It’s actually quite refreshing to step back from the generally ethical and moral dilemmas that humans and corporations might face in terms of environmental impact, and instead turn to the actual scientific element of how this ecological damage is being caused. It’s not just that I appreciate the rational component of all this, but I also value the fact that knowledge provides us with an exact representation of the problems we create. The mere idea that “we are causing harm to the environment” can be described with depictions of chemical compounds and quantified with the numbers that accompany them. It’s a much more satisfying way to address the issues we face because we can then garner specific avenues of action to be taken. It’s all horribly ironic, however; science has the potential to be our savior in just the same capacity that it has led us to our current predicament.
Thus, it was with great concentration that I approached our last lecture. If there’s anything that I’ve learned after taking science courses, it’s that most of what I’ve been taught is either simplified to some extent or does not account for the complexity of other factors. More often than not, I have to come to terms with both. Indeed, the air is polluted not just because of the carbon dioxide that theories of global warming have made so prominent or the sulfur compounds that cause acid rain, but also because of many other chemical compounds that are being released into the atmosphere. A common trend that I noticed from all the causes of S, N, and C oxides was the role of fuel combustion. Although we may not have gone into the specifics of the current technology used to downgrade the impact of these compounds, I can’t help but wonder if and how we are dealing with their release into the air besides just filters. In addition to focusing our efforts on looking for alternative fuel sources, we could also look for useful tools that would more effectively deal with the way we our disposing of our waste.
The disconcerting thing is perhaps not that we aren’t capable of coming up with such technology; it’s that there are so many different ways that our economically driven practices can cause harm. And even if companies do find alternate means of disposal (hopefully not with the hands-off approach that so plagued Arthur Kill), it is highly likely that we are just putting off the waste to another location or crevice that we will worry about later—hence my question at last lecture about where the particulate matter actually goes despite the filters. Indeed, RCRA’s renewal to the HWMP was a smart move, but I would encourage even more government oversight into the process by which companies use, store, and dispose of chemicals, but I’m just not sure how much our attempts are genuinely to reverse our impact on the environment as opposed to maintaining the present and very near future (essentially a nice way of saying that the future generations will have to deal with the real mess).
Either way, what struck me as a great move as mentioned in the last lecture was the 20th Century Atmospheric Metal Flux Experiment in Central Park Lake. I think that experiments like those need to be ever so often to track and take into account the atmospheric absorption of commercial residue. It not only provides a plethora of raw information, an analysis of the material would give us reasons to look into our actions; we can see how directly the environment is getting affected by air pollution. If anything, it reminds us how far-reaching our influence has been.
