Research the case study on “Exxon Valdez accident” of 1990 in your textbook and on the internet and answer the following questions: (use the template: Evaluation of Case Study). ◦What were the causes of the incident?. ◦What regulations were passed as a result of this incident?
1.Research the case study on “Exxon Valdez accident” of 1990 in your textbook and on the internet and answer the following questions: (use the template: Evaluation of Case Study). ◦What were the causes of the incident?. ◦What regulations were passed as a result of this incident?.. 2.What is sustainability? Describe how LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) helps in developing environmental friendly products? (write at least 2 paragraphs).. 3.Review the Academic Centers for Sustainability in the Case Study 39: “Sustainability” and discuss how considerations of ethics might enter into the collaborative efforts of centers and institutes for sustainability. (use the template: Evaluation of Case Study). PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE ASSIGNMENT And is APA format
An Example of the Progressive Attitude: The CERES Principles
After the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez, a number of oil companies voluntarily adopted a set of principles that embody a progressive attitude toward the environment. Originally called the Valdez Principles, the principles were named after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and fertility. We strongly suggest that the reader review this admirable set of principles for protecting the environment in their complete from at http://www.iisd.org/educate/learn/ceres.htm. The following is our summary, in abbreviated form, of the ten principle:
1. Protection of the biosphere. Reduce and make progress toward the elimination of an environmentally damaging substance, safeguard habitats, and protect open spaces and wilderness, while preserving biodiversity.
2. Sustainable use of natural resources. Make sustainable use of renewable natural sources, such as water, soils, and forests, and make careful use of renewable resources.
3. Reduction and disposal of wastes. Reduce and, if possible, eliminate waste, and handle and dispose of waste through safe and responsible methods.
4. Energy conservation. Conserve energy and improve the energy efficiency of all operations, and attempt to use environmentally safe and sustainable energy sources.
5. Risk reduction. Strive to minimize environmental damage and health and safety risks to employees and surrounding communities, and be prepared for emergencies.
6. Safe products and services. Reduce and, if possible, eliminate the use, manufacture, or sale of products and services that cause environmental damage of health or safety hazards, and inform customers of the environmental impacts of products or services.
7. Environmental restoration. Promptly and responsibly correct conditions the company has caused that endanger health, safety, or the environment, redress injuries, and restore the environment when it has been damages.
8. Informing the public. Inform in a timely manner everyone who may be affected by the actions of the company that affect health, safety, or the environment, and refrain from taking reprisals against employees who report dangerous incidents to management or appropriate authorities.
9. Management commitment. Implement these principles in a process that ensures that the board of directors and chief executive officer are fully informed about environment issues and fully responsible for environmental policy, and make demonstrated environment commitment a factor in selecting members of the board of directors.
10. Audits and reports. Conduct an annual self-evaluation of progress in implementing these principles, and complete and make public an annual CERES report.
Corporate self-interest no doubt plays a prominent role in motivating firms to adopt such policies. Many firms and industry groups have adopted progressive policies only after legal problems of strong and persistent public criticism. Probably one of the motivations for these policies is the desire to regain the trust of the public and avoid still more bad publicity. Progressive environmental policies also can keep firms out of trouble in the first place. Finally, progressive environmental policies may result in the creation of new products and processes, which can become profitable in the market-place as environmental regulations become stricter.
After the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez, a number of oil companies voluntarily adopted a set of principles that embody a progressive attitude toward the environment. Originally called the Valdez Principles, the principles were named after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and fertility. We strongly suggest that the reader review this admirable set of principles for protecting the environment in their complete from at http://www.iisd.org/educate/learn/ceres.htm. The following is our summary, in abbreviated form, of the ten principle:
1. Protection of the biosphere. Reduce and make progress toward the elimination of an environmentally damaging substance, safeguard habitats, and protect open spaces and wilderness, while preserving biodiversity.
2. Sustainable use of natural resources. Make sustainable use of renewable natural sources, such as water, soils, and forests, and make careful use of renewable resources.
3. Reduction and disposal of wastes. Reduce and, if possible, eliminate waste, and handle and dispose of waste through safe and responsible methods.
4. Energy conservation. Conserve energy and improve the energy efficiency of all operations, and attempt to use environmentally safe and sustainable energy sources.
