Author Archives: Simon Ayzman

Posts by Simon Ayzman

The Problems We Have, We Must Have No More

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

It’s a little bit sad to think that this is my last response paper for MHC 200. I’ve gotten so used to responding to the various things that happen in our class that now it feels as if there is an impending void approaching. But I can still see the tendrils of how each response has built upon the others, and how what we’ve learned is all coming together. Since the beginning of this course, we’ve somewhat avoided the question of what happens to our garbage after it is created, collected, and sent away. And now it’s clear that we’re doing the same thing now as we’ve been doing all the time before—making it someone else’s problem. NYC has been a wonderful benefactor of garbage, and Tullytown has wholeheartedly accepted its gifts (for a price).

But sarcasm aside, I don’t know how comfortable I feel with having some concentrated group of people deal with a much larger group’s problem. However, in some sense, we do this anyway with our emergency services; police and firefighters are paid to put themselves in danger’s way for the good of society, but it would seem that this situation can easily be distinguished from those of emergency workers. Tullytown residents don’t deal with this garbage for only 8 hours a day; it’s a perpetual situation for them. They are constantly put in the way of the various dangers that this landfill poses. And even moreso, while it may be the residents’ choices to stay there to receive monetary benefits in exchange for their living situation, the children of these residents have no such choice; they are still put in danger’s way.

The more important issue is the one we addressed after discussing Tullytown: How can we reduce garbage ourselves? The most important idea to consider at this point is sustainability, and we’ve already delved into the specificities of achieving it. The term “cradle-to-cradle” has been reiterated because now we’re starting to apply this idea to the problems that are currently plaguing humans—in this particular case, garbage. We are making our own fair share of waste that we should be reusing or at least mandatorily sorting through in order to recycle. We have to institute policies that force companies rethink sustainability. It’s now just reducing resource input and waste output by increasing the efficiency of current machinery and technology. This seems no different than the end-of-pipe and/or pollution prevention schemas. “Reducing the human footprint” completely sidesteps the possibility of taking away that footprint. As the entirety of this course has shown, this approach spells out disaster for our future—to the extent that it doesn’t attempt to solve the real problem. There is little recognition of the central flaw in the system as a whole. We must figure out efficient, sustainable ways to deal with our “waste.”

In general, this generation of Americans should to start to feel the necessity of environmental protection. We’ve discussed the issues and figured out ways to potentially deal with them, but I’m hoping that we enter another phase of environmental necessity very soon—one in which the people recognize that society has done wrong and in which the majority of people subscribe themselves to reversing the impact of humanity. We need to have a messianic moment. It’ll be more than just a leap of faith; it’ll be an action calculated by reason and a desire to keep living in a world better than the one we have developed. I’m convinced. I just wish other people would start to see it the same way.

The President’s Dilemma

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

When I was younger, I always thought that being the President must have been the hardest job in the world. I can’t say that that opinion has necessarily changed, but I do know that I became somewhat more enlightened before I reached that same conclusion. My 8 year-old self was concerned that there was basically a list of things that the President had to deal with during his term and that he wouldn’t be able to figure them all out. His people would be unhappy as a result. So basically, as my 19 year-old brain can now fathom, this President must have been missing a framework of some sort. My fear was that building policy would mean starting from scratch. But in the modern age, there always seems to be a list of things that ensures success. Finish A. Fix B. Improve C. Everything good is guaranteed by ticking off a few checkboxes.

As one might imagine, the wariness of my youth never went away. Instead of only worrying about building a framework, now I worry that the one we already have in place is flawed or incomplete. This, of course, still leaves us with the problem of making a new list. As such, looking at the main foci of a Greater, Greener NYC leaves me with the same concern. I’m not saying that Land, Water, Transportation, Energy, and Air aren’t great goals to work on, but perhaps there are other headings that could be worked on instead. In fact, if we could succeed, then I’m sure we would be well on our way to a better New York City—just perhaps not the best. Thus, this still brings us back to the President’s Dilemma (maybe I could coin this term!) except with added texture: which of the things on our list is most important to deal with at the moment? It all comes back to intrinsic vs. instrumental value.

