This week marks the celebration of our Declaration of Independence. As civil engineers, we should be among those who celebrate the most. The USA continues to be a place where people from all walks of life can follow their dreams.

The staff in my firm is made up of men and women from all walks of life. They come from all over the world. Together, we create a better quality of life for our friends and neighbors in cities across Texas. Look at your own organization. How are you contributing to building better communities?

You have the freedom to come and go as you please. Your compensation allows you to care for yourself and your family. Nobody tells you to be a carpenter or plumber if you really want to be a civil engineer. You have the freedom to pursue the religion of your choice or no religion at all. Being a D, R, L, C, or I has no bearing on your ability to practice civil engineering. Our ethics and laws allow us to avoid the corruption that many of our colleagues face in certain other nations.

I am proud to be an American, a civil engineer, and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Every person involved in civil engineering has heard the call to reduce our carbon footprint, become more sustainable, and think green. The real question is what that means. How will we know when we achieve ultimate “greenness”? In the building industry, a certification program, LEED AP, has been developed. A general acceptance of their definitions controls that industry. Many civil engineers have taken the time to become LEED certified when working on building projects.

How will we define a green civil engineering project? What makes a green road or a green water distribution system? ASCE is working on these questions right now. We believe that civil engineers should set the definitions on sustainability in our profession. Many of our committees are diligently working to create a new approach to material selection, design methodology, and construction techniques that reduce our carbon equation. We have appointed a Task Force to identify these ongoing activities and communicate some basic definitions to our members. The Task Force is also evaluating the benefits of ASCE developing a system of certifying projects and/or professionals in sustainable civil engineering. Engineers should define the path forward in these changing times.

Stay tuned because the information will be released by the time of the Annual Conference this fall in Kansas City.

Update: Tuesday, June 23, 10 a.m. ET

We have a high level of interest in my blog post of June 8. Please see an update from me this week on that entry. If you have a post on climate change, please make it on the June 8 entry. Thank you.

ASCE is an organization made up of individual members. We come from all sectors of our profession — private practice, government service, academia, industry, design, construction, and management. Our success is directly tied to the quality and enthusiasm of our elected leaders. That choice is up to you.

We are beginning a new election. For the first time under our new governance model, we have two official nominees for President-Elect. These two individuals sought the nomination because they want to serve. They were not restricted by the old zonal rotation system. Both Kathy Caldwell and Moustafa Gouda have decades of ASCE service on their resumes. They have a vision for our future that you can find on our election Web site. What they do not have is your vote.

Other important positions are also on the ballot for various leadership positions on our Board of Direction and in our Institutes. The only thing missing is you. Please take a few minutes and cast your ballot. We have long been told that the members want a choice, and now you have one. You can even vote electronically in just a couple of moments. Let your voice be heard on the future of ASCE.

I recently had the privilege of accompanying U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on a fact-finding visit to the Netherlands. We followed that visit by participating in the Triennial Conference among ASCE, Britain’s ICE, and Canada’s CSCE, which was held in Newfoundland. One of the most striking things to me from these events is the significant differences in perceptions of climate change found in the European countries and Canada versus the way we see it in the United States.

ASCE has recently updated its policies to reflect the need for civil engineers to lead the efforts at adapting our infrastructure to rising sea levels, changes in rainfall patterns, and other predicted impacts of the changing climate. No national consensus has been reached on the best way to prepare for this long-term phenomenon. The Dutch and British are already working under national guidance and changing their design codes to accommodate expected increases in sea level with its multiple impacts. The Canadians are working to develop specific guidelines for use in guarding the longest coastline of any nation in the world.

As civil engineers, we do not claim to be climate scientists. We do claim to be the stewards of the nation’s infrastructure. My conversations with our counterparts in these three countries make me pause. Are the civil engineers in the U.S. taking strong leadership in developing a strategy to deal with the impacts of climate change? Has ASCE done enough to raise the awareness of its members and to provide appropriate guidance for civil engineers to participate in local conversations about adapting our infrastructure design criteria?

Our climate is changing. Civil engineers will have to change with it. All of us need to pick up the pace.

[At the Triennial Conference, ASCE, ICE and CSCE agreed to a protocol on climate change action. Read the official document (PDF).]

Update: Thursday, June 11, 11:30 a.m. ET

Thank you for all of the comments to my post this week. Please read the many comments that have been offered. To continue the discussion, I offer a response to a number of those who posted comments. Read the statements that I made carefully. Nowhere do I state the cause of climate change. I agree that the climate is always changing, sometimes more rapidly than others. I also agree that we can do a better job of controlling our air emissions, and civil engineers are in a perfect position to lead that effort. My main point is that civil engineers do not have the luxury of watching the political debate on this issue. We are bound by ethics and professionalism to inject technical truth into the public conversation. We are equally bound to provide infrastructure that is sustainable and resilient. The climate is changing no matter the cause. We need to lead in the effort to adapt our infrastructure for the natural conditions that we will experience in the future.

Update: Tuesday, June 23, 10 a.m. ET

Thank you to everyone who has expressed an opinion on this topic. This topic is one that generates a lot of heat (not related to global warming). My challenge to ASCE remains. We may differ on whether or not we believe that greenhouse gases cause climate change. We may differ on whether or not we believe the climate is changing at all. What we cannot do is avoid the consequences of those outside of our profession who regulate us. Look at the current debate on health care. My guess is that the health insurance companies do not believe they are the cause of the perceived health care problems in the U.S. They could take a hard-line position that they did not cause the problem, so they will not participate in the debate. Their livelihood would be permanently changed if they chose that course. Watching the conversations in Washington, the insurance companies are deeply engaged in the conversation. You can make the same case for drug companies, hospital companies, and doctors.

Civil engineers are taking the same risk. We can take a hard-line position that climate change is a political conversation that is beneath our attention. We will watch as various energy and environmental bills are passed that have dramatic impacts on how we design and construct civil works. We must be engaged in the conversation. We owe the decision-makers our expertise on the impact of their policies on the economy and the quality of infrastructure that we have in the U.S. We owe the public a sustainable built environment.

Which words would you use to describe ASCE? More specifically, what qualities or values would you associate with ASCE? These are not flip questions. For our Society to move into the future and remain relevant, it’s vital that we reflect the qualities and values sought by our members so we’re able to provide what our members want and need.

We began exploring this a few months ago with extensive surveying of members and others who would be interested. The results boiled down to these six attributes: Enduring, Trusted, Responsible, Expert, Professional, and Leader. Each has two sets of definitions formed by the results, one based on how those attributes apply to ASCE today, another on “aspirational” ways to build on them.

A task committee at ASCE and the Board are working on ways of best following through on these attributes. Some of these approaches involve better ways of organizing the Society’s array of programs, products, and services, and of communicating that to our members. These include everything up to implementing a new way of navigation for our new Web site. You’ll slowly see the fruits of this labor begin to appear later this summer. When plans are firmed up a little more, I’ll be able to share more about what those are. In the meantime, I welcome your take on the six attributes, and how we ought to put them to work for you.