JUNE 2005 ISSUE
readers' forum
MORE HELP NEEDED IN NEPALESE RETROFIT
Re: Starting With the Children, Alberta Engineers Retrofit School in Kathmandu Earthquake Zone, The PEGG, April 2004.
This letter is a follow-up to the referenced story.
A group of volunteers, including engineers from Stantec, Krupp Canada and Janto Engineering, have produced a preliminary design to safeguard a four-storey reinforced concrete dormitory block, housing 200 students from remote Himalayan regions. The addition of external columns and strengthening of weak partition walls are intended to prevent the predicted failure mode, involving collapse of the ground floor, followed by a “deck of cards” sliding failure of the whole building.
Fundraising has been ongoing, allowing some construction to take place in the near future under the direction of the school’s project team, headed by the school’s administrative director, a Canadian former teacher. However, another school building has been identified by the team as being of inferior construction and in urgent need of safeguarding.
We would like to expand our small team in Alberta with the main design work being carried out in Edmonton. Therefore, we are looking for one or more additional structural engineers to assist us, due to current heavy commitments of the existing team. Ideally this might include a retired engineer with some time to spare.
Tax deductible contributions to funding would also be greatly appreciated and could, for example, be specifically channelled towards sending an engineer to Nepal to carry out further on-site investigations. Offers of help can be directed to me at 780-437-3688 or andrewmgmitchell@shaw.ca.
Andrew Mitchell, P.Eng.
Edmonton
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Approval Methods Flawed
Re: AGM Favours Voting Rights for R.P.T. Members, The PEGG, May 2005.
I attended the 2005 APEGGA Annual General Meeting in Calgary and I voted against the motion to give voting rights to registered professional technologists. I made my views very clear to Council — which is made up of a small number of members — about it making important decisions on behalf of tens of thousands of members, who for the most part are unaware of the issues.
I never did understand why it was so important to admit R.P.T.s when technologists have their own society. Some R.P.T.s also wonder why. I voted against the motion in protest. A miniscule percentage of members voted on the motion. This is flawed, and just because this is the way it's been done in the past does not make it right.
Joanny Liu, P.Eng.
Calgary
Editor’s Note: For information on Council’s powers and on R.P.T.s, visit the following areas of the APEGGA website.
Organization Structure
www.apega.ca/About/toc_org.html
The EGGP Act
www.apega.ca/About/ACT/preface.htm
Registration for Registered Professional Technologists
www.apega.ca/Applicants/RPT/toc.html
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Youth Fair Support Earns Praise
Thank you, APEGGA, ever so much for sponsoring the Calgary Youth Science Fair.
I won the APEGGA Award for Earth Sciences for secondary students, which consisted of a plaque and a cheque for $150. I was surprised and very happy. I was, unfortunately, unable to attend the awards ceremony at the Big Four building because I was competing in the regional Canwest Canspell Spelling Bee.
My project was an earth sciences project, called Faults to Landslides: Making Waves. It was about how different shaped tsunamigenic sources affect wave height. I used a long source and a point source. I am very excited because I get to present my project at the Canada Wide Science Fair in Vancouver in May.
I think it’s wonderful that you’re sponsoring events for students such as the science fair. Not only is it a great learning experience, but we get to have a lot of fun!
Thanks for everything.
Kienan Marion
Grade 7
Calgary
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PEGG Proves Useful Classroom Tool
Re: World Watch and President’s Notebook, The PEGG, June 2005.
I received the June issue of The PEGG one day before I was to do a presentation to my daughter's Grade 3 class on bridges, strength of materials and engineering. I had the kids do the basic experiments with paper cups, different materials and pennies. We summarized the load each material could handle, designed new types of bridges, and discussed how engineers design bridges based on loads required, economics, materials etc.
At the end of the discussion I had the groups list conclusions from the presentation. Based on these conclusions, I was pleasantly surprised to see the kids were paying attention to the concepts and were even working on some ideas of their own.
Kudos to The PEGG’s editors for the timely article on bridge strength design. It allowed me to show the kids this was a current and relevant topic that today's engineers deal with everyday.
I also echo Mr. Staples' comments, “I am always tickled to talk with the bright, engaging and community-minded young people who are the future of our professions.” I thoroughly enjoyed (and you will too) talking with the kids and seeing their minds open up to new ideas. Also remember, these are the taxpayers of the future — they will look after us when we are old and grey.
James A. Hauck, P. Eng.
Calgary
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Global Warming Not Imminent Threat
Re: Readers’ Forum global warming submissions.
Yes, I believe that anthropogenic climate change is nonexistent, given life by scattered facts taken out of context, and oil-poor nations’ envy of the oil-rich ones. Yes, I firmly believe in progress and economic development, because economic development pays the bills, whereas tree-hugging and back-to-the-caves calls achieve nothing.
