The Ingenuity Gap: Can We Solve the Problems of the Future? - Softcover

Homer-Dixon, Thomas

 
9780676972962: The Ingenuity Gap: Can We Solve the Problems of the Future?
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0676972969 ISBN 13: 9780676972962
Verlag: Vintage Canada, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

As crises multiply, ingenuity lags. This prescient classic explains why societies falter when problems outpace solutions—and offers a roadmap to close the gap before risks from climate shocks, pandemics, inequality, and AI spiral beyond control.

First published at the turn of the millennium, The Ingenuity Gap by Thomas Homer-Dixon anticipated the turbulent world we now inhabit: pandemics, climate disasters, political polarization, disruptive runaway technologies, and escalating global instability. With remarkable foresight, Homer-Dixon warned that the complexity of our problems would accelerate faster than our collective ingenuity to solve them—and that failure to close this “gap” would leave societies fragile and exposed. A quarter century later, his vision has proven prophetic.

Homer-Dixon takes readers on a global tour of ingenuity under pressure: from the desperate improvisation of pilots fighting to land United Airlines Flight 232 in Iowa, to the water-hungry expansion of Las Vegas, to a harrowing search for a missing child in Patna, and the collapse of Canada’s cod fisheries. Vivid and far-reaching, it is a sweeping portrait of what happens when societies are stretched beyond their capacity to adapt and an enlightening case for why ingenuity is humanity’s most vital resource.

Celebrating over twenty-five years in print, The Ingenuity Gap remains both a visionary diagnosis of our age and a call to reimagine how we generate creativity, resilience, and leadership in uncertain times.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

THOMAS HOMER-DIXON holds a University Research Chair at the University of Waterloo, where he is a professor in the Faculty of Environment. Between 2009-2014, he was founding director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation. Born in Victoria, BC, he received his BA in political science from Carleton University and his Ph.D. from the M.I.T in international relations, defense and arms control policy, and conflict theory. His books include The Ingenuity Gap,The Upside of Down, and Environment, Scarcity, and Violence. His writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, the Washington Post, The New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Globe and Mail.

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CAREENING INTO THE FUTURE

At 3:16 p.m. on 19 July, 1989, the jet's tail engine blew apart. Twelve thousand meters above the U.S. Midwest, shards of the engine's fan rotor cut through the rear of the aircraft, shredding its hydraulic systems. As fluid bled from hydraulic tubing, the pilots in the front of the plane lost command of the rudder, elevators, and ailerons essential to stabilizing and guiding the craft. Immediately, the plane twisted into a downward right turn. United Airlines Flight 232 from Denver to Chicago -- with 296 people aboard -- was out of control.

By itself, the failure of the tail engine was not catastrophic: the DC-10 had two other engines, one under each wing. But cockpit gauges showed a complete loss of hydraulic quantity and pressure. When the first officer tried to halt the right turn, the plane didn't respond. As the rightward bank became critical, the captain took over, pulling back on the control column and turning the wheel hard left -- but still there was no response. In a last-ditch effort to regain command, he cut power to the left engine and boosted it to the right one. The right wing slowly came up, and the plane rolled back to a horizontal position. The right turn stopped.

Yet the situation remained critical. The plane was no longer turning, but it was still losing altitude. The captain sent crew members to look out of the windows in the passenger cabin. They saw that the inboard ailerons were slightly up, the spoilers were locked down, and the horizontal stabilizers were damaged. None of the main flight-control surfaces were moving. And it appeared that the airframe might have suffered structural damage severe enough to cause it to break apart in flight.

Back in the cockpit, the captain and first officer worked the flight controls feverishly -- they still believed they could change the plane's trajectory. But their efforts produced no obvious effect. The captain also manipulated the thrust of the two remaining engines, sometimes giving extra power to the left engine, sometimes to the right engine. This action did have a noticeable effect. It helped keep the plane level and countered its tendency to turn right. But changes in engine thrust gave the captain only minimal control. In fact, from the perspective of the passengers, the plane was moving in three dimensions simultaneously: it was rolling from side to side and pitching up and down, as if riding long waves across the sky.

