Quotes About Chemicals

Sharp acids corrode their own containers.

the average American household is in more danger from chemical germ-killers than from germs.

As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life - a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no high-minded orientation, no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.

It is not my contention that chemical insecticides must never be used. I do contend that we have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands of persons largely or wholly ignorant of their potentials for harm. We have subjected enormous numbers of people to contact with these poisons, without their consent and often without their knowledge.

All this has come about because of the sudden rise and prodigious growth of an industry for the production of man-made or synthetic chemicals with insecticidal properties. This industry is a child of the Second World War. In the course of developing agents of chemical warfare, some of the chemicals created in the laboratory were found to be lethal to insects. The discovery did not come by chance: insects were widely used to test chemicals as agents of death for man.

If, having endured much, we have at last asserted out right to know, and if by knowing, we have concluded that we are being asked to take senseless and frightening risks, then we should no longer accept the counsel of those who tell us that we must fill our world with poisonous chemicals; we should look about and see what other course is open to us.

Carson's thesis that we were subjecting ourselves to slow poisoning by the misuse of chemical pesticides that polluted the environment may seem like common currency now, but in 1962 Silent Spring contained the kernel of social revolution.

The chemicals to which life is asked to make its adjustment are no longer merely the calcium and silica and copper and all the rest of the minerals washed out of the rocks and carried in rivers to the sea; they are the synthetic creations of man's inventive mind, brewed in his laboratories, and having no counterparts in nature.

Such plants are weeds only to those who make a business of selling and applying chemicals.

The question of chemical residues on the food we eat is a hotly debated issue. The existence of such residues is either played down by the industry as unimportant or is flatly denied. Simultaneously, there is a strong tendency to brand as fanatics or cultists all who are so perverse as to demand that their food be free of insect poisons. In all this cloud of controversy, what are the actual facts?

What sets the new synthetic insecticides is their enormous biological potency.

We are rightly appalled by the genetic effects of radiation; how then, can we be indifferent to the same effect in chemicals that we disseminate widely in our environment?

For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.

I]t is simply impossible to predict the effects of lifetime exposure to chemical and physical agents that are not part of the biological experience of man.

The ultimate answer is to use less toxic chemicals so that the public hazard from their misuse is greatly reduced.

five hundred new chemicals to which the bodies of men and animals are required somehow to adapt each year, chemicals totally outside the limits of biologic experience.

Among the herbicides are some that are classified as 'mutagens' or agents capable of modifying the genes, the materials of heredity. We are rightly appalled by the genetic effects of radiation; how then can we be indifferent to the same effect in chemicals that we disseminate widely in our environment?

Ino the course of developing agents of chemical warfare, some of the chemicals created in the laboratory were found to be lethal to insects, The discovery did not come by chance: insects were widely used to test chemicals as agents of death for man.

He bought acetone from an art supply store, bleaching powder from a janitorial supply, and brewed the chloroform himself from acetone by the reaction of chloride of lime

hormones intended to induce a sense of well-being.

Although traditional weapons killed far more people in the Great War, poison gas gave a new nightmare edge to the fighting.

The brain stem and cerebellum play a critical role in happiness, as they are also involved in processing speed and producing some of the chemicals, such as dopamine and serotonin, that are involved in mood, motivation, and learning

It's all just chemicals.

Not only does virtual dissection save animals, it also saves schools money and helps the environment by sparing the use of toxic chemicals typically used to embalm animals.