Survival is the driver for adaptation: safety engineering changed the future, security engineering prevented disasters and transition engineering navigates the pathway to the climate-safe future
-
Susan Krumdieck
Abstract
Consider a simple idea describing the time, space and relationship scales of survival. Engineering has been going along with the current paradigm that growth in wealth and material consumption can continue through innovation and technology development. The proposed survival continuum concept represents a new way to think about sustainability that has clear implications for influencing engineering projects in all fields. The argument for survival as the driver for adaptation is developed sequentially, building on theory, definition, examples and history. The key idea is that sustainability will be effectively addressed by a new engineering discipline furthering development of the field of safety engineering with longer time scale, broader space scale and more complex relationship scale. The implication is that the past 100-year development of safety engineering can be leveraged to fast-track the inclusion of sustainability risk management throughout the entire engineering profession. The conclusion is that a new, interdisciplinary field, Transition Engineering, is emerging as the way our society will achieve sustainability-safety through rapid reduction in fossil fuel use and reduction in detrimental social and environmental impacts of industrialization.
Acknowledgments
More than 20 postgraduate students and the many colleagues who over the past 20 years have participated in sustainability transition research with so much passion and commitment.
-
Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
-
Research funding: None declared.
-
Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
References
1. Bruntland, GH. Our common future. In: Bruntland, GH, editor. The world commission on environment and development. Cambridge: Oxford University Press; 1987.Search in Google Scholar
2. Tainter, J. The collapse of complex societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1988.Search in Google Scholar
3. Diamond, J. Collapse. New York: Penguine Group; 2005.Search in Google Scholar
4. Daily, HE, Farley, J. Ecological economics: principles and applications. Washington DC: Island Press; 2004:15–35 pp.Search in Google Scholar
5. Hawken, P, Lovins, A, Lovins, LH. Natural capital. Boston: Little, Brown and Co; 1999.Search in Google Scholar
6. Lashitew, AA. Corporate uptake of the Sustainable Development Goals: mere greenwashing or an advent of institutional change? J Int Bus Policy 2021;4:184–200. https://doi.org/10.1057/s42214-020-00092-4.Search in Google Scholar
7. UN General Assembly. Our Common Future. Oxford University Press; 1987:43 p.Search in Google Scholar
8. Hirsch, RL, Bezdek, R, Wendling, R. Peaking of world oil production: impacts, mitigation, & risk management. NETL; 2005. https://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Energy/Peak_Oil/Hirsch_Report_Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf [Accessed 29 May 2021].10.2172/939271Search in Google Scholar
9. Flannery, T. The weather makers. Melbourne: Text Publishing; 2005.Search in Google Scholar
10. Christie, BA, Miller, KK, Cooke, R, White, JG, Environmental sustainability in higher education: what do academics think? Environ Educ Res 2015;21:655–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2013.879697.Search in Google Scholar
11. Nattrass, B, Altomare, M. The natural step for business: wealth, ecology & the evolutionary corporation. B.C. Canada: New Society Publishers; 1999.Search in Google Scholar
12. Encarta. Encarta world English dictionary. New York: Saint Martins Press; 2009.Search in Google Scholar
13. Greer, JM. The long descent. BC Canada: New Society Publishers; 2008.Search in Google Scholar
14. MacDonald, E. Behind the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. FOXBusiness; 2011. www.foxbusiness.com [Accessed May 2011].Search in Google Scholar
15. ASEE. A brief history of the American Society of Safety Engineers; 2011. http://www.asse.org/about/history.php [Accessed May].Search in Google Scholar
16. Krumdieck, S. Chapter 13. Transition engineering. In: Kreith, F, Krumdieck, S, editors. Principles of sustainable energy, 2nd ed. Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group; 2014. pp. 698–728.Search in Google Scholar
17. Vincoli, JW. Basic guide to system safety, 3rd ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons; 2014.10.1002/9781118904589Search in Google Scholar
18. Murphy, TWJr. Energy and human ambitions on a finite planet; 2021 (online textbook). https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions [Accessed 28 May 2021].Search in Google Scholar
19. Krumdieck, S, Dantas, A. The visioning project: Part of the transition engineering process. In: 3rd International conference on sustainability engineering and science, Auckland, New Zealand, 9–12 December; 2008.Search in Google Scholar
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Reviews
- Magnetic characterization of magnetoactive elastomers containing magnetic hard particles using first-order reversal curve analysis
- Microscopic understanding of particle-matrix interaction in magnetic hybrid materials by element-specific spectroscopy
- Biodeinking: an eco-friendly alternative for chemicals based recycled fiber processing
- Bio-based polyurethane aqueous dispersions
- Cellulose-based polymers
- Biodegradable shape-memory polymers and composites
- Natural substances in cancer—do they work?
