News Detail

Celebrating a Global Event

12/1/2011

Later this month, you can row your boat along the Tropic of Capricorn to a spot about 1000 miles (1600 km) due west of the westernmost tip of Australia to witness an annual event of great importance. From that unique vantage point at exactly noon on Thursday, December 22 (local time), the sun will appear to briefly stop in its tracks directly overhead. While this predictable, documentable event will significantly affect every one of us, we will not all agree on how the event will influence our futures, nor will we all agree on what to call it.

ACI members, chapters, and our international partners in the Northern Hemisphere call this moment the "Winter Solstice." As the sun reaches its southernmost declination, hardy northerners greet the official beginning of winter with extra layers of clothing. ACI members in Alaska, northern Scotland, and our partners in the Norwegian and Swedish Concrete Associations celebrate the event in near darkness with little or no sunshine to brighten the day, but the chill in their toes is matched with hope in their hearts since this shortest day and longest night of the year signifies that the days will now start to get longer and bring more of the sun's warming power.

Our many friends, members, and international partners like those in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa call exactly the same moment the "Summer Solstice," as their southern extremities celebrate near-continuous daylight. But their celebration of "Midsummer" is a reminder that their longest day of the year is soon to be followed by shorter and eventually cooler ones. For our international chapters at or near the equator in Singapore, Ethiopia, or Ecuador, the solstice has a less dramatic effect.

If we wanted to schedule an ACI conference call to simultaneously celebrate the solstice, our friends in the Japan and Korean Concrete Institutes would call in at their local time of 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 22, from a time zone a few hours ahead of our Taiwanese and Chinese partners. The Indian Concrete Institute and ACI India Chapter would join at their 11 a.m., while RILEM would call from France at 6:30 a.m. and The Concrete Society in London would ring-up at an early 5:30 a.m. Back in Detroit, a weary Ron Burg would answer ACI's phone at precisely 12:30 a.m. that same date. But ACI Past President Florian Barth of the Northern California and Western Nevada Chapter and Wayne Kawano of the Cement and Concrete Products Institute of Hawaii would connect at 9:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., respectively, on Wednesday, December 21, to be part of this monumental convergence!

Realizing that I cannot globally generalize on what to call the December Solstice—or on what to expect from its passing—reminds me of how difficult it is to generalize on the complicated issues addressed by ACI. Issues that portend an increase in light and warmth to one member or constituency can leave another member or group in a cold, dark place. As I contemplated a traditional year-end memo, I began by assuming that the roughly 18,000 of us who receive Concrete International have similar year-end expectations, but such is not a valid assumption.

We're not only "global" in the sense that our members, chapters, international partners, and allied organizations are spread out all over the world, but we likewise work with global technologies in which an idea or innovation is judged on how well it works regardless of its country of origin. Modern communication and transportation systems move ideas, material, people, and equipment to any office or job site regardless of how remote. Not only are manufacturer's instruction manuals written in many languages, but many of our own ACI codes, specs, reports, guides, certification products, and educational materials have been translated and the demand is increasing. As this article is being prepared, our certification team is in China and Taiwan and another delegation is visiting IBRACON in Brazil and then unveiling new Spanish-language ACI documents in Chile, Peru, and Colombia.

But for all of our variety, we’re bound in a global economy where decisions made in any one corner of the world will affect all of us, and sooner rather than later. Nowadays we have to be able to see and communicate from down the street to around the world, and we have to realize that although we share common goals, we do not see everything the same way—not even the sun.

Kenneth C. Hover
American Concrete Institute
kch7@cornell.edu

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