Engineers must commit to a global responsibility

It’s an overwhelming statement: global human-made mass exceeds the overall mass of all living biomass on Earth: our buildings and infrastructure outweigh all the world’s trees and shrubs, and our plastic outweighs the dry weight of all animals. The Anthropocene has been driven mostly by our production of concrete, metal, plastic, bricks, and asphalt.

We have engineered a world with more conveniences than ever before and changed the planet more rapidly in the last 50-100 years than at any previous point in history. But is this sustainable and can we let it continue? As engineers, what’s our role in the future production and accumulation of human-made mass?

Read the full article in Water Magazine.