A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

Chapter 97

Chemicals

BRUCE E. JOHANSEN

Artificial chemicals usually are invented, manufactured, sold and used under advertised assumptions that they will provide humankind with benefits, such as the eradication of harmful pests. In some cases, however, the use of such chemicals has been found to provoke various side-effects, which, like some drugs, inflict problems for people and the environment that outweigh their benefits. In several cases during the last century, the use of chemicals has been restricted or banned because of their malodorous (and often unanticipated) effects.

During the early 1960s, for example, a furor followed disclosure by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring (1962) of DDT’s effects on the environment, largely on birds. Use of the chemical was then banned in the United States and other industrialized countries, although it continues to be used in areas where malaria-bearing mosquitoes are a major health risk.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the use of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) as refrigerants and propellants was found to be eroding stratospheric ozone, which shields human life from cancer-inducing ultraviolet radiation. Use of CFCs was subsequently banned under international law during the late 1980s. Restoration of stratospheric ozone has been much slower than expected under the ban, however, as scientists have discovered that many of the chemical reactions which cause CFCs to erode ozone are cold-activated. As carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases near ...