Environmental Debates Have Science and Emotion on All Sides
By Donella Meadows
–May 1, 1997–
OK, that’s it.
I’ve heard that “science versus emotion” taunt just once too often.
Nuclear power proponents toss it out like a grenade to silence people who are “irrationally” worried about radioactivity. This is an industry whose wastes will be deadly for thousands of years after the last “scientific” spokesman accuses the last worried citizen of unjustified “emotion.”
Food [...]
How a Public Health Story Becomes an Industry Legend
By Donella Meadows
–February 7, 1997–
If the name Alar means anything to you, it probably means something related to apples and Meryl Streep and hysterical environmentalists.
Those mental associations have been nurtured in us by industry-funded public relations groups, who repeat over and over the claim that the “Alar scare” was deliberate hype, which alarmed the public unnecessarily and caused irreparable harm [...]
Chemicals Are a Means, Not an End
By Donella Meadows
–March 14, 1996–
We thought DDT was great, until we found robins dying on our lawns and eagle eggs broken in their nests.
Thalidomide eased morning sickness in pregnant women; then their babies were born without arms or legs.
Our cars performed better with tetraethyl lead in the gas, but the lead came out the tailpipes and poisoned us.
Everyone believed that [...]
You’re Only Half the Man Your Grandfather Was
By Donella Meadows
–January 25, 1996–
“Downward Motility” is the title of a January Esquire magazine article about declining human sperm counts. A similar piece in the New Yorker is called “Silent Sperm.” The press is beginning to pick up the endocrine disrupter story. Of all environmental scare stories, this one really hits home.
Over the past two generations sperm counts in many [...]
You Can’t Ban Chlorine, But You Can Stop Sloshing It Around
By Donella Meadows
–May 12, 1994–
“Now the enviros want to ban chlorine!” say the outraged anti-enviros. The outrage would be appropriate if the charge were true. Chlorine is a chemical element, a component of the planet. You might as well ban gravity, or granite, or the salt in the sea. In fact salt, sodium chloride, is made of chlorine. Anyone who [...]