I’m starting to feel repetitive. I must’ve mentioned those two terms at least 7 times in the last ten responses for this class. But that’s why we started talking about it from the very beginning, I suppose—the controlling power of instrumental value is one of the foremost problems of society’s mentality. But as such, the goals of Greater, Greener NYC reach a crucial fork in the road in this regard. The reason why we call them is goals is that we hope to get to the proposed level, but it’s not a requirement to do so. This leaves us with the obvious of funding—which of the five headings will be given more money? Which will have more emphasis? It’s inevitable that we will reach some goals faster than others, but the reason for this could necessarily be because we are more concerned with things like building more houses rather than creating cleaner air. Environmentalists might realize that the future is at stake and opt to focus on the latter, but the truth is that one has the potential to make money (in the present!!!) while the other will simply cost money (in the present!!!).

And yet, we’re still avoiding the question of the future. It’s a great point that the interests of the future should be equally as important as those of the present, but the rise and fall of money is cyclically shorter than bouncing back from our environmental impact—if that’s at all possible. Essentially, we should make those headings that pertain directly to the environment more important. The environmental problems we cause are (for all intents and purposes) permanent. The problems we leave for the future will be there for that generation to take care. The short-term interest in fiscal matters cannot be the controlling factor in our decisions. Otherwise, someone is going to have to be there to pick up the pieces.

The Environmental (Political) Movement

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

It’s good to know that we’re moving forward as a society; all indicators of social justice in America seem to point to this. However, the problem still seems to be with the intentions with which we create legislation. The Modern Environmental Movement was definitely a step in a better direction because it spurred on the passing of the Endangered Specie Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. Except the reality is that such a victory was accomplished because of alterior motives. I’m still a little turned off by President Nixon’s creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s disheartening that it was done purely as a political move rather than as an endeavor to empower those who care about the environment. I can’t say that any of the pieces of legislature that came out of that period have negatively impacted society, but it goes back to the whole argument between having intrinsic value instead of instrumental value even when they both exist to achieve the same purposes. It’s beginning to make sense why such a mentality shouldn’t be accepted.

It fuels the mentality in favor of practices like fracking. People are willing to overlook evidence just because it’s inconclusive, even if there’s a good chance that it could be dangerous. Ignoring certain aspects of our environmental condition could indeed by caused by not taking lessons from history, but these problems that we choose to accept (and perhaps deal with later) are bound to become worse when new technologies and developments cause different sets of difficulties, particularly with fracking. It’s this synergism of problems that makes future development so worrisome. We end up suffering from our negligence of old problems and make things even by making some new unforeseen ones.

However, it’s heartening to know that New York City is trying its best to encourage environmentally friendly standards. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Guidelines seem to be helpful on the surface, but as I articulated in an essay a few weeks ago, it needs to be extended more forcefully in order to be successful. I know that if I were in power, I wouldn’t hesitate to raise the price and keep increasing it based on inflation—that 5-cent figure is more than half a century old. The apparent desire (though sometimes necessity) of returning those cans assuredly diminishes as time goes on and as 5 cents become ever more worthless. Having the tax gradually go up would of course raise the cost, but there is otherwise no incentive to actually return them—unless it is a source of income. The deposit laws have slowly melted into the background. I look at these LEED guidelines the same way. They need to slowly be made more mandatory with each structure that gets built because a change would be difficult to accept. I can already hear the libertarian uproar that would come about from making a dramatic leap towards sustainable design.

However, one of the main difficulties that come with all this is this idea of mentality. Making people feel the necessity of environmentalism is just as difficult as using reason to convince a stubborn, unreasonable person. We have to start from a young age if we think we could be successful, especially in this age of Grassroots Environmentalism.

