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The famed French marine biologist, Alain Bombard, says that the sea can handle human sewage. "But," he adds, "this process of purification is easily and seriously disrupted by the introduction of the chemical byproducts of civilization." Near Marseille, a pair of big aluminum refineries each day discharge 6,000 tons of a red sediment into the Mediterranean. Though 80% of it funnels into a deep submarine trench, the remainder settles elsewhere on the bottom. "The problem," says Bombard, "is that this waste, though not toxic in itself, blankets and kills all living things. Moreover, this is an area where it is essential to have living water to purify the sewage of Marseille."
Some environment experts visualize future dramas of disaster that seem to border on science fiction. A few scientists feel that the outpouring of carbon dioxide, mainly from industry, is forming an invisible global filter in the atmosphere. This filter may act like a greenhouse: transparent to sunlight but opaque to heat radiation bouncing off the earth. In theory, the planet will warm up. The icecaps will melt; the oceans will rise by 60 ft., drowning the world's coastal cities.
Other scientists argue the exact opposite: they point out that the earth's average temperature has dropped by .2° C. since 1945, though the carbon dioxide content of the air keeps increasing every year. To explain this phenomenon, many ecologists think that various particles in the atmosphere are reflecting sunlight away from the earth, thus cooling the planet. Since about 31% of the world's surface is covered by low clouds, increasing this cover to 36% through pollution would drop the temperature about 4° C.—enough to start a return to the ice age.
The Earth Shudders
This is no idle speculation. Various experts feel that major volcanic eruptions in the past have thrust enough particles into the air to affect global climate. When Krakatoa exploded in 1883, the temperature at the surface of the earth was reduced for several years. The new worry, though, is that such particles will not shower to the ground in rain or snow. The supersonic transport will fly at 60,000 ft., where there is no atmospheric turbulence or weather to bring pollutants down to earth. Even assuming that the plane has a fumeless engine, the water vapor in its exhaust may accumulate in the stratosphere, reflecting sunlight away from the earth.
Man's inadvertence has even upset the interior conditions of the earth's crust. One of the most respected U.S. geophysicists, Gordon J. F. MacDonald, reports that wherever huge dams are built, the earth starts shuddering. The enormous weight of the water in the reservoirs behind the dam puts a new stress on the subsurface strata, which are already in natural stress. In consequence, giant sections of the earth's crust sheer past one another and the earth quivers. MacDonald warns that earthquakes may result (and did near Denver) from one of the newest anti-pollution techniques: injecting liquid chemical wastes into deep wells.
If technology got man into this mess, surely technology can get him out of it again. Not necessarily, argues Anthony Wiener of the Hudson Institute. Wiener sees technological man as the personification of Faust, endlessly pursuing the unattainable. "Our bargain