Environmental Engineering Reference
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and highly multi-disciplinary, and, accordingly, difficult to maintain even in
the best of circumstances. It is also problematic because the learning will
probably have to occur at an institutional, rather than personal level, because
of the complexity of the systems involved and the inability of any single per-
son, no matter how qualified, to understand them in their entirety. 39
4. An important goal of Earth Systems Engineering projects should be to
support the evolution of resiliency, not just redundancy, in the system.The
two are different: a redundant system may have a backup mechanism for a
particular subsystem, but still be subject to difficult-to-predict catastrophic
failure; a resilient system will resist degradation, and, when it must, will
degrade gracefully, even under unanticipated assaults.
5. Analogously, it is preferable to design (or encourage the evolution of )
inherently safe systems, rather than engineered safe systems. An inherently
safe system, when it fails, fails in a non-catastrophic way; an engineered safe
system is designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic failure, but there is still
a finite probability that such a failure may occur.
6. There must be adequate resources available to support both the project
and associated research activities. Financial pressures can be particularly
insidious with complex engineering technologies even today. 40 Earth sys-
tem engineering projects are likely to be at least as complex as existing
technological systems, and last over longer time periods than the usual
budgetary cycles, meaning that they may be particularly prone to financial
fluctuations.
7. If any Earth Systems Engineering project is to achieve public acceptance
and social legitimacy, it must at all stages be characterized by an inclusive
dialog among all stakeholders. Not all will agree, for a number of reasons,
but to be successful, a project requires broad public support.The most obvi-
ous example of a complex technology system where this principle was not
followed is, of course, civilian nuclear power. In the United States, for exam-
ple, the secrecy and technological hubris which grew out of the nuclear
weapons program and the nuclear navy meant that both the regulators and
the experts were culturally adverse to open communication and dialog, with
eventual results for the industry that were both predictable and disastrous. 41
8. It is not enough to evolve the scientific and technological base for Earth
Systems Engineering activities which, broadly speaking, falls under the field
of industrial ecology. As the discussion above indicates, there must be par-
allel evolution along at least two other fundamental paths: ethical/religious
and institutional. Industrial ecologists must remain sensitive to these dimen-
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