Transition Engineering Perspective Shift

Transition Engineering - what is it you are really doing? 

The answer is the same as for any engineering discipline - we make things work. What works totally depends on your perspective.

Perspective

Since 1950, and the end of the devastating world wars, making things work meant growth. Growth was the way to keep running ahead of that dark beast in the rear view mirror - The Great Depression and his nasty minions - bank failure, hyperinflation, unemployment, scarcity and hunger. We have been looking in the rear-view mirror so much that we have become future blind, letting the headlight dim until the way ahead is only a dark space bounded by ghostly converging white lines.

I have a theory that “perspective shift” is key at this time for everyone. 

• If you've been looking behind, turn around and look ahead, slow down, and turn up the high beams.

• If you already get the climate science and the urgent need for action, then you need to shift your perspective from discussing sustainability  to the transition engineering work.

• If you have not worried to much about unsustainability you need to shift your perspective to understanding what it is that everyone is now using as the over-arching requirement for any project.

• If you are a company or organization leader and you think you have done a good job because you are renting a LEED certified building, have done your CMARS accounting, and have hired a sustainability manager, then you need to shift your perspective to doing due diligence on downshift.

• If you are pretty comfortable that you are on the winning side because you click a lot of Linkedin articles on solar PV, wind and EV’s then you need to shift your perspective to focusing on what people are NOT using, and NOT buying and NOT consuming more of.

• If you are an engineer, thinking your job is whatever the client wants – done according to best practice and ethics and safety considerations – then you need to shift your perspective to being part of the transition. 

• If you think that there are solutions we can do to fight climate change, you need to shift to understanding wicked problems and how downshift is the urgent imperative.

If you want to try your hand at shifting your perspective try this video. 

Coal Miners and Protesters