Every time we turn around, someone wants to label the times in which we live. Many would call these the golden years, though they invariably are only golden compared to those that come after us and remember how much better things were previous to now. Looking at a prior time is invariably better because you are not burdened with the day-to-day, and you can look fondly upon those memories.
Regardless, many will look upon these times as the information age because of the explosion of data and machinery to process the data. Unfortunately, it is just as appropriate to look upon this as the garbage age because of all the junk we leave by the wayside.
The good news, such as it is, is that a large amount of money is being generated and those who are becoming rich in the process of generating all this information are at least somewhat interested in cleaning up the mess that’s left around us.
Elon Musk is headed in every direction – to space and inventing a new breed of cars with slick electric technology. Bill Gates is trying to help the sick. Even Jeff Bezos is getting in on the action by simply pulling the trash out of the ocean. To be fair, it’s just just trash – it’s rocket engines – but the point is there.
While there are plenty of advancements, and some will yell (at ever-increasing volumes) about the damage we are doing, there are some incremental improvements being made. It is interesting to see if there will be more – if the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is something that will now be with us forever, or if all the space junk in orbit around our planet will prevent a viable space industry from happening, for instance.
The one thing that is true is that we have the ability to churn out at least as much garbage as we do information. Perhaps more.