Silent Spring

Kristof seems to be toxic hound at the NYT. His latest piece highlights many of the same arguments from Silent Spring.

“There are diseases that are increasing in the population that we have no known cause for,” said Alan M. Goldberg, a professor of toxicology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. “Breast cancer, prostate cancer, autism are three examples. The potential is for these diseases to be on the rise because of chemicals in the environment.”

"And now we are in trouble."

Little kids believe ghost stories because in part, they don't enough for it to be not true and two, because they haven't been around enough people to tell them it isn't as well. Peak Oil is like a ghost story for adults except adult ghost stories usually are true, i.e. STD's, divorce settlement's, etc. The Oil Drum has a nice article on how the poorly educated (only men can read) Italian gypsies get Peak Oil while the "gadje" are indifferent to the truth after being told by so many folks that technology, "they", will save us.

The closing quote is particularly and hauntingly poignant.

You see, professor, I think you were right with your lesson. Yeah, you told us that things are not going to be so easy as they used to be. Right, we saw that, too. It is what's happening. You know, I remember when we came here from Yugoslavia. I was a child; I was 10 years old but I remember that very well. It was so different, here. We saw so much wealth: lights and cars and houses and stuff in the supermarkets. Yeah, we had never seen anything like that.

In Yugoslavia there was nothing. And so, we were all very happy, but I think we made a big mistake. You know; I remember my grandfather. He was a good man; he could work metals; he could fix pots and pans and sharpen knives. So, he told me that I should learn his job; but I didn't want to. I was very young; I wasn't that smart but, see, professor, I think we all made the same mistake. Many of the old folks could do things. Like singing or playing instruments, buying and selling horses.

But we can't do that any more. We didn't want to learn. We saw all this wealth, here, and we thought that there was no need of working so hard. If there was so much wealth; why couldn't we share a little of it? We didn't want to be rich; we just wanted a little - enough to live in peace. And we thought it would last forever. But, you are right, professor, it is not going to last forever. And now we are in trouble.