• Question: What impact do you believe climate change has and have you been involved in any movements to help?

    Asked by vast134dub on 17 Jul 2021.
    • Photo: Sam Hurst

      Sam Hurst answered on 1 Jul 2021:

      I am part of the Carbon action group for my company and I produce guidance on how builders can choose easy wins that save money and reduce carbon. unfortunately at the moment the only way to build sustainably is if its cheaper so the client makes us or the material is cheaper.

      I am making a carbon calculator now to try and change this. An example is using recycled furnace ash in concrete rather than cement.

    • Photo: Rob Gilbert

      Rob Gilbert answered on 1 Jul 2021:

      I believe climate change will have a huge impact on everyone, but especially the poor. Unfortunately it can seem like a problem too big to solve and I’m doubtful that relatively small savings in material usage at the ‘detailed design’ stage of engineering will have a significant impact. Political policy could be a better field to explore if big change is on your agenda.

    • Photo: Chloe James

      Chloe James answered on 2 Jul 2021:

      I think climate change is going to affect all of us, but despite it being such a huge problem, there are small steps everyone can take to try and sort it (like recycling more, cutting down on meat intake and using the car less)

      Something that I also do is use a browser called Ecosia. They use the money generated from as revenue to donate to reforestation programmes and plant trees where they’re needed, something that the environment greatly benefits from.

      Something that my work have done, is changing the type of paint and material used on board the ship. This means that solvents aren’t released into the atmosphere, and the paint tins are able to be recycled as they are no longer special waste. Theres more info on that here – https://www.theengineer.co.uk/environmental-destroyer/

    • Photo: Helen Randell

      Helen Randell answered on 2 Jul 2021:

      I think climate change will have a significant impact everyone’s lives including things like power, water, flooding and sea level rise. We can make buildings more resilient to these changes as well as trying to make them more efficient throughout their life so their impacts on emissions which drive climate change as small as possible. We can do this through big changes like only using renewable power in the UK grid to smaller changes like only using LED lights and both will make an impact as lots of little changes still add up to something bigger!

    • Photo: Edmond Gan

      Edmond Gan answered on 5 Jul 2021:

      Absolutely – as engineers we have a massive part to play because we are responsible for designing and developing solutions to the climate change issue!

      I am involved in Electrification. The idea is to change from existing power systems that burn fossil fuels and emit carbon emissions, to an electrified infrastructure that runs off renewable energy.

      Some of the challenges involve understanding the lifecycle cost of these solutions. For example, are we creating more pollution by making batteries, or are electric cars and planes heavier and thus consume more energy?

    • Photo: Jessica Poore

      Jessica Poore answered on 5 Jul 2021:

      I believe climate change has already had, and is going to continue to have, huge and devastating effects on the planet and our way of lives as humans. I believe we all have a responsibility to do what we can to help (it might not always be a lot – but you might inspire someone else who is in a position to do more) – and engineering can be a really good way to do that, because we have the ability to drive change to technology and society through design decisions, research and educating people.

      One of the main reasons I have chosen to work with Hydrogen refuelling and before that with renewable electricity generation (water power), are because I feel like it’s my best chance to help as much as I can. Hydrogen (when it’s produced in the right way) can be a clean fuel for vehicles like lorries, buses and even cars or forklift trucks – it’ll be a key part of helping us move away from petrol and diesel burning. We do what we can at home too – but the biggest changes will probably be from inventions or government change – and we can all inspire those too!

    • Photo: Tommy Shinton

      Tommy Shinton answered on 6 Jul 2021:

      Climate change is having a huge impact and it will only get worse unfortunately. One impact is that we are seeing more extreme rainfall – which causes lots of flooding – so when we design things like roads, schools, buildings etc. we need to consider the predicted worst storms and the amount of water that’s going to come out the sky! It can be hard to predict this and there’s some very clever scientists that do work which help, but it can be as much as adding 50% or more to the amount of rainfall we’d expect depending on where it is in the country and how far into the future we’re looking.

    • Photo: Tom Kitching

      Tom Kitching answered on 12 Jul 2021:

      I think the engineers who have already answered this question have explained what impact climate change will have, but the important thing to note is that we as individuals, as well as engineers can ALL have an impact.
      I am currently sustainability champion for my office. I try to ensure that projects consider sustainability throughout the project, and implement solutions that improves the projects impact on the environment.
      I previously worked for a company who helped clients build energy from waste plants. Although these do not sound environmentally friendly, they incinerate waste to produce heat that is ultimately used to produce electrical power (like a coal or gas plant). The added benefit is that it solves two problems in one – energy production and reducing the amount of waste to landfill. The only problem being that it does produce CO2, which is obviously a greenhouse gas. It’s not the long term solution, but it does solve one of the world problems that is the amount of waste we produce.

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