Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry - Rilegato

Grossman, Elizabeth

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 1597263702 ISBN 13: 9781597263702

Casa editrice: Shearwater Books, 2009

Riassunto

Each day, headlines warn that baby bottles are leaching dangerous chemicals, nonstick pans are causing infertility, and plastic containers are making us fat. What if green chemistry could change all that? What if rather than toxics, our economy ran on harmless, environmentally-friendly materials?

Elizabeth Grossman, an acclaimed journalist who brought national attention to the contaminants hidden in computers and other high tech electronics, now tackles the hazards of ordinary consumer products. She shows that for the sake of convenience, efficiency, and short-term safety, we have created synthetic chemicals that fundamentally change, at a molecular level, the way our bodies work. The consequences range from diabetes to cancer, reproductive and neurological disorders.

Yet it’s hard to imagine life without the creature comforts current materials provide—and Grossman argues we do not have to. A scientific revolution is introducing products that are “benign by design,” developing manufacturing processes that consider health impacts at every stage, and is creating new compounds that mimic rather than disrupt natural systems. Through interviews with leading researchers, Grossman gives us a first look at this radical transformation.

Green chemistry is just getting underway, but it offers hope that we can indeed create products that benefit health, the environment, and industry.

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Recensione:

'There are enough environmental problems that seem insoluble. Elizabeth Grossman has given us this chronicle of a field with a bright future, the green chemistry that will replace the crude methods of the 19th century with the smart ones of the 21st. She tells us how it could happen-we should listen carefully!' --Bill McKibben author of The End of Nature and Deep Economy

L'autore:

Elizabeth Grossman is the author of High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health,Watershed: The Undamming of America, and Adventuring Along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Her writing has appeared inMother Jones, The Nation, Salon, The Washington Post, and other publications. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Shearwater Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1597263702
• ISBN 13: 9781597263702
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 2
• Numero di pagine: 249