Why Sustainability and Engineering

Welcome to the new Sustainability and Engineering Blog! Why does it even exist? Do we really need it? And do engineering geeks really need to know about sustainability?

Short background story
I changed the department at my university and am now studying electrical engineering in Cologne, Germany. As luck would have it, there's a sustainability workgroup at my new university campus and a lecture series on sustainability organised by them. I shared my interest with them and soon I was joining the discussions in the group. The only sad thing: Of about 10 members, I was the only student! At a university, where young fledglings are supposed to learn about their surroundings, think about society and their place in it, in the country of thinkers and poets ("Land der Denker und Dichter" - a german expression) at a university of about 15,000 students, there was one student (including me). The other members are professors and other faculty.

Oh, well, as I am part of several sustainability groups outside the university, I do see some motivated students, but I saw a big gap for engineers and engineering students. Why is that? I can't tell for sure, I hope this blog can contribute to solve a part of the question. Or maybe even prove the question wrong.

I will post on sustainability-related, engineering-related and sustainable-engineering related stuff here, be it some cool new product, maybe a comment on an interesting news story, something philosophical or experimental, or even provocative :-). Whatever should come my way.

More on dwrntb (= "do we really need this blog") in the next post :-).