WISENET Journal No. 24, October 1990, p. 21.
I have always been a bit an idealist. That's why I chose to be an engineer when I was 15. I thought that technology could solve the world's problems -- problems such as energy shortages (this was 1972) and food supply. I was going to irrigate the deserts and invent new forms of energy. By the time I realised that the world's problems were really social problems rather than technical problems I was already a civil engineer sitting in front of a computer screen in the lower ground basement of the Ministry of Works in Wellington New Zealand. I lasted about six months before my desire to work with people on more meaningful tasks made the job unbearable.
I came to Australia in 1979 and over the next few years I worked at a variety of engineering jobs, all of which involved more people contact and more natural light but still lacked that quality that would give meaning to my life. I was working as a Contracts Programmer (responsible for keeping large engineering projects on schedule) for Noyes Bros P/L in 1983 when I saw an ad for the Masters of Science and Society at the University of New South Wales. I applied, was undeterred by being accidentally enrolled for a Masters of Commerce, and eventually began studying two nights a week in a degree programme which "changed my life"!
It was so interesting that I actually gave up my well paid job so I could spend more time reading and leaming about the relationships and interactions between science, technology and society. After the Masters course, I was awarded a Commonwealth Research Award which allowed me to do a PhD full-time. The theme of my PhD was engineering decision making and I used the development of Sydney's sewerage system as a case study to explore the social, political, economic and technical factors that influence decisions about public-sector technological projects.
During the course of my research I uncovered a number of startling scientific studies that revealed that fish near the outfalls in Sydney were grossly contaminated and beaches were regularly polluted to unsatisfactory levels. These studies had been kept secret by the govemment but I passed them onto rhe Sydney Moming Herald and they were the basis of several stories in early 1989 that triggered a media campaign and public furore over sewage pollution in Sydney. At the same time I rewrote the PhD thesis as a popular book, Toxic Fish and Sewer Surfing, which was published by Allen and Unwin in November 1989.
Unfortunately the environment has yet to benefit from all this publicity. Too many people think, like I did, that technology will solve all the problems and few want to leam from past mistakes. Although the govemment is promising billions of dollars worth of new technology over the next twenty years it is unwilling to change the decision-making structure that created the problems in the first place. The bureaucratic secrecy is still there and the unwillingness to put environmental protection ahead of economic concerns ensures that toxic waste will continue to be dumped in the sewers. Better sewage treatment technologies will only move it from the oceans to somewhere else in the environment.
Currently I am Environmental Education Co-ordinator at Sydney University. I am investing my hopes in education as the way out of rhe global environmental crisis -- education of children, students, and adults -- especially adults in industry and govemment who have the power to make the decisions.