A flight attendant opened the cockpit door to say that an off-duty United Airlines pilot, seated in first class, had offered to help. He was a "check airman" who flew with flight crews to assess their performance. The captain acknowledged that the unexpected assistance was urgently needed, because he was finding it impossible to work the flight and thrust controls simultaneously. When the airman entered the cockpit, the captain briefed him on the aircraft's critical situation in a staccato of abbreviated phrases. "Tell me what you want, and I'll help you," he replied. The captain asked him to take over the thrust controls. Grasping an engine throttle in each hand, the check airman then knelt on the floor between the captain and first officer's seats, and--with his eyes fixed on the flight instruments -- began to manipulate the power of the two wing engines.

About fifteen minutes had passed since the explosion. The nearest airport was at Sioux City, Iowa. But the plane had lost nearly 7,000 meters of altitude and--despite the best efforts of the check airman -- was still describing a series of clockwise circles over the Iowa countryside. In various parts of the United States, clusters of people had gathered around microphones and speakers to follow United 232's plight and to offer suggestions. The crew particularly wanted to hear from the United Airlines System Aircraft Maintenance (SAM) facility in San Francisco.

Second Officer to United Airlines Chicago Dispatch: "We need any help we can get from SAM, as far as what to do with this. We don't have anything. We don't [know] what to do. We're having a hard time controlling it. We're descending. We're down to 17,000 feet. We have . . . ah, hardly any control whatsoever.

But the SAM engineers didn't have a clue how to help. They had never heard before of a simultaneous failure of all three hydraulic systems. They kept asking, in disbelief, if there really was no hydraulic quantity or pressure. And they asked the second officer to flip back and forth through the pages of a thick flight manual, to no avail. The crew's frustration with ground support rose.

Captain to Second Officer: "You got hold of SAM?"
Second Officer: "Yeah, I've talked to 'im."
Captain: "What's he saying?"
Second Officer: "He's not telling me anything."
Captain: "We're not gonna make the runway, fellas, we're gonna have to ditch this son of a [bitch] and hope for the best."

Almost thirty minutes into the crisis, sam had finally assembled a team of engineers around the speaker and asked the second officer for yet another full report. He provided a detailed run-down of the aircraft's status. After a period of radio silence, sam again asked, "United 232, one more time, no hydraulic quantity, is that correct?" The second officer replied in exasperation, "Affirmative! Affirmative! Affirmative!" The engineers on the ground, the crew decided, could offer no help. United 232 was on its own.

Yet, at almost exactly the same time, the check airman accomplished a miracle. He managed to bring the plane around in a single broad turn to the left, lining up the plane for the shortest runway at the Sioux City airport. This was the only left turn the plane was to make following the explosion. The captain called the head flight attendant forward and explained the procedures for an emergency landing.


Captain: "We're going to try to put into Sioux City, Iowa. It's gonna be tough . . . gonna be rough."
Flight Attendant: "So we're going to evacuate?"
Captain: "Yeah. We're going to have the [landing] gear down, and if we can keep the airplane on the ground and stop standing up [i.e. stop right side up] . . . give us a second or two before you evacuate. 'Brace, brace, brace,' will be the signal . . . it'll be over the PA system: 'Brace, brace, brace'."
Flight Attendant: "And that will be [the signal] to evacuate?"
Captain: "No, that'll be to brace for the landing. And then if we have to evacuate, you'll get the command signal to evacuate. But I really have my doubts you'll see us standing up, honey. Good luck, sweetheart."

Thirty-five kilometers from the airport and at 1,300 meters altitude, the plane was still roughly lined up for the runway. Sioux City air traffic control suggested a slight left turn to produce a better approach and to keep the plane away from the city. "Whatever you do, keep us away from the city," the captain implored. Almost immediately afterward, as if in defiance, the plane began its tightest rightward turn, a complete 360-degree circle. The crew desperately tried to bring the nose around to face the runway again. As the aircraft rolled to a severe angle, the check airman exclaimed, "I can't handle that steep of bank . . . can't handle that steep of bank!" For five excruciatingly slow minutes, the plane turned in a circle. Working the throttles, the check airman leveled the wings once more and got the plane back to its original course.

Sioux City control: "United 232 heavy: the wind's currently three six zero at one one. Three sixty at eleven. You're cleared to land on any runway."

The runway that they were heading towards was closed and covered with equipment. Two minutes before touchdown, airport workers...

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Verlag
Vintage Canada
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0676972969
ISBN 13 
9780676972962
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
496
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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