Good environmentalist vs. destructive ­industry is mega-out!

These days the United Nations General Assembly Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon led the nations to this year’s climate summit in New York. The President of the United States attended the event, however, leaders of other major industrial and emerging countries sent representatives in their place. This shows once more the difference in priorities when it comes to local economy versus global ecology with regards to self-restriction.

Exactly this is what Benny Preiser investigates. He studies, as a social anthropologist, the portrayal of climate change as a potential disaster and how we respond to it: personal fears of climatic disasters on the one hand and loosing one’s livelihood due to greenhouse gas restrictions on the other hand.

As this is also mentioned by Carlo Jaeger (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) and Klaus Töpfer (former Executive Director of UNEP), it is time to move past debating and focus on opportunities, mobilizing idle resources, and creating growth and jobs.

In this current collection of interesting contributions, you will be informed about excavation and the handling of raw materials. In addition, we highlight how carefully and sustainably modern quarries are managed, providing formerly scarred landscapes the opportunity to heal. Furthermore, raw material storage in a silo, perhaps viewed as a typical storage application, is given special attention because the challenge lies in the detail.

Also interesting to read is how a well managed quality lab insures an optimized process and earns money at the same time by sucessfully applying systemic thinking. Consequently, a great deal of know-how as well as future trends are published in this issue. As you know, two weeks attentive planning avoids lifelong  remodeling.

I hope you enjoy reading this issue of ZKG International!