Written By: Anna Lucas
The world of environmental engineering is widespread in our society and impacts all groups of people, whether they know it or not. The impacts of environmental engineering can be found everywhere from government agencies, politics, and science. Environmental engineering is the focus of engineering in which engineers seek to find solutions to environmental challenges that impact the health and well-being of society and the environment. In other words, environmental engineering is a subgroup of engineering in which engineers work to solve the problems related to the environment that threaten large groups of animals, plants, or people.
These engineers work for the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agencies/organizations. Environmental engineers can be lobbyists for politicians, influencing them to rule in favor of the environment. Environmental engineers can also be scientists, studying the impact of natural and human actions on the environment, and how we can reverse or accelerate these processes. Basically, environmental engineers are everywhere in every aspect of life.
A few of the main problems that environmental engineers today strive to solve are issues such as climate change, deforestation, animal extinction, ozone depletion, rising ocean levels, and extreme climates/natural disasters. Many of these topics should be familiar to you, as switching onto any news channel and watching for a while will inevitably bring up the topic of one of these major environmental problems. However, for those unfamiliar, these topics are mainly man-made environmental problems that impact the health of the general population, the health of a species of animals or their habitats, or the health of the planet itself.
But what exactly does environmental engineering do to be able to solve these issues? Environmental engineers use tactics such as reducing CO2 emissions by making devices able to capture and store the CO2 from power plants right when it's emitted, so that it can't get into the atmosphere. They might also look into ways to make trees and other vegetation more efficient as natural carbon sinks. They do this in an attempt to reverse or improve the impacts of the previously mentioned man-made environmental problems that we have inadvertently caused to our environment.
So, environmental engineers strive to solve problems and make improvements on issues that have to do with topics related to the environment, and all those who inhabit it. Environmental engineers are vital to our society, and they have many different responsibilities to keeping the environment and our planet safe for all those who inhabit it. A few of the most important responsibilities are to prevent pollution and contamination of the air, water, and soil to improve the environment. Without environmental engineers, the health of the planet and its occupants would be much worse and the quality of life of our people would be depleted as our ability to breathe clean air and drink clean water depleted with it.
Image Citation:
Bratcher , Emily H. “Environmental Engineers Working in the Fieldm .” Money.usnews.com, https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/environmental-engineer. Accessed 21 July 2022.
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