Environmental Awareness is a Long Journey

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The historical efforts to combat pollution highlight that bans on harmful substances often occur long after their negative impacts are understood. Rachel Carson's decades-long battle to demonstrate the dangers of DDT underscores the slow response of legislation to environmental threats, exacerbated by corporate lobbying. Despite the establishment of regulatory bodies like the EPA and the occurrence of Earth Day in 1970, pollution levels continue to rise in various forms, such as lead accumulation in ice caps and freshwater pollution. The complexity and longevity of pollutants in the environment signal ongoing challenges, suggesting that many harmful substances may still remain undiscovered and unregulated.

In 1972, a team of young scientists at MIT published a study exploring what would happen to human civilization if people kept pursuing endless economic growth on a finite planet. They weren’t just disbelieved, they were ridiculed. The story of Donella Meadows and The Limits to Growth.

Reported and produced by Katy Shields and Vegard Beyer, with co-hosts John Biewen and Ellen McGirt. Story editor: Loretta Williams. Archival audio of Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Aurelio Peccei, Jay Forrester, and others. Interviewee: John Fullerton.Original music by Nora Beyer. Additional music by Michelle Osis and Lili Haydn. Music consulting by Joe Augustine of Narrative Music. "Capitalism” is a production of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, in partnership with Imperative 21.