecture is free, and as always, members of the public are invited to attend. See http://understandingscience.ucc.ie

Picture: Dr Edmond Byrne

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