Storming the Future of Environmental Action

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

It’ll be hard to approach this response without somehow talking about Hurricane Sandy. It’s so fresh in all of our minds, and yet it relates to the subject of this course so very much. Sandy has taken not just New York City by storm, but the whole of the nation.

We’ve talked quite a bit about corporate influence on environmental practice and the various environmental movements in the US over the past century. But putting it all into perspective requires something very real to remind us why we’re all talking about this in the first place. Sandy’s destructiveness affected a great number of people all over the East Coast, and climatologists speculate that it’s very likely that the hurricane was related to climate change. Some have even pointed to the fact that this is an example of what we should expect in the decades to come. But Sandy showed us exactly what we take for granted and how we should move forward in the future. We’re taking this course so we can realize the potential of our actions in impacting the environment (as we can see it deteriorating) and how that impacts humankind as a result. It is to accept intrinsic value, while realizing the instrumental value cost that it poses.

One of my high school friends, Yana, posted a status on Facebook reflecting on the disaster Sandy caused, but that she also had something else important to say: “New York needs to come together, because the extent of this damage impacts not only the city, but the country as well. When the bills are totaled and the water is pumped out of the tunnels and streets, we need to take a good hard look at the damage. Instead of rebuilding we need to redesign.” There is no doubt in my mind that she is right. The only way to continue a way of life that is of the scale we are used to, we must either continue on the same path and simply deal with these natural disasters or we have to completely change the way of life that we are used to. The Principles of Green Engineering alluded to this on the level of building technology, but if we change the mindset as well, we would be doubly as successful. On some level, Sandy can be used as a lesson; we never want to experience anything like her ever again. We haven’t faced a natural disaster like her for a long time, and the memory of New Yorkers in this respect seems too short. If we are going to take a positive step forward, we need to change something in our physical structures as well as our mental ones.

The Conservation Efficiency and Conservation Protection Movements both have something to teach us. They grew out of a realization of a certain kind of necessity, a feeling that things shouldn’t remain the way they are. It’s amazing how similar the reformative voices of over a century ago coincide with those of our own. Except now, our voices should be louder than ever before. The end of the frontier signaled the start of the Conservation Efficiency Movement. Perhaps we’ve reached the beginning of our own.

Starting today, we should spur on this generation of Americans to start to feel the necessity of environmental protection. We’ve only touched the surface of the various environmental movements, but I’m hoping that we’re going to enter another phase very soon—one in which the people recognize that society has done wrong and in which the majority of people subscribe themselves to reversing the impact of humanity. Perhaps now more than ever, we need to have a messianic moment. It’ll be more than just a leap of faith; it’ll be an action calculated by reason and a desire to keep living in a world better than the one we have developed. The historic, record-breaking nature of Sandy shows us that the future is at stake. I’m convinced. I just wish other people would start to see it the same way.

Another Way of Living

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

I’m in thought. The streets of New York City flicker by as my M15 rumbles along 1st Avenue. There’s a sense of disconnect between the images I’m seeing and the thoughts that accompany them. I’m thinking about the cars as they pass by, the buildings as they escape my view, and the clouds as they float overhead. But on some level, I’m thinking more about how small and insignificant I am. Here I am, living my life, in face of what seems like a world untouchable by my actions. I could do whatever environmental harm one uncaring man could feasibly muster and the world would just shrug me off without so much as a care. It wouldn’t feel like I’m doing something unethical necessarily—just that it’s not so bad in the grand scheme of things.

But it’s scary to imagine that other people might be thinking those same impossibly harmless thoughts. Because then it doesn’t feel so harmless. Or ethical. There is just an overwhelming number of people out there; it’s impossible to coneptualize. And the problem stems from this fundamental flaw in human nature. While I’m not sure of the exact statistic, I do know that there is some limit to the greatest number of people and objects that our brain could reasonably handle. Unfortunately, I also know that in the context of interpreting our present interconnected society, that number is way too low. The enormity of everything and everyone else is overpowering in comparison. In fact, it’s so overwhelming to even contemplate that it spills over into disregard. It’s not that it’s best for us to ignore the other 7 billion people in the world; we simply can’t.

