The environmental legacy of acid rain
Transcript
Stephen Norton:
I study the distribution and redistribution of chemicals in the near-surface environment of the Earth. From atmospheric deposition of chemicals, to chemicals derived from the soil and their final resting place, which is either in soils, or in lakes or, ultimately, out into the oceans.
To do that, I do experiments on the scale of, practically, the laboratory, on up to entire ecosystems. I look at lake sediment cores, which are archives of change. I look at peat cores, which are archives of change. I collaborate with colleagues, who take the information that I and my colleagues develop, and develop models so that we can predict future behavior of these systems.
Earth puts limits on us. There are natural limits to growth. We’re pushing the envelope, with respect to the chemicals that we’re putting into our environment, with the possible manipulation of our climate, in unknown, unpredictable ways at the moment, except, things seem to be warming and we seem to be related to that.
As we move forward, we’ve got to understand better how our behavior influences the environment, which supposedly is going to nourish us, and feed us, and take care of us.
The answers to some questions can be found in Maine. We can certainly look at the impact, in Maine, of long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants.
We have to understand how Earth’s climate system works, the transport of pollutants. For example, pollution is now increasing in Alaska. That is the result of what’s happening in Asia, the development in China primarily.
From the chemical perspective, and certainly from the physical perspective, Earth is a great big system. It’s all connected. The more we look beyond our borders, the more we can understand about what’s happening within our borders.
Science is nothing more than a progress report of our best understanding, at that time, of how things work. We’re always going to uncover things we don’t, and we hope that the level of understanding improves through time.