Saved?
I’m torn in my reaction to two stories I saw yesterday on Wired News. The first is about a procedure that can supposedly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while simultaneously providing an ultra-rich fertilizer as a byproduct. Great stuff. The other is about a team of researchers in Dublin that has discovered a strain of bacteria that can break down styrene (a toxic product of the polystyrene [i.e. Styrofoam] industry) into a biodegradable plastic. Again, chalk one up for science.
I’m encouraged by these kind of developments. It shows that although we have the power to screw up our environment, we can also take steps to make it better. What bothers me, though, is the uncanny ability of the human race to make a mess of things faster than they can clean things up. I’m afraid that these kind of developments will encourage further reckless growth on the argument that science will figure out a way to clean it up later.
To me, it’s like the hybrid SUV or the much-vaunted hydrogen car of tomorrow. Are all better than what’s out there? Yes. Should more research go into perfecting the technologies behind such innovations? Without a doubt. But a car is still a car (and a SUV is an ungainly car at that), and just because it’s better for the air we breathe doesn’t mean we can pat ourselves on the back and consider the problem solved. As our cities burn out and our farmland is plowed under to make way to townhouses, golf courses, and shopping malls, things will continue to deteriorate. Sprawl, whether fueled by complex chains of hydrocarbons or simple molecules of hydrogen, is still sprawl.
Just because we can fix one mess doesn’t mean we can ignore another.
