It's Less Expensive to Keep Our Planet Clean Than To Remediate Pollution

When I was back in New York a couple of weeks ago, I took a walk with some friends around Lake Onondaga, arguably the most polluted lake in the country.  The lake was ruined primarily with industrial dumping and sewage contamination; the main culprit was the contamination from some 82 tons of mercury dumped into the lake over decades by the former Allied Chemical factory complex (now Honeywell) in neighboring Solvay.

When I asked what was being done to remediate the situation, my friends explained that there are a few good ideas, but that each one (dredging, filtration, lining the bottom of the lake, etc.) is prohibitively expensive.  Each year, a gaggle of engineers and chemists submits a new set of ideas, only to be rebuffed due to the enormous costs. 

I bring this up not to point fingers, but to remind us of the extreme consequences of our turning our backs to environmental damage. 

I recently became aware of the picture here – Adam Nieman’s incredible 2003 work, aimed at getting us to appreciate the environmental challenges we face. It depicts the actual size of the Earth’s oceans (the small blue sphere on the left) and atmosphere (if it were at sea-level air pressure, the small white sphere on the right).

It may be expensive to keep our planet clean, but it’s even more so to clean it up once it’s dirty.