I enjoyed reading the recent op-ed by Kari Steele, “Chicago River’s reversal in 1900 was an ‘engineering triumph’ that transformed our city.” Humans have been working together to improve their environment for millennia. The two key factors were the willingness to cooperate with one another for the common good and to understand the underlying science and engineering (which is applied science) sufficiently so that their ideas would work on paper via research.

Today, we are beset by many domestic problems related to pollution, overpopulation (food and water scarcity), pandemics and climate change. Similarly to what happened 125 years ago, we can solve these problems together, but we all have to support scientific research and work together to succeed.

Michael Pravica, Ph.D, Henderson, Nevada

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com. Please include your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number.