We were risking our lives stopping people from doing these terrible things. With chemistry’s terrible reputation, I thought there was nothing greater than protest. We still see people suffering today from these disasters. Before that, the United States was using pesticides to destroy Vietnam’s vegetation. The whole region was contaminated by dioxins. In 1976, when I was a high school student, the company Seveso in Northern Italy had a big chemical accident. I told them, Albert Einstein said “no problem can be solved by the same type of thinking which generates the problem.” When we ended our protest, the company told us they were interested in sustainability.
That gave the situation a completely different culture of dialogue. It was cold and dangerous, so the company promised us if we climbed down at night, they would let us climb up again the next morning. We climbed up a chimney of the company Ciba Geigy and the company behaved differently. Normally, there was security, and when they could reach us, they would beat us. This protest was different from ones in the past. All the fish were dying and the water turned pink. The chemical company Sandoz had a big fire and basically destroyed the whole life of the river Rhine for more than 200 miles. One of the last protest activities that I coordinated and organized was against the chemical industry in 1986. It was quite toxic and dangerous work, but we thought this would be the only way to protest against what was being done. They just put it in a boat, went out 50 miles, and dumped it. New York City in the 1980s was still dumping municipal waste in the ocean. Waste was often dumped in the North Sea or the Atlantic. For example, I blocked ships dumping waste in the oceans by swimming around them. I was the first activist in Greenpeace who had a scientific background and could climb chimneys, operate rubber boats, and organize protests. I started to analyze human breast milk to find out what chemicals actually accumulate in biological systems. When I was younger, I started to protest against chemistry because it was polluting rivers and destroying species diversity. Michael Braungart (MB): Chemistry is amazingly primitive when it comes to environmental health. How did you get started with this? What did your work look like? Journal of International Affairs (JIA): You first became involved with Greenpeace in the 1980s, helping them establish a chemistry section. The Journal of International Affairs spoke with Braungart about the Cradle to Cradle concept that he developed. Braungart has been an international leader on research and consultancy for eco-effective products. Since working for Greenpeace International in the 1980s, Dr. Michael Braungart is a professor at the Leuphana University Lüneburg, the founder and scientific CEO of EPEA Internationale Umweltforschung GmbH, and the co-founder and scientific director of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC).
0 kommentar(er)
