'Tis the Season for Doom and Gloom

Now the IMechE is in on the game. In this report they don't advocate a risk czar (see my earlier tongue in cheek post), rather they advocate the following:

1. The adoption by governments of five Engineering Development Goals alongside the UN Millennium Development Goals. These are:    

Energy: Use existing sustainable energy technologies and reduce energy waste.  Don't wait for new technologies to be developed

Water: Replenish groundwater sources, improve storage of excess water and increase energy efficiencies of desalination

Food: Reduce food waste and resolve the politics of hunger

Urbanisation: Meet the challenge of slums and defending against sea-level rises

Finance: Empower communities and enable implementation

2. Provide all nations and leaders with engineering expertise. 

3. Help the developing world to ‘leapfrog’ the resource-hungry dirty phase of industrialisation.

So, more jobs for engineers then? (Sorry, unnecessarily snide comment). But seriously, are we really going to be able to engineer our way out of this problem? I know that history is littered with sceptical comments of this nature that proved false but perhaps, in this instance, history is not a guide to the future? And I'm reminded of those instances so well documented by Jared Diamond in "Collapse" when catastrophe did occur.