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A collage of a Teflon pan frying an egg, surrounded by nuclear bombs and the molecular structure of Teflon.

The Long, Strange History of Teflon

First discovered in 1938, Teflon has been used for everything from helping to create the first atomic bomb to keeping your eggs from sticking to the pan.
by Rudy Molinek via Smithsonian on August 20, 2024
The outline of a U.S. map with a fire symbol in the middle.

Why the U.S. Is Losing the Fight to Ban Toxic Chemicals

How the U.S. became a global laggard in chemical regulation.
by Sharon Lerner, Neil Bedi, Kathleen McGrory via ProPublica on December 14, 2022

How Bad Are Plastics, Really?

Plastic production just keeps expanding, and now is becoming a driving cause of climate change.
by Rebecca Altman via The Atlantic on January 3, 2022
Bottles of WD-40 on a shelf

How WD-40 Became Rust’s Worst Enemy

The history of WD-40, a chemical substance with an unusual origin story and a rust-fighting ability that has become a standby of workbenches the world over.
by David Buck via Tedium on November 26, 2021
Illustration of Clarence Thomas in front of factory

The Radicalization of Clarence Thomas

His time working for Monsanto and other polluting industries helped make him the fierce conservative he is today.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on August 13, 2021
C-123 “Provider” aircraft spray Agent Orange over Vietnam during Operation Ranch Hand, which took place between 1962 and 1971.

The People vs. Agent Orange Exposes a Mass Poisoning in Plain Sight

A new PBS documentary investigates the legacy of one of the most dangerous pollutants on the planet, an unsettling cover-up, and the fight for accountability.
by Jasper Craven via The New Republic on June 28, 2021

‘One Oppressive Economy Begets Another’

Louisiana’s petroleum industry profits from exploiting historic inequalities, showing how slavery laid the groundwork for environmental racism.
by Anya Groner via The Atlantic on May 7, 2021
A graphic featuring a map of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and slavery imagery.

Cancer Alley

A collage artist explores how Louisiana's ecological and epidemiological disasters are founded in colonialism.
by Monique Michelle Verdin via Southern Cultures on August 1, 2020

Time-Bombing the Future

Synthetics created in the 20th century have become an evolutionary force, altering human biology and the web of life.
by Rebecca Altman via Aeon on January 2, 2019
Organic chemistry graphic of burning tree

How the Benzene Tree Polluted the World

The organic compounds that enabled industrialization are having unintended consequences for the planet’s life.
by Rebecca Altman via The Atlantic on October 4, 2017
An illustration of the book "Silent Spring" on top of the earth.

This Book Helped Save the Planet—but Created a Very Harmful Myth

It radically shifted the way the world looked at the environment, but created a wave of misinformation we’re still dealing with today.
by Katie MacBride via Slate on September 29, 2024
Site of leaking underground gasoline tanks in Colorado.

How Environmental Law Created a World Awash in Toxic Chemicals

Putting the burden on the government to demonstrate significant risk of harm before regulating has allowed willful ignorance to undermine public health.
by William Boyd via LPE Project on May 28, 2024
Plastic kitchen containers in red liquid.

How 3M Discovered, Then Concealed, the Dangers of Forever Chemicals

The company found its own toxic compounds in human blood—and kept selling them.
by Sharon Lerner via The New Yorker on May 20, 2024
Photo of a blue bin filled with recyclable garbage.

Petrochemical Companies Have Known for 40 Years that Plastics Recycling Wouldn't Work

Despite knowing that plastic recycling wouldn't work, new documents show how petrochemical companies promoted it anyway.
by Joseph Winters via Grist on February 20, 2024
Scientists releasing weather balloons
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Healing the Ozone: First Steps Toward Success

A worldwide effort to heal damage to the ozone layer is showing early progress.
via Retro Report on September 12, 2023
Black and white photo of a crop duster releasing DDT spray over a forest.
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The History of DDT Shows Government Agencies Have Responsibility for Today's Skepticism about Science

Our government institutions, and especially our scientific ones, have a duty to rebuild the public trust that has eroded over the last half century.
by Elena Conis via HNN on September 25, 2022
A woman spraying DDT aerosol on her windows to keep insects at bay, 1955.

DDT Is Still With Us, 50 Years Since It Was Banned

Scientists have found toxic levels of the chemical at large. And some groups are making the case to produce even more.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on May 31, 2022
Collection of photographs ranging including shareholders' meeting protests, the city of Rochester, and Kodak founder George Eastman.

The Rise and Fall of an American Tech Giant

Kodak changed the way Americans saw themselves and their country. But it struggled to reinvent itself for the digital age.
by Kaitlyn Tiffany via The Atlantic on June 16, 2021
Water contaminated with arsenic, lead and zinc flows from a pipe out of the Lee Mountain mine and into a holding pond
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Spin Doctors Have Shaped the Environmentalism Debate for Decades

“Green” public relations work has flown below the radar but made a huge impact.
by Melissa Aronczyk via Made By History on February 21, 2021

A Strange Blight: Rachel Carson’s Forebodings

Reading Silent Spring today, in the hazy reddish glow of climate catastrophe, is both an exhilarating and a melancholy pleasure.
by Meehan Crist via London Review of Books on June 6, 2019

Wearing The Lead Glasses

Lead contamination in New Orleans and beyond.
by Thomas Beller via Places Journal on May 31, 2019

First Slavery, Then a Chemical Plant and Cancer Deaths: One Town's Brutal History

Long before Reserve, Louisiana was home to a chemical plant and riddled with cancer, it suffered the deprivations of enslavement.
by Oliver Laughland, Jamiles Lartey via The Guardian on May 6, 2019
A drawing of a beaver collecting branches.

A History of Flavoring Food With Beaver Butt Juice

No, castoreum is not a cheap substitute for strawberries; it’s luxe, artisanal secretions from a beaver's rear end.
by Nadia Berenstein via Vice on December 20, 2018

American Beauties

How plastic bags came to rule our lives, and why we can’t quit them.
by Rebecca Altman via Topic on August 1, 2018
Crop duster flies low over a field.
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The Real Scandal at the EPA? It’s Not Keeping Us Safe.

Instead of banning dangerous pesticides, the EPA is actually loosening the rules on who can use them.
by Frederick Rowe Davis via Made By History on February 26, 2018
Neighborhood residents stand in front of a 25th anniversary protest mural outside the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.

The Worst Industrial Disaster in the History of the World

For the people of Old Bhopal, an accident there had sent forty metric tons of methyl isocyanate into a runaway reaction that released a toxic gas.
by Siddhartha Deb via The Baffler on October 28, 2014
he obverse (right) and reverse (left) of the James H. Hyde Medallion, designed by Paul H. Manship, on the Janvier reduction machine.

Tokens of Culture

On the medallic art of the Gilded Age.
by James Panero via The New Criterion on December 12, 2024

Divestment and the American Political Tradition

From Dow to now.
by Michael Brenes via Warfare And Welfare on May 16, 2024
Campus police struggle with anti-war demonstrators in Berkeley, California 1967.
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The Protests That Anticipated the Gaza Solidarity Encampments

With the Dow sit-ins of the 1960s, students drew attention to links between the campus, war, and imperialism.
by Adam Tomasi via Made By History on May 10, 2024
Senators Cory Booker and Chuck Grassley conversing.

How Washington Bargained Away Rural America

Every five years, the farm bill brings together Democrats and Republicans. The result is the continued corporatization of agriculture.
by Luke Goldstein via The American Prospect on May 24, 2023
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