Black and Blue and Green his issue’s cover is the second of the month that is coincidental with a very public debate on the risks and merits of petroleum extraction. As noted in the previous Managing Editor’s Comment (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es102175a), additional environmental research is required before tapping sources such as the Marcellus Shale. Yet of course, previously hard-to-access deposits have already been tapped, both in offshore deepwater realms and more recently with the now profitable Athabasca oil sands of Alberta, Canada. This latter source is of course shoveled and carefully refined as opposed to drilled, but it is no less controversial. The ongoing debate of this “heavy crude oil” concerns its “dirtiness” as a function of its carbon footprint, although many conflate this sustainability accounting with the material’s physical properties in the moniker “tar sands”. However, as discussed in this issue’s cover Feature by Bergerson and Keith, how the carbon footprint is accounted can produce significantly different verdicts as to the attraction of this petroleum resource (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903812e). In addition to the advanced environmental ([petro]chemical) engineering of extraction, which may (in future) be accompanied by cocarbon capture and sequestration, how and where the ultimately emitted carbon is released plays into the analysis. Thus vehicle emissions, such as reported in this issue by Clark et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es100308q) and the potential ramifications of emissions trading markets such as considered herein by Bing et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es9035368) must accompany oil sands’ environmental (risk) assessment. ES&T welcomes this continued refinement to ensure black is green(ish), keeping the blue sky and other environs as clean as possible. In contemplating that same breath of fresh air, “clean” is of course a central word in the environmental health lexicon, which is another realm commonly explored in these pages. This issue is also coincidental
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10.1021/es102405m
2010 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 08/12/2010
with the ACS Fall 2010 National Meeting, in Boston, MA, themed “Chemistry for Preventing & Combating Disease”. ES&T is no stranger to environmental health research as articles in this issue testify: Roy and Bickerton on detection of groundwater contaminants (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es101492x); Cheng et al. on the use of bioremediation to attenuate chromium toxicity (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100198v); Cox and Green on reducing consumer exposure to leaded jewelry (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es903745b); and Bo et al. on technology to improve indoor air quality (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es903917f). Other examples may be found via our online news webpage (http://pubs.acs.org/action/ showNews?type)onlineNewsroom&journalCode)esthag) and in previously recognized Best Papersssome now in video (http://pubs.acs.org/page/esthag/video/top-papers. html). We continue to encourage submissions that indicate and analyze how to keep the Earth clean(er): from sustainability policy studies to environmental health and technology, and all those between. Photo Credit ClarificationsJuly 1, 2010 Issue. In another example of sustainability studies, the July 1, 2010 cover photo of a green roof, also appearing with that issue’s Feature by Boyle et al. (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903749d) was taken by Patricia (Trish) Culligan, and is courtesy of the Center for Climate Systems Research and Columbia Green Roof Consortium. For the December 1, 2009 cover image of a microbiological culture (central image), credit is to Lesley Warren (not “Walker”). ES&T regrets the errors.
Darcy J. Gentleman Managing Editor*
[email protected] August 15, 2010 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 9 6009