However, I am also a nature-lover, and I am fully aware of the dangers of pollution and am very far from treating the Earth as our wasteland.
Some research data do suggest that global warming happens. Other data suggest it does not.
We live in an era with a proliferation of junk science. The way of a real scientist is to do more research and achieve a better understanding of the issue. The way of a junk scientist is to massage the evidence to produce the desired result, and give it up to politicians for promotion. All evidence that doesn’t fit the scheme is ignored or downplayed.
Many Readers’ Forum contributors have noted that engineers are not scientists. Let the scientists sort out these matters, they say. But as the people guarding public well-being, we cannot afford to act on sensational “discoveries,” media hype and hysteria. We have to stay cool and only do what’s best for the public, based on firmly established facts, using reason and common sense to tell the real from the fake hazards.
There is no reason for panic. Over the 40-something years that I’ve been around, I haven’t noticed any change in weather patterns whatsoever. As usual, there are warmer years and there are colder years.
Those gearing up for oil running out should remember that we are owners of what may be world’s largest oil deposit, which we’ve barely tapped. Other deposits aren’t running low either. Vast areas of land and the ocean bottom contain riches we may not even know about.
We have time, during which we should get a better understanding of the issue, devise alternative sources of energy and bring them to the stage of commercial use.
In the new, emerging concept of sustainable development, among other things to be sustained, we must not forget our standard of living and job security for the millions of people in the oil industry. I could agree to saving the planet at my expense only if there was an apparent and imminent threat, which global warming is not.
Konstantin Ashkinadze, P.Eng.
Edmonton
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The Oxymoron Of Unlimited Growth
Re: Are You Moving Sustainable Development Forward? The PEGG, May 2005.
A hearty thank you to Don Peel, P.Geol., for this excellent overview of sustainable development. The future of engineering requires a thorough understanding of this relatively new concept, since it will become a factor in all decisions.
Incorporating sustainable development into every aspect of the profession will not be easy, especially since there does not appear to be a universally accepted definition. The vast majority of decision makers accept that business as usual is not viable if life is to continue in a stable, peaceful and progressive way. This realization is now being adopted by the professions and others responsible for putting policy into action.
Environmentalism has evolved from an idea that was not considered as recently as the immediate post-war era, to being a major focus of government action today. For a concept to become the centre of decision-making from something not even considered at all is precedent setting, and indicates the sudden realization of our profound ability to affect the natural world.
Those wishing to continue with a business-as-usual perspective have attempted to capture the momentum by assuming that sustainable development just means sustained development. Many have denied that unlimited growth is even a problem.
Dr. David Suzuki has been giving us the message for more than two decades that unlimited growth is an oxymoron. Every system is finite and if any part of that system exhibits unlimited growth, it either self-destructs or kills the organism of which it is a part. The best and most common example is cancer.
To properly incorporate sustainable development into everyday life, we must collectively accept that the existing paradigm is getting us into more trouble than it is helping us. This requires conceiving a new way to do things, a different way to live.
Changing the paradigm of the day is proving the most difficult thing, since it has given us unprecedented power, wealth and mobility. Our parents would not have been able to envision the privileges we have come to accept as our right.
Never has a society been asked — without coercion or imminent national emergency — to live with less. However, former societies did adopt change and generally emerged better off. The question today is, Can we collectively accept that the system is in crisis, and that the consequences for future generations are dismal unless we make radical changes?
The realization is coming, albeit too slowly. We are learning that to solve worldwide problems, we need worldwide cooperation, but it is happening with the Kyoto Accord, the Montreal Protocol, Rio (1992), the Brundtland Commission, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and much more, as alluded to in The PEGG article.
Our professions are positioned to play a major role in developing the solutions. Congratulations to APEGGA for setting up the Environment Committee and confronting this issue.
David J. Parker, P.Eng.
Edmonton
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Geologists Hold Valid Kyoto Views
Re: We Can’t Engineer Science, Richard Eliuk, P.Eng., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, May 2005.
I must take exception to the view that APEGGA should not have asked our government to hold off on Kyoto, back in October 2002. The thesis is that engineers can't talk science and it was therefore wrong to express a view on Kyoto and, presumably, the subject of climate change.
May I remind Mr. Eliuk that a not inconsiderable number of the APEGGA members are geologists. While few of these may be active or modern climate scientists, a significant number have read and understood the large amount of research that has flowed over the last 10 years — research that Dr. Tim Patterson, professor of geology at Carleton University, has based his opinion on.
He has said: “If back in the mid-’90s we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would not exist because we would have concluded it was not necessary."
I urge members to keep a lively interest in this issue and for The PEGG to reflect such interest. My hope is that one day soon, governments will follow the urgings of Life Member Eric Loughead, P.Geol., who also contributed to the May Readers’ Forum, and concentrate on toxic pollution, the real villains.
John P. Leeson, P.Geol.
Life Member
Calgary