5. Risk reduction. Strive to minimize environmental damage and health and safety risks to employees and surrounding communities, and be prepared for emergencies.
6. Safe products and services. Reduce and, if possible, eliminate the use, manufacture, or sale of products and services that cause environmental damage of health or safety hazards, and inform customers of the environmental impacts of products or services.
7. Environmental restoration. Promptly and responsibly correct conditions the company has caused that endanger health, safety, or the environment, redress injuries, and restore the environment when it has been damages.
8. Informing the public. Inform in a timely manner everyone who may be affected by the actions of the company that affect health, safety, or the environment, and refrain from taking reprisals against employees who report dangerous incidents to management or appropriate authorities.
9. Management commitment. Implement these principles in a process that ensures that the board of directors and chief executive officer are fully informed about environment issues and fully responsible for environmental policy, and make demonstrated environment commitment a factor in selecting members of the board of directors.
10. Audits and reports. Conduct an annual self-evaluation of progress in implementing these principles, and complete and make public an annual CERES report.
Corporate self-interest no doubt plays a prominent role in motivating firms to adopt such policies. Many firms and industry groups have adopted progressive policies only after legal problems of strong and persistent public criticism. Probably one of the motivations for these policies is the desire to regain the trust of the public and avoid still more bad publicity. Progressive environmental policies also can keep firms out of trouble in the first place. Finally, progressive environmental policies may result in the creation of new products and processes, which can become profitable in the market-place as environmental regulations become stricter.
EE 100 – Engineering and Ethics
Evaluation of Case Study (For Assignment submissions)
Evaluation of Case Study (For Assignment submissions)
Please follow the steps when analyzing a case study and answer the questions in the assignments.
Step1: Describe the issues discussed in the case study. (Write 1-2 paragraphs)
• Read the case study and understand what the issues are presented and write it in your own words.
Step 2: Present the concepts and principles that could be applied to address those issues. (Write 1-2 paragraphs)
• After understanding the issues in the case study, try to recall the concepts learned in the course and think which principles are relevant and could be applied to this particular case.
Step 3: Analyze the case study using the principles. (Write 1-2 paragraphs)
• Once you are sure of the principles to be used to address the issue, then try to analyze the problem using reasoning and multiple viewpoints.
Step 4: Discuss your solution to resolve the ethical issue. (Write 1-2 paragraphs)
• After analyzing the problem, you would come up with a solution to resolve the issue in a way you think is best. Remember it’s your analysis and there might be different ways to resolve the issue.
Step 5: Answer the questions asked in the assignment.
• Don’t forget to answer the questions asked in the assignment as they carry points.
Step1: Describe the issues discussed in the case study. (Write 1-2 paragraphs)
• Read the case study and understand what the issues are presented and write it in your own words.
Step 2: Present the concepts and principles that could be applied to address those issues. (Write 1-2 paragraphs)
• After understanding the issues in the case study, try to recall the concepts learned in the course and think which principles are relevant and could be applied to this particular case.
Step 3: Analyze the case study using the principles. (Write 1-2 paragraphs)
• Once you are sure of the principles to be used to address the issue, then try to analyze the problem using reasoning and multiple viewpoints.
Step 4: Discuss your solution to resolve the ethical issue. (Write 1-2 paragraphs)
• After analyzing the problem, you would come up with a solution to resolve the issue in a way you think is best. Remember it’s your analysis and there might be different ways to resolve the issue.
Step 5: Answer the questions asked in the assignment.
• Don’t forget to answer the questions asked in the assignment as they carry points.
Sustainability
Scientists, engineers, and the government are publicly expressing urgent concern about the need to address the challenges of sustainable scientific and technological development. Global warming, for example, raises concern about glacial meltdown and consequent rising ocean levels threatening coastal cities. A related concern is the lowering of levels freshwater in the American West as a result of lowered levels of accumulated mountain snow. In Joe Gertner’s “The Future Is Drying Up,” Nobel laureate Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is cited as saying that even optimistic projections for the second half of the 21st century indicate a 30 to 70 percent drop in the snowpack level of the Sierra Nevada, provider of most of northern California’s water. Gertner goes on to discuss other likely freshwater problems that will have to be faced by Western states as a result of both global warming and the consumption needs and demands of an increasing population. He also outlines some of the efforts of engineers to address these problems aggressively now rather than wait it is too late to prevent disaster.
