Comment Cite This: Environ. Sci. Technol. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
pubs.acs.org/est
Disruptive Environmental Research
Downloaded via 5.101.222.71 on July 22, 2018 at 09:15:16 (UTC). See https://pubs.acs.org/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles.
C
today to close to 90 million by 2100, without the associated economic growth that accompanied China’s recent wave of urbanization. It is hard to imagine a scenario in which incremental improvements in existing environmental technologies will allow impoverished megacities to develop into healthy and sustainable places. Couple modern problems, like urbanization without industrialization, to the need to adapt infrastructure to rising seas, the increasing frequency of droughts and the ecological impacts of ocean acidification, and the case for disruptive innovation becomes even more compelling. When environmental researchers finally do embrace disruptive innovation, we can make meaningful progress. For example, the Gates Foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge forced its participants to abandon the obvious-butconventional approach of biological wastewater treatment in a contest to create the best sanitation solution for developing countries. The winning prototypes employed plasma beams, electrodes, and hydrothermal carbonization to circumvent the problem of emptying the pit latrine. Although it is still unclear which, if any, of these futuristic technologies might succeed, I believe that we are now closer to a scalable solution than we would have been if the same amount of money had been invested in a program that lacked the foundation’s disruptive philosophy. Over the past two decades, without the incentive of a contest, researchers from other disciplines have advanced environmentally relevant technologies, like catalyst-coated automobile radiators that destroy smog and bacillus-sporeimpregnated self-healing concrete that could prevent water and sewer leaks, while we pragmatists have remained on the sidelines. This is not to say that there is not a place for research that advances existing technologies, improves underlying theories or supports environmental management decisions. However, we may better serve society if we place less emphasis on describing environmental research on a continuum from fundamental to applied and start thinking about our research on a continuum from incremental to disruptive. Competitions in which funding is linked to the development of radical new solutions could provide an incentive for introducing this kind of research into our field. We might also encourage publications from authors seeking to communicate bold, new ideas that are not yet supported by extensive experimental data. In addition, we can create funding opportunities for environmental research by advocating for a place for environmental problem-solving in new innovation-focused initiatives, like the US National Science Foundation’s convergence research program. Speculation about technologies that may never succeed will not solve the world’s environmental problems. Nonetheless, we need to create more space for risk-taking and disruptive innovation if we hope to attract the brightest people, obtain the necessary funding and develop the fresh ideas needed to
ompared to other engineers and scientists, members of the Environmental Science & Technology community are a pragmatic bunch, especially when it comes to pursuing research that may not have immediate applications. Read through journals covering other disciplines or attend a few conferences outside of the environmental field and you will encounter serious academics who spend their time developing flying cars that could reduce commuting times, 3D bioprinters that might someday result in customized replacement organs, and bionic eyes that could allow the blind to see. Elsewhere, speculative architects design impossible-to-build mega-structures while automotive engineers produce futuristic one-of-akind concept cars. In contrast to our fellow technologists, we rarely spend our time working on futuristic technologies that could take decades to realize. This style of research thrives in other disciplines for a number of reasons. First and foremost, technologists have learned that by ignoring the mundane details of economics or the practical barriers to achieving an aspirational goal, it may be possible to spur breakthroughs. By taking the first steps in bringing to life an idea that initially seems like science fiction, researchers sometimes discover ideas that might have remained hidden for decades if they had continued to focus on incremental advances. Studying and promoting innovative technologies also drives societal support for research by capturing the imaginations of political leaders, investors, and members of the public, who might not be inspired by the unglamorous nature of day-to-day research. It also attracts energetic, creative students who want to use cutting-edge technologies to solve the world’s biggest problems. If taking risks on fanciful research has so many advantages, why are we less enamored with this approach than our peers in other disciplines? Perhaps our skepticism can be traced to the first wave of environmentalists, who took a dim view of the ability of new technologies to solve the world’s problems. After all, our community spent its first decades cleaning up the unintended consequences of the synthetic chemistry revolution. As we now grapple with the effects of society’s unbridled enthusiasm for pharmaceuticals, nanomaterials, and plastics, solutions that do not include source control or product reformulation do not seem right to us. The shortage of speculative research also may be related to the nature of the groups that fund and use our research: Cash-strapped utilities, politically constrained regulatory agencies, and the moneylosing environmental compliance divisions of companies are less inclined to get excited about disruptive ideas than the venture capitalists and tech companies that fund the Hyperloops and futuristic medical devices coming out of Silicon Valley. Either way, we tend to resist the allure of disruptive innovation that has taken root in other fields. Perhaps the time has come for us to throw some of our caution to the wind as we confront the grand environmental challenges of the twenty-first century. Consider the challenge facing the world’s emerging megacities. For example, the population of Lagos is expected to mushroom from 20 million © XXXX American Chemical Society
A
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b03839 Environ. Sci. Technol. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
Comment
Environmental Science & Technology succeed in the coming decades. After all, rapid advances in biotechnology, materials science, and computing mean that ideas that once seemed like science fiction are becoming reality in the blink of a bionic eye.
■
David L. Sedlak,* Editor-in-Chief AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected] Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
B
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b03839 Environ. Sci. Technol. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
