Fray International Symposium METALS AND MATERIALS PROCESSING IN A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT PLENARY Edited by Florian Kongoli, FLOGEN 3 SUSTAINABILITY - THE CHALLENGE OF 21 ST CENTURY - REFLECTIONS ON THE ROLE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - On the occasion of honoring Professor Fray’s scientific lifetime achievements - FLORIAN KONGOLI 1,2,3 1 FLOGEN Technologies Inc., Mont-Royal, QC, Canada 2 FLOGEN Technologies Inc., Wilmington, De, 19808, USA www.flogen.com 3 FLOGEN Star OUTREACH, Mont-Royal, QC, Canada www.flogen.org ABSTRACT Sustainability is a term that is used so frequently today in every field of life. You hear it everywhere; especially in political gatherings. Various serious risks that face our planet are frequently and rightfully stated if we do not become sustainable. These include the evaluation that not enough food and water will be available by 2050 for the forecasted 9 billion people living on the planet or that an increase of the global average temperature of the planet above a tipping point will itself be destructive. Many ways are proposed to make the world sustainable however not the right attention has been concentrated on the role of science and technology. The purpose of this lecture is to assess the primary role that science and technology play in the noble quest to make the world sustainable, to highlight the role of scientists, technologists and engineers as silent stars of our society, to stress the need for much better societal recognition for them and better funding to their work while suggesting better coordination among various fields of life and science and technology. This paper contains some extracts from the book “Silent Stars of Society” by the same author that is in print and will be available soon. Key words: sustainability, environment, economy, society, definitions, sciences, engineering, technologies, coordination, silent stars. INTRODUCTION Ecology and sustainability have become frequent prerequisites for projects in every field of life especially in evaluating their objectives and outcomes. In a recent global survey of 8000 people aged 18-35, living in 20 countries, including 400 in Canada and USA, the respondents listed 3 various priorities as the modern world’s challenges. They are shown in Figure 1. As can be seen, environmental degradation or ecology is chosen by about 60% of people as one of the top priorities. However, ecology is only one priority among others. Nevertheless, ecology and sustainability are so very popular terms, especially among politicians, that are often used intermittently substituting one for the other without proper context. In fact, both terms have very different meanings.