Education is key to fighting global warming
May 1st 2007 All developed and post-industrial
societies seem to have problems
attracting young people into
science and engineering careers,
while developing economies have
the opposite problem of not being
able to build technical universities
quickly enough. Jeff Whiting,
Mitsubishi Electric's energy
spokesman, says this imbalance
need to be redressed urgently if
global warming is to be contained.
I am of an age where I can say
that I know that science and
engineering had a Golden Age in
this country. It was actually quite a
bit before my time, but between
the end of the War and about 1970
a scientific degree was seen as the
pinnacle of achievement in the
Land Fit for Heroes. Engineering
qualifications were seen in almost
the same light, although the fact
that they could be won through
non-academic routes downgraded
them a bit.
An American colleague extends
his country's golden age by
several decades, while in Germany
it is only in the last 10 years that
recruitment into such professions
has become more difficult. Japan
fought shy of technology until well
into the 20 century, but used it as
the bedrock on which to build the
world's most dynamic economy of
the 1960s-1990s.
From about 1990 many of
Japan's near neighbours began to
emerge as technology and
manufacturing powerhouses. And
now we are experiencing a second
wave with China aiming much
much higher than any country
before.
Most Chinese know that their
best route a better standard of
living is a degree in science or
engineering. China now produces
hundreds of thousands of
technology graduates each year –
and they have no trouble finding
work.
But there is a bit of a problem
here. Engineers and scientists in
developing countries are charged
with growing their national
economies as fast as possible – to
catch up with Western levels of
affluence. They are not generally
concerned with protecting the
environment or containing global
warming.
Political pressure must be
applied to get them to aspire to
best practice. And it has fallen to
Europe to demonstrate best
practice, and to keep pushing the
envelope forward.
We Europeans have made
considerable strides in the ecology
race in recent years. The backbone
of this is technology; our engineers
and scientists are constantly
resetting the barriers of
understanding and the state of the
art of green technologies.
But we cannot now rest on our
laurels; we have to produce at least
one new generation of technology
leaders to continue the fight. And
we need big numbers of graduates
to achieve realistic goals, so society
must make science and
engineering sexy again. More articles from Mitsubishi Electric Europe: | 
