Matters of Scale - Chemical Warfare
Maximum safe level of perchlorate, the main ingredient of rocket
and missile fuel, in drinking water | 0.03 micrograms per kg of body weight |
Perchlorate found in leafy vegetables grown in California with irrigation
water contaminated by leaks or dumping from military contractors | 4,490.00 micrograms per kg of produce |
|
| |
Total weight of chemical weapons in Iraq before the 2003 war,
as estimated by the American Federation of Scientists | 3,850 tons |
Total weight of just six of the most dangerous pesticides at large
in the global environment | 7,000,000 tons |
|
| |
People killed by Iraqi chemical weapons in the six-year period
preceding the 2003 U.S. War on Iraq | 0 |
People killed by pesticides, as estimated by the World Health
Organization, during the same six-year period | over 1,000,000 |
|
| |
Number of deaths in the United States each year for which
death certificates list the cause of death as air pollution | 0 |
Number of U.S. deaths actually caused by air pollution,
as estimated by the Harvard School of Public Health | 60,000 |
|
| |
Projected increase in the world's population between 1995 and 2020 | 25 percent |
Projected increase in the world's chemical production between 1995 and 2020 | 80 percent |
|
| |
Sources: Safe level of perchlorate: Draft Risk Assessment, Environmental Protection Agency, January 18, 2003; perchlorate level in
lettuce: Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C., April 29, 2003; weight of chemical weapons in Iraq: Federation of American
Scientists; weight of six pesticides (DDT, chlordane, HCB, toxaphene, aldrin, and dieldrinc): Paul Johnston, et al., Natural Resources
Forum, May 1999; chemical weapons deaths in Iraq: the last known attacks occurred in 1988; pesticide deaths: World Health Organization
estimate of more than 500 deaths and 8,000 nonfatal poisonings per day; air pollution deaths: John Spengler, director of
Environmental Science and Engineering program, Harvard School of Public Health, cited in Devra Davis, When Smoke Ran Like Water
(New York: Basic Books, 2002).