Eric Schlosser Quotes
We are much better at creating complex technologies than we are at controlling them.
He made this quotation in a discussion about nuclear weapons, but the principle is valid for many areas from the Internet to pharmaceuticals. In the nuclear weapons case there have been a number of accidents – including fatal ones – over the years and on several occasions a nuclear weapon came close to detonating near populated areas. In one case, radiation damage from a crash of a nuclear weapons equipped bomber have made an area in Spain unusable for years into the future.
Eric Schlosser, Investigative Reporter, WAMU, The Dianne Rehm Show, September 17, 2013
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Most environmentalists limit the vision of their solutions to using less of our precious natural resources which is very important but just as important and perhaps more so in the long run is increasing the supply of these resources. Food is an example. The major reason that there is no serious food shortage world-wide is that we have increased the productivity of agriculture requiring less labor, less water, less fertilizer, less land, and less dependency on weather. Distribution has also improved, but there is no very good way of distributing something for which there is a great shortage.
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.
Iran was in a dispute with other nations regarding their development of nuclear technology in violation of The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty where the technology could also make nuclear weapons. Negotiations were ongoing regarding alternatives.
This declaration, drafted by Russell and Einstein two days before Einstein’s death was signed by a number of other prominent scientists.
The lecture was on radium and the radioactivity that scientists had recently discovered. This appears to be the first time a scientist suggested the possibility of using atomic energy to produce a powerful weapon. At the same time, note that he also mentioned the possible destruction of the earth. “Heavy matter” referred to the elements—many of which had not yet been discovered—that had larger atomic numbers than radium like uranium.
Under this initiative the US declassified and distributed technical, previously secret information, about atomic science to the world for scientific development. It has been very successful and there are few modern nations that have not benefitted from the program.
Eric Matthew Schlosser is an American journalist and author known for his investigative journalism, such as in his books Fast Food Nation (2001), Reefer Madness (2003), and Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2013).
