Donella Meadows Quotes
If we emit massive quantities of untested chemicals into the environment, some of them are bound to end up in places that surprise us, doing things that endanger us.
Meadows, Donella H. The Global Citizen. Island Press, 1991.
Fracturing underground shale—fracking—releases natural gas which the US has in an energy equivalent of two Saudi Arabias. However this is done by injecting water and chemicals into the underground shale. The shale is generally below the water table but the concrete shaft that carries the fluid and the gas at high pressure through the water table. There have been serious accidents where drinking water has been polluted. The George W. Bush administration, led by VP Cheney whose company was in the fracking business had a law passed which gave the gas fracking industry the right to endanger or pollute drinking water without the inspection of meeting the standards of the Clean Water Act and other state and federal protection laws. They are also exempt from having to disclose what poisons or carcinogens are in the fracking fluid or how much they are injecting into a community’s land and water. So the best potential option for American Energy independence got caught up with disputes over proper safety and disclosure procedures and the exemptions that were granted by Congress.
Issuing a statement over the health threat of dioxin in 1983:
The Congressman was never known to be a literati. A “toxic” by definition is harmful. Later. DeLay was convicted and sentenced to jail for money laundering and illegally spending and raising campaign funds. He was also reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee for unethical methods of fund raising for other earlier actions.
Donella Hager "Dana" Meadows was an American environmental scientist, educator, and writer. She is best known as lead author of the books The Limits to Growth and Thinking in Systems: a Primer.