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Scott I agree; in my view P2 thinking and
methods should be integral to the issue of climate change, since as we all
know, air issues are not just limited to global warming, but are also more
immediate in terms of smog or toxics. We are really talking about what appears
on the death certificate as cause of death, and our job is to eliminate the
underlying causes not just developing piecemeal solutions. When dealing with municipalities or
regions rather than industrial establishments, we are just moving the boundary
further out, and looking at the use of additional tools in the tool kit
(transit policy, building permits, planning, settlement limits, etc) than the
traditional P2 ones. It isn’t a question of being
irrelevant, it is a matter of allowing ourselves to be marginalized. One off
solutions don’t work, never have, never will. Now more than ever we need
the questioning, non-linear thinking of P2 practitioners. We need to put ourselves back into the
equation, to be at the centre of the cyclone, instead of being blown away. Because at the end of the day, the issue
driven mindset will not solve the problem. And we must solve it. Fred Granek Please consider the
environment before printing this e-mail From:
owner-p2tech@great-lakes.net [mailto:owner-p2tech@great-lakes.net] On Behalf Of Butner, R Scott P2TECH-ies
-- Some
random musings to ponder over the upcoming Thanksgiving break. If the
tryptophan doesn't put you to sleep, you can always resort to this. As
it happens, I had the opportunity to attend the American Now,
if you've never been to an AIChE meeting, imagine some 3,000 chemical
engineering graduate students, their professors, and another 1,000 or so
industry people all converging on one place for a week. Sounds
like a riotous affair, doesn't it? Mix in And
in fact, it was quite a good meeting. Turns out that Salt Not
that I had time, of course -- the conference boasted some 660 technical
sessions, approximately 3,000 or so presented papers, distributed across the 18
technical divisions and forums of AIChE, including 16 topical subconferences on
topics including: -
New Frontiers in Energy Research Incidentally,
the whole technical agenda -- which includes a lot of sessions of interest to
P2 people -- can be found here: http://www.aiche.org/Conferences/Past/Annual07CompleteProgram.aspx What's
this got to do with P2TECH? Wait
a minute. I'll get there -- I'm just taking the scenic route* So,
anyway, a few days after returning to the office, I got a call from my good
friend Jean Waters (of P2Rx fame). Jean was, as is her habit, driving at
high speeds across the wide-open An
exact transcript follows. Well, OK, "exact" may be a tiny bit
of an overstatement -- just as "complete fabrication" isn't entirely
accurate either -- but I think I captured the essence of it. "Butner!
Why didn't you TELL me you were in "um.....because
you didn't ask?" (for
the record, I rarely coordinate my travel schedule with Jean anymore) "doesn't
matter. I was there too. We should have gotten together for
lunch. We need to talk." And
so we did. We talked briefly about business (kinda slow), our kids (it's
generally accepted -- by us -- that both of us have exceptionally clever kids),
and the state of P2 (the term "moribund" may have been tossed about
-- but I won't tell you which of us suggested it). I
don't think we ever got around to discussing the meaning of life, but that's
just as well, as you hate to introduce that topic to someone stuck in a car
doing 80 mph through the Or
NOT be, as it happens. Anyway,
somewhere in this discussion, I mentioned that I was encouraged by the presence
of literally hundreds of shiny new graduate students -- all there in their
spiffy interview suits, young and bright and full of enthusiasm -- who had come
to the conference to talk about subjects that were near and dear to all of
us: Environmental lifecycle analysis. Green chemistry.
Selective solvents. Environmental applications of nanotechnology.
Sustainable biorefineries. Climate Change. Sustainable Water Management. All
of this is stuff that built upon the intellectual and technical foundation laid
by P2. Yet it all seems to be moving ahead without the P2 community in
some ways. Now
I chalk some of this up to creative repackaging -- tack the word
"sustainable" on to a session title, and you can continue to talk
about the same old.... er, stuff -- that you've always talked about, and
yet still seem contemporary. It's
a fact. But
a lot of what was being presented would have been right at home at an NPPR meeting
(remember those?) ten years ago. Or more. I
mentioned this to Jean. She started to respond, then abruptly
blurted out "wait just a sec...." In
the background, I heard tires screeching as she swerved to avoid hitting a pig
that had walked onto the freeway -- an event so commonplace in Nebraska that
native Nebraskans will mock you if you slow down even a bit. Instead, the
accepted practice is to swerve out into the cornfield (because the laws of
probability state with near certainty that if you're driving across Nebraska,
you'll be adjacent to a corn field), dodge the center pivot sprinkler, then
swerve back out onto the highway, spraying gravel from the wheels of your
pickup as you hit the pavement. On those rare occasions when the road
actually IS paved, that is. "Try
that again and you're going home as bacon!" I heard her say, away from the
phone. I
was pretty sure she was talking to the pig, not to me. "OK,
now where were we?" she asked rhetorically. "Oh yeah -- all
these upstarts coming into P2." "The
problem, as I see it," she began, " is that we were successful beyond
our wildest dreams. The environment is becoming mainstream, just like we
wanted" I
sensed a "but...." about to intrude into the conversation.
"But-ing in," if you will. "But,
the thing is -- will the bandwagon stop to pick us up, or will it roll us
over?" Good
question, Jean. They grow up smart out there in the midwest. Smart,
and tough. And
smelling faintly of cows. Anyway.
Let's take stock for a moment: -
Everyone and their brother (unless the brother is named "Jeb") seems
to be interested in the environment these days. -
Companies are increasingly touting "green" products, and people are,
in increasing numbers, buying those green products -
Al Gore won the freakin' Nobel Peace prize, for insistently and persistently
stating the obvious. Heck,
there's even a movie that hit the theatres this weekend, called -- what else?
-- "P2" Without
wanting to be a spoiler, here's a hint: it's not what you might hope. Seems
that "P2" can mean things OTHER than "pollution prevention"
-- whodathunkit? But
that one exception notwithstanding, it seems like the P2 community -- which
after all, has been ahead of this curve for years, right? -- should be at it's
peak of influence. Sitting
in the catbird seat. Calling
the shots. Leader
of the pack. Driving
the bandwagon. (coming
up with better cliches) But
I don’t get the sense that we are. Has
the P2 community moved on? Tired out? Outlived it's
usefulness? Accomplished it's goals? Morphed into these other
things? Does
it matter? I
don't know the answers to these questions. Just musing out loud at the
provocation of a good friend. Anyone
else wondering along these lines recently? Regards,
Scott
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I
could provide you with some b.s. rationale, but mostly it was an excuse to
spend 17 hours each way with no company other than myself and the extensive
collection of Elvis Costello songs I have loaded onto my iPod. The
fact that I think that is something to look forward to explains quite a bit,
actually. In
any event, my pictures of the road trip can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rs_butner/sets/72157603110709460/show/ As
you'll see, I managed to make some stops along the way to stand in a river or
two. As
is my habit. Have
a happy Thanksgiving. Be sure to find SOMETHING to be thankful for.
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