I’ll be honest and say that I started watching Koyaanisqatsi expecting a lot more of a compelling storyline. The first five minutes was essentially me waiting for the movie to begin. When I realized that what I was seeing was going to be the general flow of the rest of the movie, I trudged through the next 25 minutes before finally stopping. I wasn’t expecting what I saw and I wasn’t in the right mindset to appreciate it. After about a month of not watching Koyaanisqatsi, I finally sat down to watch it again—this time being aware of the style of movie before me. I was ready to take it all in at once. It’s not as if I hadn’t noticed certain compelling themes the first time around, but I figured the movie was nearly an hour and a half for a reason, rather than just the 30 minutes I watched.

That time around, I felt like I saw exactly what Koyaanisqatsi was trying to paint a picture of. I went through the first quarter of the film appreciating nature as it was—its beauty, its independence, its enormity. The sad juxtaposition came when it showed human ambition and technology, and their encroaching tendencies. But what really struck me was that humankind was beginning to parallel nature in its enormity. By far, this was the scariest thought of all.

Seeing myself as one perpetrator among many is one thing, but witnessing the sheer magnitude of what humans have accomplished is inconceivable in its own rite. Infinite dilution may have once been the answer to justifying our environmental impact, but I daresay that before industrialization, technology didn’t have the same mass-production of waste that it does now. Nature is taking part in a war against the machines. Literally. The machine of what is has come up against the machine of what is created. Koyaanisqatsi merely reiterated what I always knew, but couldn’t fathom with my individual five senses. Watching the film, I could feel the enormity of two powers colliding. I feel convinced that now, more than ever before, the growing mass of humankind has the power to change this seemingly gargantuan world. Even throughout this course, such a thought might have occurred to me only vaguely; statistics, pictures, and historical records can only go so far to prove a point. Knowing myself, I need a fully engrossing experience that captures human interference at its worst to get me to fight for something. It’s horrible that human sympathy is only as truly strong as empathy. We need to feel for ourselves those very things that seem to us horrible. Problems on paper become much more real when they are seen or experienced firsthand. Until all of us can genuinely develop such an emotional attachment, humans now and in the future are bound to suffer heavily because of the mistakes we’ve made.

On some level, I’ve always just assumed that humankind as we know it wouldn’t last past the year 2100. Call it pessimism. Call it reactionary existentialism. But it’s not a thought that I ever regarded as strange or depressing (unless, maybe, if I thought about it for too long). It’s just something that always entered freely into my mindset. This thought process probably coincided with when I first learned to reason scientifically; the little evidence I had before me indicated that human society was headed towards a point of destructive inevitability. Nothing in my intellectual proximity seemed to indicate otherwise as time went on. The mentality must have stuck with me ever since.

At the beginning of the arc of this course, I can’t say that my mindset was changing in any respect. It seemed depressing on the surface and then hopeless after more discussion. It all seemed to flow back to the issue of intrinsic vs. instrumental value. This central flaw is what needed to be addressed. It seemed like all the problems caused by corporations and people could be reversed with such a paradigm shift. This absolutely has to bring us back to the issue of sustainability. Koyaanisqatsi doesn’t refer very much to this because it sticks to painting its massive picture of rising technology in face of nature. We must be willing to admit that the closer we get to the future, the more our environmental situation becomes unstable. We need to invest in sustainable development now before the subject of the second half of the movie becomes the whole of our reality. Sustainability should be an absolute social and legal must. It needs to become an idea that captures our society at the very core of its mistakes; humankind will simply continue to cause harm to the environment and to the future without the necessary consideration that they both deserve.