- Personalized and targeted therapies
- Identification of potential histone deacetylase inhibitory biflavonoids from Garcinia kola (Guttiferae) using in silico protein-ligand interaction
- Chemical computational approaches for optimization of effective surfactants in enhanced oil recovery
- Social media and learning in an era of coronavirus among chemistry students in tertiary institutions in Rivers State
- Techniques for the detection and quantification of emerging contaminants
- Occurrence, fate, and toxicity of emerging contaminants in a diverse ecosystem
- Updates on the versatile quinoline heterocycles as anticancer agents
- Trends in microbial degradation and bioremediation of emerging contaminants
- Power to the city: Assessing the rooftop solar photovoltaic potential in multiple cities of Ecuador
- Phytoremediation as an effective tool to handle emerging contaminants
- Recent advances and prospects for industrial waste management and product recovery for environmental appliances: a review
- Integrating multi-objective superstructure optimization and multi-criteria assessment: a novel methodology for sustainable process design
- A conversation on the quartic equation of the secular determinant of methylenecyclopropene
- Recent developments in the synthesis and anti-cancer activity of acridine and xanthine-based molecules
- An overview of in silico methods used in the design of VEGFR-2 inhibitors as anticancer agents
- Fragment based drug design
- Advances in heterocycles as DNA intercalating cancer drugs
- Systems biology–the transformative approach to integrate sciences across disciplines
- Pharmaceutical interest of in-silico approaches
- Membrane technologies for sports supplementation
- Fused pyrrolo-pyridines and pyrrolo-(iso)quinoline as anticancer agents
- Membrane applications in the food industry
- Membrane techniques in the production of beverages
- Statistical methods for in silico tools used for risk assessment and toxicology
- Dicarbonyl compounds in the synthesis of heterocycles under green conditions
- Green synthesis of triazolo-nucleoside conjugates via azide–alkyne C–N bond formation
- Anaerobic digestion fundamentals, challenges, and technological advances
- Survival is the driver for adaptation: safety engineering changed the future, security engineering prevented disasters and transition engineering navigates the pathway to the climate-safe future
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Reviews
- Magnetic characterization of magnetoactive elastomers containing magnetic hard particles using first-order reversal curve analysis
- Microscopic understanding of particle-matrix interaction in magnetic hybrid materials by element-specific spectroscopy
- Biodeinking: an eco-friendly alternative for chemicals based recycled fiber processing
- Bio-based polyurethane aqueous dispersions
- Cellulose-based polymers
- Biodegradable shape-memory polymers and composites
- Natural substances in cancer—do they work?
- Personalized and targeted therapies
- Identification of potential histone deacetylase inhibitory biflavonoids from Garcinia kola (Guttiferae) using in silico protein-ligand interaction
- Chemical computational approaches for optimization of effective surfactants in enhanced oil recovery
- Social media and learning in an era of coronavirus among chemistry students in tertiary institutions in Rivers State
- Techniques for the detection and quantification of emerging contaminants
- Occurrence, fate, and toxicity of emerging contaminants in a diverse ecosystem
- Updates on the versatile quinoline heterocycles as anticancer agents
- Trends in microbial degradation and bioremediation of emerging contaminants
- Power to the city: Assessing the rooftop solar photovoltaic potential in multiple cities of Ecuador
- Phytoremediation as an effective tool to handle emerging contaminants
- Recent advances and prospects for industrial waste management and product recovery for environmental appliances: a review
- Integrating multi-objective superstructure optimization and multi-criteria assessment: a novel methodology for sustainable process design
- A conversation on the quartic equation of the secular determinant of methylenecyclopropene
- Recent developments in the synthesis and anti-cancer activity of acridine and xanthine-based molecules
- An overview of in silico methods used in the design of VEGFR-2 inhibitors as anticancer agents
- Fragment based drug design
- Advances in heterocycles as DNA intercalating cancer drugs
- Systems biology–the transformative approach to integrate sciences across disciplines
- Pharmaceutical interest of in-silico approaches
- Membrane technologies for sports supplementation
- Fused pyrrolo-pyridines and pyrrolo-(iso)quinoline as anticancer agents
- Membrane applications in the food industry
- Membrane techniques in the production of beverages
- Statistical methods for in silico tools used for risk assessment and toxicology
- Dicarbonyl compounds in the synthesis of heterocycles under green conditions
- Green synthesis of triazolo-nucleoside conjugates via azide–alkyne C–N bond formation
- Anaerobic digestion fundamentals, challenges, and technological advances
- Survival is the driver for adaptation: safety engineering changed the future, security engineering prevented disasters and transition engineering navigates the pathway to the climate-safe future
