The Historical Impact of Engineering on Society and Engineering Professionalism and Ethics in the Australian Contexts

AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERING PRACTICE
NAME
DATE

The historical impact of engineering on society
What: The advancement, modernization, and development of society has largely been driven by
engineering developments, from the time people started to build permanent shelters using
engineering principles, learn to tap water, build roads, generate electricity, and build machines to
help increase production (Weir, 2014).
So What :
Positive Aspects: The development of the automobile as well as aircraft led to greater mobility, and
with it a spread in human settlements that also accelerated economic development; goods could
reach markets faster, there were better methods to preserve farm produce, and even better methods
for processing produce. In modern times, engineering has made communications ubiquitous, with
underdeveloped nations benefiting greatly from information systems such as mobile
communications networks, while electricity and transportation networks have made it possible for
critical supplies such as medicines, food, and other supplies to reach even the most far flung locales
(Forgan, Hessler, & Levin, 2010).
Negative aspects: However, despite the positive benefits of engineering in society, there have been
equally more adverse impacts; engineering projects displace communities, create pollution (such as
from cars in cities), and have caused increased stress and health problems in societies. A significant
number of people have died and entire societies destroyed because of engineering, in far shorter
times than would happen, say if deaths were caused by infectious diseases (Lawrence, Stemberger,
Zolderdo, Struthers, & Cooke, 2015). Here we are looking at the development of guns, bombs, and
war equipment. To date, ecosystems and environments are destroyed courtesy of grand engineering
projects like the construction of dams that adversely affect societies (Myers et al., 2013). Overall,
more problems have been solved through the practice of engineering than problems caused,
although this is still a subject of conjecture.
What else: Engineering has inspired education and knowledge acquisition as people look up to
successful projects and seek the skills to be able to do the same. Engineering has therefore spawned
new knowledge and knowledge areas; electronic engineering combined with computation spawned
an important sector of computers that have become indispensable in the modern human life.
What next: Society cannot exist without engineering; however, a different concept f sustainability
needs to become a core component of engineering. There is no point extracting fossil fuels and
developing cars and machines that use fossil fuel when the eventual outcome is climate change and
global warming, outcomes that threaten the very existence of society that engineering is supposed to
make more comfortable. Yet, there are green and free sources of better energy such as solar, wind,
and hydro that can still provide the same comforts and benefits as current engineering practices in
energy extraction and use