President's Blog

Making Capital Improvements to Sustainable Development

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:00:00 -0400

I was recently introduced to the concept of the “five capitals” model of sustainable development by Bill Wallace. Bill is a noted author on sustainability and chairs the International Federation of Consulting Engineers Sustainable Development Committee. The five capitals model, developed by a British organization called the Forum for the Future, is made up of natural capital, social capital, human capital, manufactured capital and financial capital.

Natural capital compares natural resources and ecological process to money in the bank, i.e., capital. We can tap this capital and use it to produce goods and services. Thus, it refers to the most basic building blocks of our economy. Social capital is the connections between and within social networks. It is a primary concept in business, economics, political science, sociology and natural resources management. Human capital refers to the skills and technical knowledge embodied in labor. It is many times simply referred to as labor, one of the three factors of production. Infrastructure capital refers to the physical means of production beyond what can be found in nature. It includes all the tools, shelter, dams, roads and improvements that we have made to the natural environment. Financial capital is the money used in business to buy what they need to make the produces and provide services.

The Forum for the Future uses this construct to look at sustainability as it develops partnerships with major corporations to take on the challenge of sustainable enterprises. Its objective is to show that environmentally and socially sustainable businesses can be profitable. In the long term, it believes sustainable practices will be the only way to be profitable. The forum encourages public sector leaders to use sustainable principals for policy decision-making to help deliver a better quality of life.

Is ASCE being a leader in sustainable development? Are we doing enough in this field to challenge our public sector leaders to incorporate sustainability in their policy and decision making?

Anticipating Rising Sea Levels - and Civil Engineers' Role

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:30:00 -0400

I recently received a Request for Proposal from Worchester County, Md. Worchester County is the easternmost county in Maryland and its entire eastern border is the Atlantic Ocean. It includes the Assateague National Seashore Park, a significant barrier island along the coast of Maryland. One of Maryland’s most popular resorts is Ocean City, which also sits on a barrier island.

The objective of the county’s study is the reality that it may face significant additional storm damage and inundation as sea levels continue to rise. The county experienced a one-foot rise during the past century. Specifically, the study should address options for local responses, advantages and disadvantages of these responses, experience with other jurisdictions’ responses to sea-level rise and recommendations for sea-level/global warming responses.

In addition to the results, the study should address the range of potential sea-level rise, the probability of each rise scenario, the recommendation of scenarios for analytical purposes, the universe of local responses and a recommended county response.

Considerable attention has been given to potential sea-level rise and its possible consequences. A soon-to-be published book, “World Scientific Handbook on Coastal and Ocean Engineering,” will have a chapter on sea level rise describing major implications to coastal engineering and management. Maryland's stretch of U.S. coastline is actually identifying global warming and sea-level rise as major issues and is attempting to develop response scenarios. Clearly, there is a role for civil engineers to play in providing guidance and assistance to our coastal counties and municipalities. I am concerned that much of this effort will not be done by civil engineers, but more by land use planners.

I recently learned that Seattle is developing plans in anticipation of sea level rise. I would be curious to know if any of you have seen similar proposal requests from your local jurisdictions or municipalities.

Global Warming: What is the Civil Engineer's Role?

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:12:09 -0500

At its Orlando meeting, the ASCE Board of Direction approved revisions to two policy statements. One is entitled, "Impacts of Global Climatic Change (Policy 360)," and the other is "Greenhouse Gases (Policy 488)." Both were existing policies, but underwent extensive revisions by the Energy Environmental and Water Policy Committee. They can be found in the government relations section of ASCE's Web site.

Global warming is controversial, not only in this country, but around the world. In 1997, the United Nations met in Kyoto, Japan and developed a policy for the nations of the world to cut carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions to below 1999 levels. To date, all of the major countries have signed with the exception of Australia and the United States. The U.S. emits approximately 2.8 billion tons of CO₂annually, the most of any nation, with China a close second at nearly 2.7 billion tons.

Former Vice President Al Gore just received the Nobel Prize for his work on global warming. The other recipient of the Nobel Prize went to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There are many who firmly believe that unless we reduce our output of CO₂, and do other things to reduce global warming, these climatic changes will have dire consequences for humanity and our environment.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has held a series of hearings this year on climate legislation, the most noteworthy bill being, "America's Climate Security Act" sponsored by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. John Warner (R-VA). The bill could be reported to the Senate by early December. To read more about the Climate Security Act and to get the latest developments, visit ASCE's Government Relations Blog-Our Failing Infrastructure.

There are many others who do not believe that global warming is a result of human actions, but part of long-term climatic change. They also discount the potential negative effects on humans and the environmental consequences from global warming. One such individual who was a member of the IPCC is John Christie, director of the Earth Systems Science Center at the University of Alabama. There are other noted individuals around the world who agree with Mr. Christie.

So what are we, the civil engineers of this world, to believe? Should ASCE have a policy that goes beyond our policy on greenhouse gases, which states that ASCE believes that Congress should adopt a policy that addresses the emission of greenhouse gases? Should ASCE be more definitive in addressing global warming or should ASCE not be engaged in this debate, but focus more on the impacts of potential global warming or global climatic change as does our Policy 360?