A journey through C&EN Archives reveals that the way problems present themselves evolves, but often the challenge remains

Invariably, when I access C&EN Archives to perform a search or task, I soon forget what I was there for. The issues on that site go back to C&EN’s very beginning, in 1923, and the wealth of information, knowledge, and history steeped in them is fascinating.

Last week I saw folks sharing images of C&EN covers on social media from the day or week they were born. My curiosity was piqued, and I soon discovered that on the week I was born, C&EN’s cover focused on monitoring oil pollution in the oceans.

The black-and-white image showed a hand covered in petroleum against a background that I assume was a spill site. The related story, “Global Monitoring of Oil in Ocean to Begin,” announced the planned launch of a pilot project that would become “the first attempt to monitor a marine pollutant on a global scale.”

I thought this was an interesting coincidence, given that C&EN’s cover last week also featured an image of oil pollution in the ocean. The issue marked the 10th anniversary of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The disaster killed 11 people and became the largest accidental oil spill, leaking 4 million–5 million barrels of crude oil.

Studying the contrast between the cover from last week and the one from 46 years ago made me think about how far we have traveled—and yet how little we have moved. It made me realize that in our science, oftentimes the way problems present themselves evolves, but the challenge fundamentally remains. Goals like keeping our oceans clean or feeding the world are moving targets, and scientists adapt and evolve their thinking accordingly—not a bad thing, just the nature of the game. In fact, despite the significant technological advances we have made, many of the fundamental challenges not only remain but also have become more complex. In the case of the oceans, for example, oil pollution remains a problem to which we can now also add the omnipresence of plastic waste, ocean acidification due to climate change, and more.

As my search continued—as I said, I soon forgot what I was in the archives for—I found another example of where continuous advancements have not categorically solved a problem facing society. It came in the form of a guest editorial published 50 years ago, in the Sept. 14, 1970, issue. “Social versus (?) Economic Efficiency,” written by C. B. McCoy, the then president of DuPont, describes what he saw as an “open conflict” between industrial and technical performance and “broader social needs.” He used agriculture to illustrate this tension: “Granting the serious questions that exist about future ecological effects of intensified irrigation, chemical fertilization, and pest control, there remains the urgent problem of feeding the world, a problem that calls for the application of the mechanical and agrichemical technologies at hand.”

Today, we call “social versus economic efficiency” sustainable development, but the conundrum McCoy faced still remains—proof that a scientist’s work is never done.

Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.