We noted in Chapter 9 that most engineering society codes of ethics do not make direct statements about the environmental responsibilities of engineers. However, in 2007 the NSPE joined the ranks of engineering societies that do. Under section III. Professional Obligations, provision 2 reads, “Engineers shall at all times strive to serve the public interest.” Under this heading, there is a new entry, d: “Engineers are encouraged to adhere to the principles of sustainable development in order to protect the environment for future generations.” Footnote 1 addresses the conceptual question of what is meant by “sustainable development”: ‘” Sustainable development’ is the challenge of meeting human needs for natural resources, industrial products, energy, food, transportation, shelter, and effective waste management while conserving and protecting environmental quality and the natural resources base essential for future development.”
Although this definition of sustainable development leaves many fundamental conceptual and value questions in need of further analysis (e.g., What are human needs? What is meant by environmental quality”?), it provides a general framework for inquiry. It also identifies a variety of fundamental areas of concern (e.g., food, transportation, and waste management). Of course, responsibilities in these areas do not fall only on engineers. Government officials, economists, business leaders, and the general citizenry need to be involves as well. Thus, a basic question relates to how those who need to work together might best do so and what role engineers might play. We offer three illustrations for discussion. The first is an early effort to involve students from different disciplines in a project that supports sustainable development. The second is the recent proliferation of centers and institutes for sustainability on college campuses throughout the country. The third is service learning opportunities in support of sustainable design and development.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Dwayne Breger, a civil and environment engineer at Lafayette College, invited junior and senior engineering, biology, and environmental science students to apply to be on an interdisciplinary team to design a project that would make use of farmland owned by Lafayette College in a way that supports the college mission. Twelve students were selected for the project: two each from civil and environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and Bachelor of Arts in engineering, plus three biology majors and one in geology and environmental geosciences. These students had minors in such areas as economics and business, environmental science, chemistry, government, and law. The result of the project was a promising design for a biomass farm that could provide an alternative, renewable resource for the campus steam plant.
Professor Breger regards projects such as this as providing important opportunities for students to involve themselves in work that contributes to restructuring our energy use toward sustainable resources. ABET’s Engineering Criteria 2000 for evaluating engineering programs includes the requirement that engineering programs demonstrate that their graduates have “an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility,” “the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context,” and “a knowledge of contemporary issues.” Criterion 4 requires that students have “major design experience” that includes consideration of the impact on design of such factors as economics, sustainability, manufacturability, ethics, health, safety, and social and political issues. Discuss how Lafayette College project might satisfy criterion 4, especially the ethical considerations.
ACADEMIC CENTERS FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Historically, joint research in colleges and universities is done within separate disciplines rather that in collaboration with other disciplines. Thus, biologists collaborated with other biologists, chemists with other chemists, economists with other economists, political scientists with other political scientists. The recent emergence of centers and institutes for stability represents a significant important break from that tradition.
In September 2007, the Rochester Institute of Technology initiated the Golisano Institute of Sustainability. Noting that in customary for new programs to be run by just one discipline, Nabil Nasr, the Institute director, comments, “but the problem of sustainability cuts across economics, social elements, engineering, everything. It simply cannot be solved by one discipline, or even by coupling to disciplines.”
Dow Chemical has recently given the University of California at Berkeley $10 million to establish a sustainability center. Dow’s Neil Hawkins says, Berkeley has one of the strongest chemical engineering schools in the world, but it will be the M.B.A.’s who understand areas like micro-finance solutions to drinking water problems. The center is the Berkeley’s Center for Responsible Business, directed by Kellie A. McElhaney. Commercialization research undertaken by students and professors is expected. However, McElhaney notes, “Commercialization takes forever if chemical engineers and the business types do not coordinate. So think how much easier it would be for chemistry graduates work inside a company if they already know how to interact with the business side.
Discuss how considerations of ethics might enter into the collaborative efforts of centers and institutes for sustainability.
