A lot of movies have been made about a so-called eco-apocalyse, in which catastrophic climate change, or pollution, or crop-failure, or overpopulation, or some mixture of all-of-the-above wipes out big swathes of humanity. And some of those scenarios might yet play-out if we keep sleepwalking (make that speed-walking) into the future.
Right now, however, environmental issues are manifesting in unexpected and almost mundane ways. Take house insurance. Here in Florida, frequent and more-powerful hurricanes are driving up premiums to insane levels. It’s the same along the gulf coast of Mississippi and Alabama. And a friend of mine from Texas told me the same thing is happening there (flooding is the disaster-de-jour, in his neck-of-the-woods). And then we have electric bills. Each year, increased demand for electricity (for air-conditioning and, now, frickin data centers) is driving up the cost of utilities. And what about clean drinking water? Near-constant drought (punctuated by hurricanes) makes it difficult to provide clean drinking water to growing populations in some parts of the country. This leads more people to buy bottled water. In parts of Mississippi, you will see everyone buying huge flats of the stuff from Wal-Mart, leading me to believe that bottled water is the primary of hydration for many rural Southerners.
So, whenever I run across a news story like this one about a small, ingenious invention of the sort that might—just might—help get us out of this mess, it warms my heart. And even more so when the inventors are young people. In this case, seventeen-year-old Virginian Mia Heller came up with a new, cheap, reliable way to filter microplastics from water. Her system is based on a type of nanoparticle-infused oil called a ferrofluid, which basically pulls the microplastics out of the water like a magnet. The oil is reusable and easy to make.
Will this invention take off? Will it scale? I don’t know, but it gives me hope. I often think of how the great Nazi Wehrmacht was defeated, in part, by clever G.I.s from America, some of whom came up with the clever idea of mounting a phone on the back of their tanks. With this phone, a ground-trooper could speak directly with the guys inside the tank and tell them where to shoot and move. It was the kind of simple, “no-brainer” innovation that the Germans, with their rigid class system and demoralized population, never came up with. And it helped win the war.
Climate change and pollution are Ms. Heller’s generation’s World War II. And I’m really hoping that smart people like her can figure out a way to save my generation’s collective butt.
Ash Clifton, Writer 