We're Doomed:, Let's do the "sustainable" dance

[antacid]

Ugh, check out this e-mail that was sent to all Civil Engineering faculty and students today:

Message from the Chair,

It is with great pleasure that I can announce formally that we have changed the name of our department to the Department of Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering (CESE). The new name reflects the vision and mission of departments and our contribution to major initiatives within the university, and hopefully moves our discipline further along an evolutionary track of providing engineering technologies and solutions to urban communities. Our new name will be rolled out in January 2009.

Collectively the faculty, staff and students of CESE work to improve quality of life while protecting and enhancing the environment for current and future generations. We do this through education and research in sustainable development of civil infrastructure, preservation, restoration, and enhancement of air and water quality, and prudent stewardship of natural resources. We produce leaders and develop knowledge and technology for civil and environmental engineering purposes.

We educate civil and environmental engineers to be leaders in sustainable development. Our students and faculty create and apply knowledge and technology to improve the quality of life for current and future generations. We develop civil infrastructure and protect and enhance the environment while stewarding natural resources. We inform the public to elevate the discourse on lifecycle costs, environmental impacts, and social implications of economic and infrastructure development, both locally and globally.

From Paul Westerhoff
Chair of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering
Arizona State University

Within the message were two floating text boxes:

Text Box 1: Vision Statement: Enhancing the Built and Natural Environment through Sustainable Engineering.

Text Box 2: Mission Statement: Educate engineers, develop technology, and inform the public about costs and social and environmental impacts to improve the quality of life and move our society towards a sustainable future.


The green buzzword-speak is nauseatingly thick. On a related note, the school opened a "sustainable" restaurant at the beginning of this semester called "Grains". One of my friends happens to work there as part of an internship program for the Le Cordon Bleu culinary program at another school. When asked about the food there, her reply was "It's a bunch of overpriced crap." Everything served there is "organic," which in her estimation means that it's of extremely poor quality. They have to throw out about half of the produce they receive because it's rotten, wilted, and sometimes infested.

[Inspector]

Ugh is right! Environmental nonsense seems poised to replace "proactive" and "synergy" in the category of maddeningly stupid newspeak. It's like Orwell only run by idiots.

"Overpriced Crap"

This matches exactly what I've seen and heard about so-called "organic" food. You're not exactly getting the choice bits that they advertise, and the few that do are going to pay a hefty sum for it.