Comment▼ Environmental optimist or pessimist? The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. —James Branch Cabell (1926) in The Silver Stallion Mr. Optimist: The environment is improving. Thanks to U.S. governmental legislation like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, the air is purer and the water is cleaner than anytime in the past 35 years. We have dramatically reduced priority air pollutants like SO2, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, ozone, NO2, and lead. Water quality is better than ever before. The Great Lakes are no longer “dead”; the Cuyahoga River does not catch on fire anymore; and the air is cleaner, even in urban areas like Los Angeles. We have accomplished all of this while population has increased, family incomes have risen, and the Gross National Product and Dow Jones Industrial Average have grown to all-time highs. People are living longer, growing stronger, and enjoying retirement better than ever before. Mr. Pessimist: Which planet are you on? Here on earth in the U.S., lakes and rivers have seen some improvement, but our coastal waters are being ignored and are declining. We have record numbers of beach closings; declining fisheries; sediments and fish contaminated with legacy pollutants like PCBs, PAHs, and mercury; and increasing red tides, harmful algal blooms, and hypoxia. Meanwhile, we still have not performed toxicity testing on most high-production-volume chemicals. New threats are emerging yearly—perchlorate, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), pharmaceuticals, and antibiotic-resistant organisms, just to name a few. Although urban air quality has improved, we have “smeared” it over the entire region and national landscape. My irrationally exuberant friend, our problems have not abated; the scale has simply increased from local to regional or global. And the greatest environmental problem of our time is not taken seriously by the White House: burgeoning greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Mr. Optimist: Sorry, Chicken Little, I simply cannot see that the sky is falling. With all this prosperity, you had better be 100% certain if you’re going to try to tilt at that windmill. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we have experienced 1.1 °F of warming in the past 100 years. How can you be sure that it is not due to natural causes? If the climate begins to warm dramatically, we will address it at that time with hydrogen-fuel-cell cars, nuclear power, and clean-coal technologies. Technology will pull us through. The Governator in California is already showing us how to deal with it. © 2006 American Chemical Society
Mr. Pessimist: We are doomed. It may be too late already. A time lag in the climate system means that dangerous climate interference may have already been set in motion even if we could reduce our emissions tomorrow. We must cut greenhouse gas emissions by 70% and encourage developing nations like China, India, Mexico, and Brazil to provide a better living for their citizens while expanding their economies. It’s mission impossible—putting a man on the moon was child’s play compared with weaning ourselves from fossil fuels at this point in human history. The World Bank predicts another 2 billion people and a Gross World Product 4–6 times the current level in the next 50 years. How will we provide energy for all those people and commerce? Mr. Optimist: Not to worry your little head. Haven’t you learned that a pessimist makes difficulties of his opportunities, whereas an optimist makes opportunities of his difficulties? We will overcome these problems and prosper. The market will allocate resources. Oil and gas will be available for the foreseeable future. We have burned 1 trillion barrels of oil, but there’s 1 trillion more barrels in proven reserve, and probably another 2–3 trillion more undiscovered. Thanks to Adam Smith’s invisible hand, markets and trade will allow distribution of these resources in an optimum way. In fact, globalization will lead to an increasingly interdependent world. That is our greatest hope for peace and prosperity in the future, a world without borders. Mr. Pessimist: I wish I could share your rose-tinted glasses. I don’t even see how we will have enough water for 9 billion people. We are already appropriating half of the world’s freshwater resources for human use, and the average supply of water per person is decreasing rapidly because of the growth of megacities, coastal development, and changing rainfall distributions. Safe drinking water is still not accessible for 1.1 billion people, and 2.4 billion don’t have adequate sanitation. Millions of children are dying from clearly preventable waterborne diseases. As I see it, you are in total denial. Scott Adams was right: “An optimist is simply a pessimist with no job experience.”
Jerald L. Schnoor Editor
[email protected] Editor’s note: Who’s right? Let us hear from you. Write a 500-word (maximum) letter to
[email protected] for consideration of publication. NOVEMBER 1, 2006 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 6521
