This article explores the role of members of Church communities to support the common good in the challenge of living sustainably as we respond to the developing climate emergency.
Knox United Church Lower Sackville
Kevin Moynihan of KM Productions, a Halifax based fully equipped production company, shares “Laudato Si’ + 5: See, Judge, Act”. This review of our progress engaging with the 2015 Encyclical of Pope Francis, “Laudato Si”,under the Catholic Social Teaching tradition of See, Judge, and Act offers a reminder of the need for action on Water Shortage, Climate Change, and Loss of Biodiversity and hope in sharing the work of individuals and organizations involved in taking action today.1
Dr Lorna Gold shares a talk on Pope Francis & Ecology - "Laudato Si': We have only one heart", It was hosted by the Edinburgh Jesuit Centre.
Residence installation in Lower Sackville
Solar Nova Scotia Discussion, a public group on Facebook, has recorded several installations of solar panels on church buildings.
St. Luke's United Church Tantallon
Rockingham United Church
Young economists and entrepreneurs are gearing up for “The Economy of Francesco” event.
Anna Maria Geogy, a teacher in India, says the event hopes to give a soul to the global economy by inspiring younger generations to put human dignity in first place.2
The Professional Engineers of Ontario have published the Engineers Canada publication on National guideline on sustainable development and environmental stewardship for professional engineers.
The practice of engineering continues to evolve over time through a process of continuous improvement as illustrated in Figure 1. This includes not only the technology but also the human aspects. Pursuit of the idea of “public good” through sustainable development contributes to the long-term benefit of society, the economy and the environment. Government provides some guidance under various pieces of legislation that helps with continuous improvement and the pursuit of “public good”. As subject matter experts, engineers can have considerable influence on how an issue is dealt with on behalf of their clients. There are few unambiguous standards to guide them and it is here where the role of engineering judgement comes into play. Engineering and related disciplines also need to utilize expertise from other professions such as planning, economics, the social sciences, finance and law. Collectively these professions will be instrumental in realizing sustainable development and environmental stewardship.3
Guideline #5 involves costing and Economic Evaluation. It recommends that engineers should assess the costs and benefits of environmental protection, eco-system components, and sustainability in evaluating the economic viability of the work.
The engineering objective is to secure the most sustainable solution that can be cost-effectively obtained. In practice the profession is competitive and subject to many competing interests that constrain system wide and life-cycle thinking. When engineers undertake work, a balance between doing a thorough job against pressures to control costs and meet deadlines must be achieved. Engineers are responsible for the technical detail that will form the basis for costing developments, even if the overall decisions about proceeding with a development are the responsibility of others. Consideration of the full scope of environmental costs at the earliest possible stage of project development can often provide considerable cost savings, compared to retrofitting or Envision™ (USA) provides a holistic framework for evaluating and rating the community, environmental and economic benefits of all types and sizes of infrastructure projects to assess the sustainability indicators over the course of the project's life cycle.3
Church communities have moved to support the common good and subject matter experts in economics and engineering are prepared to use science and mathematics to guide decisions in this work.
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