* Post a comment on "Neptune's Medicine Chest"
Balazars artcle, Neptune's Medicine Chest, is a fluff piece written
like some flowery Christopher Columbus biography.
Rather than seeing nature as having an inherent integrity of its own,
corporations and many scientists operating within the institutionalized
culture of an organization view it as a source of raw materials for the
creation of manufactured commodities.
Pharmaceutical companies that develop a cancer drug from the
environment can patent the drug and maintain sole ownership over its use for 20
years. A corporation that genetically alters a species, not only owns the
result, but also the subsequent generations of that
altered species.
Thus when the problem is seen as “to beat other diseases
that are rapidly -- alarmingly -- developing resistance to everything in the
world's antibiotic medicine chest” and the answer to that problem follows the
same logic that created it, we do not generate an actual solution- a commodity is
introduced to the market.
It is our economic and cultural overdependence on
antibiotics that is creating more and more antibiotic resistant pathogens. The
problem is not that “the terrestrial world has been scoured so thoroughly that
science is running out of places to look and breakthroughs to count on,” it is
that we are destroying the biodiversity of our planets and our bodies at an
alarming rate.
The privatization of nature allows
imperialistic-minded corporations to patent it for profit at the expense of the environment- on land or on
sea.
* Post a review of one of the links below
On the Advancing Green Chemistry Website the organization
maps out their vision through 'The Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry'. The principles
outline a model for industrial manufacturing that envisions pure and clean water leaving factories and
polluted sources being brought back to life. However, the organizations principals are ill conceived
because they do not address the intrinsic aspect of the ecological crisis that is the
systemic crisis of capitalism. Indeed, we cannot analyze the global ecological
crisis separately from the crisis in which it is embedded.
Advancing Green Chemistry advocates that, “Green chemistry
gives your company strategic advantage by enabling you to design and differentiate
products and processes by environment and health criteria, and capture top and
bottom line profits throughout the value chain.”
However, it is necessary to reject the logic of profit
maximization and a productivist orientation, which take no account of the
limits of the environment. Given the state of the planet, it seems naïve to me to
advocate a “green” logic without an anticapitalist framework. Instead it is
necessary to critique institutionalized environmentalism and create alternative
models of production, distribution and consumption instead of putting a green
veneer on the current model.
If not, Advancing Green Chemistry and the like never fully
identify the root problem(s) and instead end up being an instrument in the
service of green capitalism.
The Twelve Principles of Green
Chemistry*
.
Prevention
It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste
after it has been created.
.
Atom Economy
Synthetic methods should be designed to maximize the
incorporation of all materials used in the process into the final product.
.
Less Hazardous Chemical
Syntheses
Wherever practicable, synthetic methods should be
designed to use and generate substances that possess little or no toxicity to
human health and the environment.
.
Designing Safer Chemicals
Chemical products should be designed to effect their desired
function while minimizing their toxicity.
.
Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries
The use of auxiliary substances (e.g., solvents, separation
agents, etc.) should be made unnecessary wherever possible and innocuous when
used.
.
Design for Energy Efficiency
Energy requirements of chemical processes should be recognized
for their environmental and economic impacts and should be minimized. If
possible, synthetic methods should be conducted at ambient temperature and
pressure.
.
Use of Renewable Feedstocks
A raw material or feedstock should be renewable rather than
depleting whenever technically and economically practicable.
.
Reduce Derivatives
Unnecessary derivatization (use of blocking groups, protection/
deprotection, temporary modification of physical/chemical processes) should be
minimized or avoided if possible, because such steps require additional
reagents and can generate waste.
.
Catalysis
Catalytic reagents (as selective as possible) are superior to
stoichiometric reagents.
.
Design for Degradation
Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of
their function they break down into innocuous degradation products and do not
persist in the environment.
.
Real-time analysis for
Pollution Prevention
Analytical methodologies need to be
further developed to allow for real-time, in-process monitoring and control
prior to the formation of hazardous substances.
.
Inherently Safer Chemistry for
Accident Prevention
Substances and the form of a
substance used in a chemical process should be chosen to minimize the potential
for chemical accidents, including releases, explosions, and fires.
- See more at:
http://advancinggreenchemistry.org/green-chem-101/what-is-gc/#sthash.fQy7GFyj
