How can your profession help solve or reduce climate change? Everyone in their daily lives can do a lot to help reduce their contribution to climate change. As a mechanical engineer I can do a lot of different things that can better the environment for the future. We, as engineers, have the knowledge of lots of different things. It is up to us to use this knowledge to help our planet and be part of the solution of global warming and not the problem. In the following paragraphs I will be discussing different ways we can reduce climate change as engineers and different things that are being done today.
Throughout most of my mechanical engineering classes there has been a big emphasis on eco-friendly products. While coming up with ideas for different projects we have to think about the carbon footprint that we will leave behind. We have to think about the materials that we are using, where we are getting the materials from, the transportation used to get the materials, how we will mass produce, and a lot more. An example of this would be if we were to order materials, it would be eco-friendlier to get material locally instead of from China because of all the gasoline that isn’t burn from shipping. Its all about ethics when it comes to designing a product. Engineers today face ethical questions every day when they come up with a new product.
Engineers in the automotive industry face these ethical questions all the time. For example, if we were building a car we have to think about the emission that it will produce. It is up to us as engineers to reduce the emissions that is produce by the car that we created. If we can’t, then we have to move on to a better technology that would create less emissions. Most cars today run on gasoline, which when burned produces harmful emissions that contribute to global warming. What if we, as engineers, made cars run on B100 biodiesel fuel instead? Then there would be less emissions in the environment. Vehicles that use biodiesel produce 74% less carbon dioxide than those who use petroleum. They also produce almost zero nitrogen oxides. One way that engineers today are trying to reduce emissions in cars is through electric cars, with electric vehicles there is zero emissions that is created. This is one way that engineers are trying to decrease the effect of global warming.
