http://www.amazon.com/Smokestacks-Progressives-Environmentalists-Engineers-1881-1951/dp/0801860830Blood, Energy, and Justice
Jen presented her work with a community group in Rico, United States developing geothermal energy sources. It's some recent work that shes gotten involved with just this past summer.
She started her presentation by talking about our current energy moment in which coal accounts for 49% of our energy production and renewables account for 3% while energy consumption seems to be going up. What is our future look like then with respect to energy?
To answer this question, Jen looked at historical models of energy extraction. For example, oil was extracted in a model that valued speed, optimization of extraction, profit, privately-owned. In her new project, Jen sees the possibility of a new model of energy extraction that values community.
Citizens of Rico are concerned with where the profits will go, where the energy will go, who will own the system.
Engineers and Industrial Smoke
Juan asked the question if social justice and engineering are incompatible fields? If so, are there moments in history where engineers were concerned with justice? Juan points to the Progressive Era (1880-1920) in the United States an an example of the moment. He drew from various histories such as David Stradling's "Smokestacks and Progressives".
Through David's history and other histories, Juan found out how smoke was associated with industrialization and progress during the rapidly industrializing Progressive Era. Of course, this smoke led to environmental pollution and health problems. Engineers were not concerned with it until women's groups began to define the problem for engineers and physicians. By the mid 1910s, engineers began to agree that the smoke problem has technical fixes and smoke control can make business more efficient. During this moment, engineers began to equate efficiency (smoke reduction) with profits. In this way, engineers were legitimized (at least in the eyes of industrialists) as researchers.
Juan concluded his presentation by asking if:
- When engineers perform technical work in terms of efficiency, are they being agents of social justice?
- Could we look at other existing stories of engineers in similar ways? What would be their political function in the classroom?
- In the process of defining a problem and its solution from lay to expert terms, non-engineers are marginalized. What does that mean for engineers interested in justice?