An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth, My Response.

The movie was a documentary hosted by Al Gore, ex-president of the United States of America (1993-2001), to convey an urgent message to the people in America and the rest of the world. The message that he was trying and still trying to send out is that the world that we live in is facing a serious problem that has existed since the end of World War 2, which is Global Warming affecting our climate. Even though he had failed to win the President Elections in 2000 to George Bush Jr, he did not give up his goal. He went back to giving slideshows, continued to travel to other cities all around the world, learned from their scientists about their research in global warming in their countries.

Global Warming is nothing new to us. Since 1980s, there were many reports written by many scientists, reports and articles ranging from detail descriptions of what global warming is, or its effects to the world, how it would affect our future generations to come. What was interesting about the film was that Al Gore was trying to show us about the truth that has been there, yet for some reasons, the world does not see it. There is a couple of reason to it.

Firstly, in facing the new era, there has been an increase in terrorism. And terrorism has cause a great deal amount of damage to many nations in terms of their economies and social stability. Hence many nations are more concern of their national interests rather than the environment. And because of that, governments are spending more money in combating terrorism and neglecting the Earth at the same time.

Secondly, even though the United States of America signed the Kyoto Protocol with many other nations, being the biggest contributor to environment threats, it did not comply with the treaty. This gave many nations, especially those developing nations, a reason not to reduce their carbon emission as they require the cheap coal to fuel their economy. And it is this form of defiance/act that cause the truth of damaging the Earth, been shuffle away from many people’s mind or simply divert public attention away from the very fact that every minute, tonnes and tonnes of harmful pollutants are being dumped into the air and sea.

Indeed, there has been evidence to prove that the climate is changing. There were pictures, data, physical experiences. In all, the world can no longer ignore the fact anymore, hoping that it will disappear. What Al Gore wanted to do is to educate as many people as possible that not all hope is lost. People can help to prevent or to reduce the impacts caused by global warming. We have the technology to do so and we should do it. Not for the sake of doing it but to save our planet so that our future generations would not have to suffer.

In conclusion, the film has an agenda behind it. Global warming has become an important issue to be dealt with and it has to start now. The longer we delay, the bigger the consequences it will have. And there will come to a point in time whereby no actions taken, it might be too late for any response.

An abstract taken from the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”: ‘What we take for granted, might not be there for our children’ ~ Al Gore.

An engineer's training helps to systematically analyze complex information and apply a holistic approach in design solutions

When we talk about engineering, we are talking about a wide range. There are many types of engineering fields in today's world, i.e. mechanical, electrical, computering, bioengineering... And even though they are of different fields, they all have one thing in common, and that is engineers exists to solve problems.

An engineering education is no doubt different from any education provided in the world. And in Singapore, the curriculum design and pedagogical approaches train the mind to systematically analyze complex sets of information and to apply systems thinking in designing solutions. The nest few subsequent paragraphs will briefly describe how an engineer would deal with a problem at hand.

Firstly, there has to be a problem. So for example, a client requires his car to be built with his expectations, basically, wants his car to be customise. An engineer first job would be to know what the specifications his client wants are. It is the specifications that would determine how an engineer would approach and get the final product done. Once specifications have been determine, he has to consider factors that would affect the performance of the product and to see if the product were to be of what the client expect it to be.

With factors and specifications included, he can start off by coming up with a design or many designs. These designs would give him a rough start. Before the actual product can be built, a model has to be constructed. The model comes in with many benefits; i.e The model can be used to determine if it is safe or very safe to be use by operators. It also would help him to see if all factors considered were to be valid or non-valid. And the model can be put through tests to determine if when a actual product was design, would there be any defects or unforeseen problems. All these would help to prevent additional cost in productions should there be any defects or problems that would or might occur when actual products were built.

With all conditions and safety tested, the engineer can finally build a prototype and wait for approval. However, in the above descriptions, the steps involved may be simple yet the processes are very long and very tedious and in most projects, it would involve many engineers as there will be many details to be cover.

An engineering's training helps to systemically analyze complex information and apply a holistic approach in design solutions

When we talk about engineering, we are talking about a wide range. There are many types of engineering fields in today's world, i.e. mechanical, electrical, computering, bioengineering... And even though they are of different fields, they all have one thing in common, and that is engineers exists to solve problems. An engineering education is no doubt different from any education provided in the world. And in Singapore, the curriculum design and pedagogical approaches train the mind to systematically analyze complex sets of information and to apply systems thinking in designing solutions. The nest few subsequent paragraphs will briefly describe how an engineer would deal with a problem at hand. Firstly, there has to be a problem. So for example, a client requires his car to be built with his expectations, basically, wants his car to be customise. An engineer first job would be to know what the specifications his client wants are. It is the specifications that would determine how an engineer would approach and get the final product done. Once specifications have been determine, he has to consider factors that would affect the performance of the product and to see if the product were to be of what the client expect it to be. With factors and specifications included, he can start off by coming up with a design or many designs. These designs would give him a rough start. Before the actual product can be built, a model has to be constructed. The model comes in with many benefits; i.e The model can be used to determine if it is safe or very safe to be use by operators. It also would help him to see if all factors considered were to be valid or non-valid. And the model can be put through tests to determine if when a actual product was design, would there be any defects or unforeseen problems. All these would help to prevent additional cost in productions should there be any defects or problems that would or might occur when actual products were built. With all conditions and safety tested, the engineer can finally build a prototype and wait for approval. However, in the above descriptions, the steps involved may be simple yet the processes are very long and very tedious and in most projects, it would involve many engineers as there will be many details to be cover.