Happy B-Earth Day n April 22, 1970, the U.S. celebrated its first Earth Day. Internationally, the Vernal Equinox (often March 20) had been recognized for Earth Day starting in 1969, and the U.N. made official that recognition in 1971. Thus our April 1 issue takes a moment to reflect on essentially 40 years of reflecting on the state of the environment. Where ES&T is concerned, this (scientific) reflection dates back to our inception, before the first Earth Day, in January 1967. The journal has evolved as has the field, broadening from a primarily chemical focus to a more general vantage point of considering processes of environmental systems and the human impact thereon. This issue, like any other regular issue, is a cross-section of these topics, giving both hope and dread to thoughts on Earth Day. The change from a “pristine” environment to one of constant anthropogenic influence is one that Zalasiewicz et al. consider a time-point that might be recognized stratigraphically. That is, in Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903118j, they ponder if we now live in the “Anthropocene” epoch. While too young to be marked in the fossil record, perhaps changes in (bio)geochemistry indicate the irrevocable mark of anthropogenic activitysdeposition of isotopes due to nuclear weapons testing since 1945 are a recent example. However, if the Industrial Revolution is the start of such an Epoch, the prevalence of mercury (Hg) due to extensive fossil fuel combustion may be traceable. Yet this may prove some difficulty as Gustin and Jaffe outline the nuances of atmospheric monitoring of this hardly inert element (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es902736k). Looking to other time-points would require some other chemical signature (agricultural? urban?), but as we seem to live in an age where we greatly impact the environment, perhaps “Anthropocene” is an apt concept. Another example of tying chemical levels to human activity is found in Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es9033606 where the perchlorate (ClO4-) concentrations in dry Antarctic soils are quantified. The prevalence of ClO4- there suggests a natural source for a compound that is under increasing suspicion for health risks. It is worth mentioning that the team of Kounaves et al. includes authors who have studied the “geo”chemistry of Mars in recent yearssthat planet’s dry soils similarly boast high(er) concentrations of ClO4-. While the first Earth Day was just preceded by measurements as to the hellish runaway greenhouse effect of Venus and the first samples of Lunar “geo”chemistry, the ability to compare (quotation marks unneeded) geochemistry to
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our nearest neighbor has given new points of reflection when it comes to environmental change since 1970. Perhaps in the coming decades, Earth Day will be extended to these alien vistas. Getting back to our present home, the impact of obvious anthropogenic chemicals is a common focus of ES&T articles. Steiner et al. consider how dairy farm effluentsincluding hormones that exit cows little changed from their entrancesaffects aquatic environments (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es9031216). Our population consumes and expects more and better food, but we have not (well) figured out how to diminish the impact of such practices on the hosting environment. Concentrations of chemicals in fish are commonly used to indicate certain environmental impact: fish tissue is good at sweeping up chemicals that tend to interact with our tissues; fish often accumulate nonlethal concentrations that are then “magnified” into organisms higher on the food chain (like humans); aquatic/marine organisms on a watery planet suggest as to the biochemical health of said planet. That perfluorinated compounds are often found in fish (and human blood samples) is a story that is oft repeated in ES&T; Delins ky et al.’s contribution being a present example (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903777s). Well in the public mind regarding “the environment” is climate change, perhaps most especially on Earth Day. This is not to say that pollution is no longer a concern, but the increasing awareness that weather pattern alteration is not so easy to run from as a poisonous river has made CO2 a molecule of central concern. But pollution has hardly gone away, and the poisonous river may run after you upon altered precipitation or temperature profiles: Klaminder et al. report that remediation efforts targeted at lead (Pb) in sub-Arctic lakes may be compromised by climate change (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903025z). While the environmental chemistry parsed out in these pages since 1970 may give us a head start, now is clearly not the time to stop and reflect. So environmental researchers hardly pause. Prediction is undertaken with gusto so as to hopefully assuage future harm with present behavior alteration. Howard and Muir attempt to identify those chemicals that would become the next spikes in fishy tissues (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903383a); Bright and Strømman consider how Northern European transportation should best use newly vaunted biofuels (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903135c); and the twinned papers by (two different sets of) Zhang et al. confront the need to incorporate assessment of manufactured products and services with ecosystems’ natural products and services (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ April 1, 2010 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 9 2215
es9021156 and Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es900548a). Hopefully the synergy of discovery, application, and reflection/prediction can have the altruistic goals of Earth Day realized. To highlight how the annual contributions to ES&T tackle these goals, our Editors and Advisory Board have recognized the 2009 Best Papers in Environmental Science, Technology, and Policysread news coverage of these papers by Kellyn Betts in this issue (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100414j). At the same time, the ACS Division of Environmental Chemistry has recognized 23 graduate students upon the nomination of their faculty advisors, as announced herein (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es1006753). Looking forward, ES&T welcomes and encourages
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more contributions on all things environmental, hoping that one day environmental reflections are purely optimistic. P.S. - On the sentiment of sustainability, check out the JACS and ES&T Select online compiled in part by Associate Editor John Crittenden at http://pubs.acs. org/JACSbeta/jvi/issue8.html.
Darcy J. Gentleman* Managing Editor
[email protected].