SERVICE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
The first two issues of the recently launched International Journal for Service Learning feature three articles promoting the notion that service learning projects can provide hands-on opportunities to undertake sustainable design and development. In “Service Learning and Engineering and Science for Sustainable Development,” Clarion University of Pennsylvania physicist Joshua M. Pearce urges that undergraduates should have opportunities to become involved in projects that apply appropriate technology for sustainable development. Especially concerned with alleviating poverty in the developing world, Pearce argues,
The need for development is as great as it is ever been, but future development cannot simply follow past models of economic activity, which tends to waste resources and produce prodigious population the entire world is now paying to clean up the mess and enormous quantities of valuable resources have been lost for future generations because of the Western model of development. For the future, the entire world population needs ways to achieve economic, social, and environmental objectives simultaneously.
He cites successful projects in Haiti and Guatemala that make use of readily available materials and the locales in which they have been undertaken.
In “learning sustainable design through service,” Stanford University PhD students Karim Al-Khafaji and Margaret Catherine Morse present a service learning model based on the Stanford chapter Engineers for a Sustainable World to teach sustainable design. They illustrate this model and discussing a Stanford project in the Andaman Islands that focused on rebuilding after the December 26, 2004, earthquake and tsunami. Behind such projects is a student-led course, “Design for Sustainable World,” that seeks to
• Develop students’ iterative design skills, project management and partnership-building abilities, sustainability awareness, cultural sensitivity, empathy, and desire to use the technical skills to promote peace and human development.
• Help developing communities ensure individuals’ human rights via sustainable, culturally appropriate, technology-based solutions.
• Increase Stanford University’s stewardship of global sustainability.
In “Sustainable Building Materials in French Polynesia, “John Erik Anderson, Helena Meryman, and Kimberly Porsche, graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, provide a detailed, technical description of a service learning project designed to assist French Polynesians in developing a system for the local manufacturing of sustainable building materials.
Scientists, engineers, and the government are publicly expressing urgent concern about the need to address the challenges of sustainable scientific and technological development. Global warming, for example, raises concern about glacial meltdown and consequent rising ocean levels threatening coastal cities. A related concern is the lowering of levels freshwater in the American West as a result of lowered levels of accumulated mountain snow. In Joe Gertner’s “The Future Is Drying Up,” Nobel laureate Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is cited as saying that even optimistic projections for the second half of the 21st century indicate a 30 to 70 percent drop in the snowpack level of the Sierra Nevada, provider of most of northern California’s water. Gertner goes on to discuss other likely freshwater problems that will have to be faced by Western states as a result of both global warming and the consumption needs and demands of an increasing population. He also outlines some of the efforts of engineers to address these problems aggressively now rather than wait it is too late to prevent disaster.
We noted in Chapter 9 that most engineering society codes of ethics do not make direct statements about the environmental responsibilities of engineers. However, in 2007 the NSPE joined the ranks of engineering societies that do. Under section III. Professional Obligations, provision 2 reads, “Engineers shall at all times strive to serve the public interest.” Under this heading, there is a new entry, d: “Engineers are encouraged to adhere to the principles of sustainable development in order to protect the environment for future generations.” Footnote 1 addresses the conceptual question of what is meant by “sustainable development”: ‘” Sustainable development’ is the challenge of meeting human needs for natural resources, industrial products, energy, food, transportation, shelter, and effective waste management while conserving and protecting environmental quality and the natural resources base essential for future development.”
Although this definition of sustainable development leaves many fundamental conceptual and value questions in need of further analysis (e.g., What are human needs? What is meant by environmental quality”?), it provides a general framework for inquiry. It also identifies a variety of fundamental areas of concern (e.g., food, transportation, and waste management). Of course, responsibilities in these areas do not fall only on engineers. Government officials, economists, business leaders, and the general citizenry need to be involves as well. Thus, a basic question relates to how those who need to work together might best do so and what role engineers might play. We offer three illustrations for discussion. The first is an early effort to involve students from different disciplines in a project that supports sustainable development. The second is the recent proliferation of centers and institutes for sustainability on college campuses throughout the country. The third is service learning opportunities in support of sustainable design and development.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Dwayne Breger, a civil and environment engineer at Lafayette College, invited junior and senior engineering, biology, and environmental science students to apply to be on an interdisciplinary team to design a project that would make use of farmland owned by Lafayette College in a way that supports the college mission. Twelve students were selected for the project: two each from civil and environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and Bachelor of Arts in engineering, plus three biology majors and one in geology and environmental geosciences. These students had minors in such areas as economics and business, environmental science, chemistry, government, and law. The result of the project was a promising design for a biomass farm that could provide an alternative, renewable resource for the campus steam plant.
