[SeriousGamesKit]

From an entrepreneurial lens, I was often tempted to think that computer science would be the best lever which could resolve some of the environmental issues close to home for me. As an example, I spent a long time trying to invent sampling tools which could help pinpoint the broken pipes which I imagined were contributing to the contamination of a major waterway near me.

While the solution was interesting, the background research revealed that not only was the river I was concerned about significantly less polluted than nearby ones, the source of the pollution was actually known- agricultural runoff from hundreds of farms. This would become a somewhat depressing theme- the problems were actually well understood, the solutions long available, but the actors with agency over the problem have chosen not to act. Through this lens, the sad revelation was that these issues which appeared to be technical were actually purely political.

It's kicked off a broader fascination with perverse incentives. I can recommend David Graeber's 'Bullshit Jobs' to speak to another aspect of this problem. In terms of the high-wire act of political influence around ecological decisions within major engineering projects, I'd suggest 'The making of an expert engineer'.

I do still think there's a significant amount for engineers to contribute. I'm often surprised to see and hear of solutions built by software engineers with little or no regard to operational cost, and I suspect the same is true of energy efficiency. Nowadays, I try to bias towards lightweight, shared cloud resources to deliver my projects. I think that Stripe's goal of shaving off some percentage points off the world of e-commerce to kickstart a market for atmospheric carbon removal is absolutely worth a go. And I'm still fascinated by engineering megaprojects for cleaner energy distribution, such as the Sun Cable.