The end of Koyaanisqatsi was what really drove home the message. The slow-moving men and women at the end really reminded me why we should all be doing this. It’s for life. Each scene in the movie presents a life or a way of life that not only deserves to live in its own way, but that fundamentally has that desire to live. The end of the movie showed me how capable we are of sowing the seeds of our own destruction. We can build to the greatest pinnacle of our mind’s power, but that reality has led us to a state of life that is begging for change—not just for ourselves, but for all those things and people who become affected. It really is a crazy life. A life in turmoil and out of balance. It’s a life that is disintegrating. But most of all, it’s a life that begs for another way of living.

The Necessity of Sustainability

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

Despite the short and impromptu nature of the last lecture, we’ve begun to encroach into the specificities of approaching sustainability. In fact, stepping from the general to the specific actually left me feeling quite positive (or at least more positive than before) about the possibilities of the future. The cradle-to-cradle framework, in my opinion, delves deep into the heart of what true sustainability ought to be. As The Principles of Green Engineering notes, most companies think sustainability refers to reducing resource input and waste output by increasing the efficiency of current machinery and technology. However, this seems no different than the end-of-pipe and/or pollution prevention schemas that we talked about in a previous lecture. “Reducing the human footprint” completely sidesteps the possibility of taking away that footprint. As the entirety of this course has shown, this approach spells out disaster for our future—to the extent that it doesn’t attempt to solve the real problem. There is little recognition of the central flaw in the system as a whole.

It reminds me of the discussion that we had about corporations and the great influence they have on our economy. I still firmly believe, however, that such power necessitates some form of moral responsibility. The detrimental effects of corporations’ actions are compounded by the lack of motive to willingly reverse them. This might bring us back to the issue of sustainability, and balancing cost effectiveness with environmental health, but the hands-off approach that corporations usually take towards their environmental impact goes beyond just fulfilling the needs of their consumers. It becomes a violation of their responsibility. Relying on only off-the-pipe or pollution prevention methods is something that should incrementally stop being tolerated by the government. The closer we get to the future, the more our environmental situation becomes even more unmanageable; it is best to get started now, so the future doesn’t suffer as grotesquely. Sustainability must be mandated.

However, while this may be an impossible statement to fathom at the moment, I think that the only way that it could become possible is if there is a collective change in mindset. I value the fact that knowledge provides us with an exact representation of the problems we create, but the mere idea that we cause harm to the environment stems from our selfish desire to fulfill only our own needs. That’s not to say that other animals don’t do this very same thing, but just like corporations are the superpowers of mankind, humans themselves are the superior usurpers of the world. If we are to ever seriously consider “stooping down” to the nature that we have taken over, we have to have a collective shift in mentality achieved only through intrinsic value acceptance.

Doing so would be key to having public policy necessitate sustainability. If everyone were to write to an assemblyman, councilor, or senator begging for the preservation of the environment, it would become absolutely impossible to proceed with policy without the word ‘sustainability’ coming up. It’s a whole package as far as I’m concerned. If we can start teaching our children from the very beginning of their educational lives that the environment is worth it, then I daresay that our future will become much more receptive to procuring cradle-to-cradle technology. We have to start focusing on convincing people of the importance of sustainability. The question is: where do we start first?

The Triple Bottom Line: Emotion, Science, & Policy

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

With the midterm coming up in the next couple of hours, it feels necessary to systematically go over two months worth of notes. But doing so isn’t just a part of the studying process for a big exam; it is also to reflect on all the harsh realities and problems that we’ve discussed along the way, and to incorporate the lecture on environmental policy into how it all intertwines. To be honest though, I’m seeing that these two goals aren’t very different.

We’ve talked so much about the problems that we all face as a society, how corporations disregard the environment in favor of profit, and how humans play an individual part in devastating their surroundings. We’ve discussed the science of how this all happens and the methods behind why we’re sinking into such a deep environmental hole. And now it’s starting to become clear that there needs to be a bridging of the gap. It’s sometimes how I feel in many of my other classes, usually philosophy or political science. I’m waiting to apply the theoretical into something tangible; the moment I realize that I’ve learned or reasoned something applicable, it feels like I’ve accomplished something.

