As far as I am concerned, the most important challenge ahead of engineering is to maintain a sustainable development along with the fast progressing civilization. The sustainability I mentioned here refers not only to solving environmental problems while pursuing economic growth but also earning people’s long time support for the development of engineering.
On the one hand, it is undeniable that the world is suffering from serious environmental pollution. Most crucially, the large emission of carbon dioxide has already driven the ecosystem into an imbalanced condition and hence, resulting in global warming, acid rain and many other problems. These effects will possibly threaten lives by causing the shortage of food and clean water, the flooded land and even the irregular natural disasters. There is an urgent call for new technologies. Nowadays, renewable energy has been promoted to substitute fossil fuels, which will definitely help to decrease the emission of carbon dioxide. However, the technology is not advanced enough to be widely applied (National Academy of Engineering, 2008). Thus, in order to maintain the sustainability of the environment, engineers still bear a huge burden.
On the other hand, the successful existing technologies have not been widely accepted and implemented. If the effort of engineers can only benefit a small scale of people, there will be a big deviation from men to men which is likely to draw back world’s advancement (ibid). As a result, it is of great importance to let more people learn the knowledge about engineering and use them to benefit their life (Ramakrishna, 2008). Only by doing so can people show more support, both economically and mentally, to the sustainable development of engineering.
What’s more, comparing to the problem I explanted above, other grand challenges for engineering introduced in the two reference article are either not as important or being difficult to deal with. The challenges to guarantee human health and increase the joy of living are not as crucial as maintaining the sustainability which decides the fortune of all the living creatures on the earth. In addition, facing the nature dangers, what engineering can do is mostly about prediction but not prevention.
All in all, how to achieve the sustainability of environment and the development of engineering is the most crucial task for the engineers, and there is still a long way to go.
Reference:
1.National Academy of Engineering. (2008, Feb.). Introduction to the grand challenges of engineering. Retrieved Aug.22, 2008, from http://engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221/.aspx
2. Ramakrishna, S. (2007, August 5). The expanding world of engineers. The Sunday Times, p. 25.
On the one hand, it is undeniable that the world is suffering from serious environmental pollution. Most crucially, the large emission of carbon dioxide has already driven the ecosystem into an imbalanced condition and hence, resulting in global warming, acid rain and many other problems. These effects will possibly threaten lives by causing the shortage of food and clean water, the flooded land and even the irregular natural disasters. There is an urgent call for new technologies. Nowadays, renewable energy has been promoted to substitute fossil fuels, which will definitely help to decrease the emission of carbon dioxide. However, the technology is not advanced enough to be widely applied (National Academy of Engineering, 2008). Thus, in order to maintain the sustainability of the environment, engineers still bear a huge burden.
On the other hand, the successful existing technologies have not been widely accepted and implemented. If the effort of engineers can only benefit a small scale of people, there will be a big deviation from men to men which is likely to draw back world’s advancement (ibid). As a result, it is of great importance to let more people learn the knowledge about engineering and use them to benefit their life (Ramakrishna, 2008). Only by doing so can people show more support, both economically and mentally, to the sustainable development of engineering.
What’s more, comparing to the problem I explanted above, other grand challenges for engineering introduced in the two reference article are either not as important or being difficult to deal with. The challenges to guarantee human health and increase the joy of living are not as crucial as maintaining the sustainability which decides the fortune of all the living creatures on the earth. In addition, facing the nature dangers, what engineering can do is mostly about prediction but not prevention.
All in all, how to achieve the sustainability of environment and the development of engineering is the most crucial task for the engineers, and there is still a long way to go.
Reference:
1.National Academy of Engineering. (2008, Feb.). Introduction to the grand challenges of engineering. Retrieved Aug.22, 2008, from http://engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221/.aspx
2. Ramakrishna, S. (2007, August 5). The expanding world of engineers. The Sunday Times, p. 25.
