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Climate change: Do we have the skills to tackle it?
Former Community Member
By working more closely with schools, colleges, and universities, can industry prioritise reskilling and upskilling the current workforce? How do we ensure future engineers have the right skills to address climate change? Comment below to share your thoughts! You can also learn more in our recent IET skills for net zero and a green recovery 2020 survey.
It is all a total waste of time and money, our contribution to climate change is so small on a global scale, any change on our part will have no effect whatsoever globally.
It is all a total waste of time and money, our contribution to climate change is so small on a global scale, any change on our part will have no effect whatsoever globally.
But if everybody takes that attitude, then nobody will do anything.
The IET is a global organisation, not a UK organisation. "We" are everybody in the world.
Even if we do take a UK-Centric view, the UK researches and develop technologies that are used world wide.
And if we want to be really selfish and mercenary progressing to e.g. carbon neutral therefore provides a lot of work for UK engineers. (Not that that's the point, at least as far as I'm concerned.)
As Simon says.
Personally (having just seen comments on another thread on this forum re wind power) I find it very frustrating when a profession that is supposed to be based around innovation and development seems obsessed with rubbishing advances in technology. Fortunately I suspect the people who post in these forums are not those who are actually leading the engineering profession, which is why they feel the need to post here. And fortunately again the views expressed on these forums (including the views expressed in this post I'm writing now) have no influence on anything at all - it's a bit sad that that's the one cheering point I find in these types of discussions.
There is no point in spending billions in tax payers money for a vanity project to bolster the standing of any current incumbent if the major polluters are not going to cut their emissions. I know it all sound so very righteous, which seems to be the current fad, and I understand people thinking it is the right thing to do but our contribution to global pollution is so small we will make no difference globally and we will just impoverish ourselves in the process.
Furthermore, engineering is not about political correctness, you don’t have to be politically correct to be a good engineer.
The climate has always "changed" over millions of years without human intervention for most of the time. Now if you were to talk about pollution then I might be interested, but human "climate change" no.
The simple solution, then, is not to spend billions of taxpayers money.
If somebody is polluting, tell them to stop polluting. Cost to the taxpayer - negligible. If we want more wind power and less gas, tax gas more and wind less - the net cost to the taxpayer can be zero if you wish. If we don't like plastic bags, tax them and don't tax paper ones. Cost to the taxpayer - negligible (or even negative). And so on.
All too often, people are desperately looking for excuses not to solve problems. Or simply denying that there is a problem.
We're supposed to be engineers. Engineers find solutions to problems. That's what they are for. Saying "it's all too hard" doesn't make any progress, ever.
It’s not too hard, it’s pointless. Unless the seriously big polluters change then there is absolutely no point in us doing so. We are a minuscule island on the planet, why impoverish ourselves for some virtuous cause that will, globally, make absolutely no difference whatsoever, it is absolute madness but appeals to the virtuous fools following the current fad.
Oh, and by the way I do not subscribe to the tax everything policy, it generally disproportionately disadvantages the less well off.
Can we bring this discussion back to the OP's questions please as we're straying off topic. ?
The questions asked are 'Can industry prioritise reskilling and upskilling the current workforce?' and 'How do we ensure future engineers have the right skills to address climate change?'
I think I am quite on topic, I am suggesting that we shouldn't be spending tax payers money on unachievable or pointless campaigns. Leave it to the private sector and market forces - far more effective. A fair point of view I think.
