Place and Time - Sustainable Design: The Science of Sustainability and Green Engineering - page 158

the biggest environmental problems, we have uncovered and encountered
more intractable ones. For example, in the 1970s we were fairly happy to
see most effluent (sewage) from towns and cities meet standards of 20 parts
per million (ppm) suspended solids and 20 ppm biochemical oxygen demand
(called secondary standards ), but now we worry about certain pesticides and
heavy metals in the parts per billion (ppb) range or lower.
This brings to mind a problem not so much for green design as for environ-
mental “science.” It seems that when environmental awareness began to gain
prominence after the 1960s, some universities began to recast their science
and policy programs as “environmental.” So one began to see new programs
and departments in environmental policy, environmental studies, environmen-
tal biology, and later, environmental chemistry, environmental geography, and
even environmental physics. This often happens when a subject gains currency.
Some of this overinclusiveness may be because it is thought to be easier to
compete for grants or to attract students, but sometimes there are very small
changes beyond the new adjective in front of the department name. Even
worse, in an attempt to address the political and social import of environmen-
tal problems, some programs were built with little scientific rigor. Students
could graduate in “environmental studies” or even “environmental science”
without much scientific and mathematical underpinning.
This is not to say that environmental problems are not complex and should
not be addressed from social scientific and even humanities perspectives. They
definitely should. But rigorous science should never be sacrificed. For an en-
vironmental problems course, Vallero was recently asked to use a textbook
that included no equations. This did not occur at Duke University, where
the engineering faculty are free to choose textbooks and reading materials.
Most instructors augment texts with their own information, including math
and science, but it is troubling that a 650-page text would contain only de-
scriptive information about environmental problems without any calculations.
The review questions (i.e., homework) were for the most part open-ended
“consciousness-raising” probes, not recitations. Questions include queries like
why reintroducing species might be controversial or what role a certain politi-
cian had in legislation. These are interesting and even important, but they are
no substitute for technical questions to advance the understanding why or if
a chemical contaminant is actually going to cause an environmental problem.
Students may learn names and dates and expound complex political theory
about environmental problems and their needed solutions, but they risk lack-
ing insight into the most fundamental aspects of thermodynamics and other
physicochemical characteristics of these problems. This should be of concern
to the general public, who expects its professionals to understand the science
and that any arguments being made are grounded in first principles.