Not Like Yesterday

Martin Wolf of the Financial Tines is globally regarded as one of the best writers on economics.  What he thinks, writes, and how he views the world is considered in high regard.  He understands capitalism and globalism; Wolf and other writers and economists for institutions like the Financial Times need to be listened to.

Wolf's May 22, 2013 column (Climate sceptics have already one) should be an eye-opening wake-up call for engineering.  Engineering should understand that climate change will produce a future that will not look like yesterday.  From the column:

"The chances that humanity will achieve the reduction needed to keep C02 concentrations below 450 parts per million and so greatly reduce the risks of a rise in global temperature of more than 2 degrees C are close to zero.  The 25-40 per cent cut in emissions of high-income countries by 2020 needed  to put the world on that path, will not happen.

The attempt to shift our choices away from the ones now driving ever rising emissions has failed.  The reasons for this future are deep-seated.  Only the threat of more imminent disaster is likely to change this and, by then, it may well be too late.  This is a depressing truth.  It may also prove a damming failure."

The insurance industry has already started to react to our collective failure.  The Dallas Morning News reported today that homeowners insurance rates from Cape Cod to the southern tip of Texas have risen sharply since 2003 (Surging insurance costs smack coastal-state homeowners).  From the article:

" . . . claims from severe weather has gone up.  The Insurance Research Council found hurricanes and other weather catastrophes caused 39 percent  of U.S. homeowners insurance claims payments from 2004 to 2011, compared with 25 percent form 1997 to 2003."

The insurance industry is in the business of thinking about the risk and consequences of tomorrow not being like yesterday.  The industry is also in the business of understanding failure.  They understand that "success" means they must be really good at risk quantification and the assessment of consequences.  Most businesses are "success" based - - the insurance industry has to fundamentally embrace failure.

Engineering is a "success" professional, but the consequences of climate change will require significant segments of engineering to also embrace failure.  In a narrow sense, resilience engineering is about learning to embrace failure.  Our future that will "not be yesterday" will require us to adapt to the inevitable that Mr. Wolf has outlined.  A future of system failures - - things break and larger natural disasters will happen.  Failure is real and the new world of engineering must be about a collective understanding that engineers can't prevent many of our future climate change related failures.

Our future will not be like yesterday.  Resilience engineering represents out future - - not in hopes of becoming impervious to failure, but rather to become better able to adapt to it when it occurs.