Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Conclusions and Looking to the Future
David Elliott and Marion Hersh
One of the underlying themes of this topic has been the need for engineers to
adopt an ethical approach to their work and its impacts. There is a quote attributed
(satirically) to World War II German rocket engineer Wernher von Braun: 'Once the
rockets are up, who cares where they come down?' It was actually a 1960s fabrica-
tion by US comedian (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer, but although extreme, it
does capture the risks associated with divorcing technical means from social ends.
In von Braun's case, he was presumably solely interested in rockets and space
exploration and not too concerned about who paid him, or their aims or what death,
injury and other damage the rockets infl icted. Certainly there is a sense in which
some engineers like to work on purely technical problems, although most also have
wider concerns, often seeing engineering as a socially orientated activity, making
the world a better place. Whether this is always achieved is less clear. As this topic
has illustrated, some technologies arguably do not benefi t humankind, or else only
some parts of it, at the expense of others, or of the planet. As argued throughout the
topic, engineers need to be concerned with the overall ethical merits of projects they
are working on in addition to ethical professional practice. They therefore need to
become more proactive in assessing the ethical merits of the projects they are asked
or choose to work on.
However, the ethical responsibility of engineers goes beyond this. It also includes
seeking the infl uence the ways in which technology is developed and used so as to
ensure that this benefi ts humanity and the planet as a whole, rather than benefi tting
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