The engineer’s voice in the ‘age of humans’

Wayne Clough on the Anthropocene and Engineering from Elementa on Vimeo.

Georgia Tech President Emeritus Wayne Clough says engineers must be part of the broader conversation about the challenges facing our global society in the 21st century.

In a new video for the academic journal Elementa, Clough says engineers need to develop their public-facing voice on the big issues that do (and will) confront our communities in what’s starting to be identified as the anthropocene, a new geological era that is the “age of humans.”

“Engineers are doing a lot of separate things that are positive. We’re working on carbon-neutral fuels, on solar cells, all these things are to the good,” Clough said. “The thing I think engineers haven’t done is develop the voice. When you read about the issues that we’re facing, you don’t see engineers being quoted anywhere, and so we really don’t have much of a voice.”

Watch Clough’s conversation with Michael Chang, Elementa's sustainable engineering editor, to hear more about how engineers can develop that voice and help convene discussions about critical issues.