Professor Breger regards projects such as this as providing important opportunities for students to involve themselves in work that contributes to restructuring our energy use toward sustainable resources. ABET’s Engineering Criteria 2000 for evaluating engineering programs includes the requirement that engineering programs demonstrate that their graduates have “an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility,” “the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context,” and “a knowledge of contemporary issues.” Criterion 4 requires that students have “major design experience” that includes consideration of the impact on design of such factors as economics, sustainability, manufacturability, ethics, health, safety, and social and political issues. Discuss how Lafayette College project might satisfy criterion 4, especially the ethical considerations.
ACADEMIC CENTERS FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Historically, joint research in colleges and universities is done within separate disciplines rather that in collaboration with other disciplines. Thus, biologists collaborated with other biologists, chemists with other chemists, economists with other economists, political scientists with other political scientists. The recent emergence of centers and institutes for stability represents a significant important break from that tradition.
In September 2007, the Rochester Institute of Technology initiated the Golisano Institute of Sustainability. Noting that in customary for new programs to be run by just one discipline, Nabil Nasr, the Institute director, comments, “but the problem of sustainability cuts across economics, social elements, engineering, everything. It simply cannot be solved by one discipline, or even by coupling to disciplines.”
Dow Chemical has recently given the University of California at Berkeley $10 million to establish a sustainability center. Dow’s Neil Hawkins says, Berkeley has one of the strongest chemical engineering schools in the world, but it will be the M.B.A.’s who understand areas like micro-finance solutions to drinking water problems. The center is the Berkeley’s Center for Responsible Business, directed by Kellie A. McElhaney. Commercialization research undertaken by students and professors is expected. However, McElhaney notes, “Commercialization takes forever if chemical engineers and the business types do not coordinate. So think how much easier it would be for chemistry graduates work inside a company if they already know how to interact with the business side.
Discuss how considerations of ethics might enter into the collaborative efforts of centers and institutes for sustainability.
SERVICE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
The first two issues of the recently launched International Journal for Service Learning feature three articles promoting the notion that service learning projects can provide hands-on opportunities to undertake sustainable design and development. In “Service Learning and Engineering and Science for Sustainable Development,” Clarion University of Pennsylvania physicist Joshua M. Pearce urges that undergraduates should have opportunities to become involved in projects that apply appropriate technology for sustainable development. Especially concerned with alleviating poverty in the developing world, Pearce argues,
The need for development is as great as it is ever been, but future development cannot simply follow past models of economic activity, which tends to waste resources and produce prodigious population the entire world is now paying to clean up the mess and enormous quantities of valuable resources have been lost for future generations because of the Western model of development. For the future, the entire world population needs ways to achieve economic, social, and environmental objectives simultaneously.
He cites successful projects in Haiti and Guatemala that make use of readily available materials and the locales in which they have been undertaken.
In “learning sustainable design through service,” Stanford University PhD students Karim Al-Khafaji and Margaret Catherine Morse present a service learning model based on the Stanford chapter Engineers for a Sustainable World to teach sustainable design. They illustrate this model and discussing a Stanford project in the Andaman Islands that focused on rebuilding after the December 26, 2004, earthquake and tsunami. Behind such projects is a student-led course, “Design for Sustainable World,” that seeks to
• Develop students’ iterative design skills, project management and partnership-building abilities, sustainability awareness, cultural sensitivity, empathy, and desire to use the technical skills to promote peace and human development.
• Help developing communities ensure individuals’ human rights via sustainable, culturally appropriate, technology-based solutions.
• Increase Stanford University’s stewardship of global sustainability.
In “Sustainable Building Materials in French Polynesia, “John Erik Anderson, Helena Meryman, and Kimberly Porsche, graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, provide a detailed, technical description of a service learning project designed to assist French Polynesians in developing a system for the local manufacturing of sustainable building materials.
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