Climate change impacts, adaptation, and the technology interface - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 122

Climate change impacts have been documented by Inuit people (Fenge 2001)
as well as by decades of research and observation based on Western science and
engineering. These effects cause foundation instability, shortening of ice-road
transportation seasons, unpredictable ice-road performance and mainte-
nance, as well as extreme weather events never before experienced. Building
construction, pipeline construction and other infrastructure construction
practices need to be adapted to account for these effects, keeping the goals of
sustainable development in mind.
The engineering design and construction industries must become more
oriented towards sustainable development goals and objectives that will meet
the needs of these Aboriginal communities. In this new phase of development,
technology transfer offers a potential pathway to sustainable development in
northern communities where workable designs must often be replaced by
optimal designs, including value engineering, life cycle costing and appropri-
ate risk management and assessment.
The importance of value engineering in the development of large, sus-
tainable engineering projects has been in focus (Stephenson 2003), whereby
Stephenson demonstrates that the concepts of value, quality and the principles
of sustainable development are synonymous. Value engineering is important
for optimizing across all essential qualities, including technical, environmen-
tal and social ones. Stephenson (2003) recommends that further research be
carried out to show how value engineering can be used as a tool for fostering
the innovation that is required to achieve sustainable development.
Technology transfer: imposed and invited
Technology transfer falls into the category of breakthrough solutions where
engineering innovation is matched with the economic needs found in the
developing world (Bone 2003). For the Canadian North, technology transfer
offers hope for economic, political and social advancement of Aboriginal peo-
ples that will serve to advance their economies, to enhance their culture and
to create a healthy and sustainable economic system within their communities
and across the North. Moreover, technology transfer is a leading change agent
between Western and other societies.
In terms of Canada's Aboriginal population, technological transfer forms a
vital link between Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal peoples, and, if done correctly
as a partnership, technological transfer can have an extremely powerful and
positive impact on this relationship. On the other hand, imposed technology
often results in heavy social costs. Thus the term 'technology' in this context
refers essentially to the products and concepts of 'Western' industrialization. For
the North in the twenty-first century, the idea of technology can be best elu-
cidated via a series of comparisons. Several salient examples follow: