esr.org.nz

Canterbury Branch ESR Meeting

Speaker: Tim Taylor
When: 15 April 2010, 7.00 pm
Venue: University of Canterbury, School of Engineering
Lecture Room E1 (in the Mushroom).

We enter the second decade of the 21st Century accompanied by a range of
resource crises and continued rapid population increase. It is clear that to
become sustainable in this new world, our societies will need new modes of
operation. Continued dependence on the simplified economic models and
assumptions of the 20th century is likely to result in crises of increasing
regularity and severity – crises that are ecological, economic, social and
daunting mixtures of the three.

A key challenge is to shift how societies perceive and pursue progress. A
broader conceptualisation of development is necessary, one that represents
socially equitable and ecologically sustainable improvements in wellbeing.
Such a shift in our understanding of progress would provide the foundation
for a transition to societies that are ecologically, economically and socially
sustainable. Of course such a transition is an almighty challenge, but engineers have always relished solving problems that others perceive as
impossible.

Tim Taylor is studying at Lund University in Sweden for a Masters degree in
Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science with the financial
assistance of a Hume Fellowship. Tim’s passion is the daunting challenge
of transitioning to sustainable societies, and the blend of social change that
must support technological innovation to make this possible. He sees the
need for the engineering profession to make a significant contribution to
such a transition, and the course he is taking part in is leading the world in
the new trans-disciplinary field of Sustainability Science.

This lecture is a joint ESR/IPENZ event and will be open to anyone
interested. Members are encouraged to publicise it among friends and
colleagues.

Please note that entrance to the Engineering Building must be from the
biology/commerce car park entrance (South side of College of Engineering
building by Electrical Engineering). The Creyke Road entrance will be
locked.