- August 01, 2023
- Durham, N.C.
The International Society of Automation (ISA) today announces the publication of Controlling the Future: Controlling Non-Industrial Processes to Prevent Climate and Other Disasters by Béla Lipták, a comprehensive analysis of how processes developed and perfected by the automation industry can be used to tackle the climate change problem.
To control a process, we must fully understand it. In Controlling the Future, Lipták analyzes global warming as a heat balance process that has been disrupted by burning fossil fuels. Now, even knowing the dangers that global warming presents, 8 to 10 billion tons of carbon are still being emitted yearly. As more and more tipping points in the disruption of this equilibrium are reached, global warming and the frequency of its catastrophic effects will only accelerate.
By understanding global warming as a process, Lipták applies process control principles to this complex problem. Lipták analyzes the dynamics and characteristics of global warming, identifies the subprocesses that sustain and escalate it, and shows what can be done. Controlling the Future describes the consequences of out-of-control warming, but it also presents solutions powered by artificial intelligence and a timeframe for converting today’s energy economy into a safe and inexhaustible one by 2050.
Béla Lipták has more than 50 years of professional experience, including automating several dozen industrial plants, and has published more than 300 technical articles and 20 books on automation, safety, and energy technology. He is an ISA fellow and has received both the ISA Technical Achievement Award and the ISA Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I think this is a monumental work that hopefully opens people's minds as to how what we have learned and accomplished in process control can be used to solve worldwide problems for a much better future. The severity of the problems is accelerating, and the need for aggressive process control is eminent because we are approaching a tipping point where the ability to return to a safer world is threatened,” stated Greg McMillan, award winning automation professional and ISA Fellow.
To purchase a copy of Controlling the Future, Controlling Non-Industrial Process: Preventing Climate and Other Disasters by Béla Lipták, click here.
For more details, read the informative author interview
To learn more about Béla Lipták’s research into the processes behind global warming and how we can solve this complex problem, read the Q&A feature with the author.
About ISA
The International Society of Automation (www.isa.org) is a nonprofit professional association founded in 1945 to create a better world through automation. ISA advances technical competence by connecting the automation community to achieve operational excellence. The organization develops widely used global standards, certifies industry professionals, provides education and training, publishes books and technical articles, hosts conferences and exhibits, and provides networking and career development programs for its 40,000 members and 400,000 customers around the world.