Most environmental science is focused on how to turn back the clock, not push it forward, says Ben Bostick, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We think about how we can roll back our footprint, and not so much about how can we make our footprint bigger in a positive way,” he said. “But there are many examples of synthetic biology that I think actually have a lot of potential in the environment. Think of how we can help our environment just by doing things like improving the materials we make using synthetic biology.”

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/08/14/synthetic-biology-help-environment/