Science author extraordinaire Carl Sagan wrote a thought-provoking essay “The Environment: Where Does Prudence Lie?” in Billions, and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (1997). He chooses to open it by painting a picture of the deceptively beautiful facade of polluting technologies:
There’s a certain moment at twilight when the aircraft contrails are pink. And if the sky is clear, their contrast with the surrounding blue is unexpectedly lovely. The Sun has already set and there’s a roseate glow at the horizon, a reminder of where the Sun is hiding. But the jet aircraft are so high up that they can still see the Sun—quite red, just before setting. The water blown out from their engines instantly condenses. At the frigid temperatures of high altitude, each engine trails as small, linear cloud, illuminated by the red rays of the setting Sun.The point Sagan makes with this vivid scene stays with us through the rest of the article as he grapples with difficult, human-made challenges facing our planet.