There’s no point in learning about the New Bedford Study, or Rio 2012, or PCBs in the Hudson River if none of these things serve a purpose. But now I see that we’re attempting to mix environmental theory with environmental reality with environmental science in hopes of fostering the very emotional attachment that will spur change. I’m reminded of earlier in the semester when Seong voiced her concern about the use of emotion. I’m inclined to agree with her, at least when sentimentality is overly exaggerated in the construction of a persuasive argument; if there is no other substance beside the emotion, then there is certainly something dubious there that needs to be addressed.

This course’s balanced approach is starting to encourage discussion about environmental policy that can change the course of society. So far, we’ve only talked about the Triple Bottom Line as a framework, which sounds somewhat general, but I’m waiting in anticipation for the next lecture to discuss more policy building. When it comes to the things you care about or personal human flourishing, I’m shameless about copying other people’s idea. Good policy shouldn’t be subject to the punishment of plagiarism. It should be a goal of all human kind to increase the productivity of everyone else. Copyright laws just don’t seem to apply. Of course, there is the problem of finding out which policy is beneficial practically rather than one that seems so only theoretically.

Regardless, we should also recognize the strengthening relationship between policy and science. Our knowledge of the chemical and physical underpinnings of environmental destruction, rehabilitation, and sustainability is steadily increasing, but more studies should be done to accurately analyze and apply this knowledge. Non-biased science exploration should be mandated for the government and for corporations (from a third party perhaps). There are so many different ways that economically driven practices can cause harm, but companies wouldn’t seek alternate means of disposal anyway if it were up to them. RCRA and its renewal with HWMP was a smart move, because it helped combined an emotional response with an understanding of the environment in order to promote positive chance. If we devote more time to making great policy, then it’ll be a lot more possible to stop and reverse our negative impact on the environment as opposed to maintaining only the present and very near future.

The Case for Embracing Historical Mistakes

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

In every one of my pursuits, there’s always a common theme in the way that I approach the learning process. For one thing, I’m completely at peace with the idea of failing. I believe that learning from my own mistakes is one of the most important self-reflective mechanisms that I can take advantage of. But even moreso, I don’t think that having to deal with my own failure is always necessary. Family, friends, teachers, and mentors have experienced situations that taught them lessons and hardened their skins, and they make sure that other people learn from those particular mistakes that haven’t yet been committed. It’s this collective pool of failure, which certainly sounds depressing at first, that is the ultimate learning weapon for a developing society. It’s one of the many compelling purposes of analyzing history. Nevertheless, such analysis comes with a concession; not every situation that has already happened will be exactly the same as a future event. Sometimes, the problems won’t even be remotely the same, and the future will suffer from its own distinct set of tribulations.

But it seems that as our societal impact on the environment stands, our troubles come from two main reasons, historical semi-negligence and self-compounding ecological problems. The New Bedford case study takes us through a comprehensive analysis of historical events, allowing us to recognize the environmental situation in the present and at specific timeslices in the past. It helps us recognize the distinct effect that specific industries have had on the watershed in the area. The bridge that was built during the Whaling period, for example, caused the currents of the Acushnet River to change and led to the buildup of sediment on the Oxford village shoreline, thereby hampering any future development in that area. To some extent, I would hope that people took this as a lesson before building any bridges in the future, because the empirical reality of New Bedford shows us what can happen otherwise.

