Global Infrastructure is Focus of First US, China-Sponsored Meeting
Hundreds of sustainability experts converged on Long Beach, Calif., to discuss engineering resilient infrastructure in a world challenged by sea-level rise and climate change. Co-sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers and China's Tianjin University, the conference was billed as the first to focus on key issues in international sustainable infrastructure.
"Environmental and social impacts are playing a bigger role in projects. We want these impacts to be considered, because many of today's problems are huge and require big solutions to be implemented quickly to avoid disasters," says William A. Wallace, a key organizer of the Nov. 4-7 conference and president of Wallace Futures Group, a Steamboat Spring, Colo., sustainability consulting firm. "We don't want our grandchildren's grandchildren to have half as much livable earth to work with."