However, even in the next period when the prevalence of whaling declined, the new textile industry brought its own wave of problems. Since sewers were only beginning to be built, perhaps it is possible to say that no one could have foreseen the future detrimental effects of Combined Sewage Overflow. This impending problem, however, was also compounded by the construction of the textile mills that gave the Textile Period its name. These mills took up land that was originally wetlands, which serve the extremely important function of filtering pollutants, superfluous nutrients, and microorganisms in runoff from the land. In a way, this systemic destruction of the wetlands foreshadows the breaking down of the fishing industry along the river in the late 20th century. It’s almost unnerving to know that the sewers contaminated the river’s water with metals, acids, petroleum hydrocarbons, PCBs, cyanide, and other synthetic chemicals that could have been deterred by the existence of the wetlands.

Ignoring certain aspects of our environmental condition could indeed by caused by not taking lessons from history, but these problems that we choose to accept (and perhaps deal with later) are bound to become worse when new technologies and developments cause different sets of difficulties. We’ve started to cut down more and more trees to fulfill our needs for paper and lumber, but we’ve also started to emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, moreso than before. It’s this synergism of problems that makes future development so worrisome.  Will we end up suffering from our negligence of old problems and make things even by making some new unforeseen one? I just hope not.

The Virtue of Learning… A Lot?

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

I think that it’s fair to say that I came out of class this week smarter than when I walked in, but I also think that it wouldn’t be untrue that I forgot most of it as well. Charts that track trends are, by nature, incredibly informative because they pack tons of data points into a timeline driven structure inherently meant for comparison. And in the few minutes that I pick at the fine details, I feel like I develop an understanding of the subject matter in a way that sweeps place and time in one gargantuan motion.

But it’s hard to say that without prolonged exposure or focused research that I will truly remember it. I can’t say that what we learn is uninteresting. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It serves to give weight to more than just the environmental impact of the present because it emphasizes the role of the past. In the moments when we see the information as a class and reflect on it through discussion, the things we learn seem very real to us. This, however, is overshadowed by the fact that the next slide holds something new for us that may or may not register. It would be horribly naïve though if I didn’t concede that all the issues we learn are somehow interconnected, so it’s not as if we are simply taking in disjointed pieces of knowledge that need to be independently understood. Doing so would be wrong and counter-productive to the pillars of true learning. The trouble—I must reiterate—is that there is so much to know for a matter that can’t just register superficially. Perhaps if the intent is to make me aware of as many issues as possible and then hope that I will pursue what is most compelling to me, then I can’t say that the current method is particularly flawed. However, knowing that I have to take a midterm in a couple of weeks that tests absolutely everything doesn’t feel nearly as compelling.

But concerning the actual subject matter of our class, I do have something more positive to say. The clinching factor for me was realizing that those 5 cents you get back when trading in those plastic Sprite bottles or aluminum Coke cans are actually a return of a mandatory payment. I know that if I were in power, I wouldn’t hesitate to raise the price and keep increasing it based on inflation—that 5-cent figure is more than half a century old. The apparent desire (though sometimes necessity) of returning those cans assuredly diminishes as time goes on and as 5 cents become ever more worthless. Having the tax gradually go up would of course raise the cost, but there is otherwise no incentive to actually return them—unless it is a source of income. In this way, keeping a 5-cent cap is actually double the hindrance because as the cost of living and food goes up, both the poor (who do a large portion of other people’s recycling by sifting and sorting through their trash) and the better off (who just don’t go out of their way to do so) find it less reasonable to deposit their bottles and cans.

The other thing that I found compelling was how the research about the composition of trash over the years could tell us something about our culture. The fact that a huge portion of our trash a hundred years ago was ash says something about the technology that dominated our households; now, however, ash occupies a rather small percentage. The constant percentage of food rather shocked me however. It struck me that we’re probably now eating more than before, but then it occurred to me that the statistics merely show the amount of trash as a percentage rather than as an absolute. I think that in order to make the numbers we’re learning about even more meaningful, it could be useful to know the actual weight in each time frame, rather than only the big general numbers we were given at the end.

The Technology Against Air Pollution: Postponement at its Finest

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Simon Ayzman

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.

Comments by Simon Ayzman