When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution

by Devra Davis

Book Overview

In When Smoke Ran Like Water, the world-renowned epidemiologist Devra Davis confronts the public triumphs and private failures of her lifelong battle against environmental pollution. She documents the shocking toll of a public-health disaster-300,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and Europe from the effects of pollution-and asks why we remain silent. For Davis, the issue is personal: Pollution is what killed many in her family and forced some of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465015220
• ISBN13: 9780465015221
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Good, Balanced

This is a good and balanced book, especially considering the vested interests of the author (her life!). Too often, these types of books turn into little more than political rants. This is not the case here. Sure, there are political actions and inactions that are discussed, but no personal attacks. There is not a tremendous amount of scientific data in this book, but I did not expect it. I was not looking for a tome of information. The author delivers on her personal and professional experiences in what is the best way possible. If only we could get others to follow her lead.

In the Absence of Corporate Conscience

In the Absence of Corporate Conscience By Judith Poole Davis, Devra. (2002). When Smoke Ran Like Water: tales of environmental deception and the battle against pollution. NY: Basic Books. $26.00. Available, Minuteman Library In this compelling volume, Davis casts a brilliant spotlight on historic precedents and modern events that pit public health against corporate welfare. With a clear focus, she addresses the history of industrial and automobile generated air pollution, the challenges and complexities of epidiemiological research, and problems generated when decisions and decision makers are politically motivated. She weaves these strands together in a personal narrative that is at once rivetting and convincing. The impact of environmental challenges on the health of children, older people, and future generations is made evident. The reader comes away with greater understanding, aware of what's really going on in the trenches. The age old conflict between those who think nothing of polluting our environment and those who work hard attempting to protect it only escalates. When Smoke Ran Like Water may be just the antidote to the apathy among those of us who feel overwhelmed. Everywhere one looks, decades of hard won environmental protections are dismantled while, in the language of doublespeak, the administration claims ?progress?. In this volume, we learn about damage caused by air borne toxic substances. Like a Hollywood box office thriller, we learn that deep pockets allow industry-mounted campaigns. Expensive paid experts are hired to dispute every finding, willing to intimidate researchers with the audacity to conduct research that might condemn the corporate approach to doing buisness. Davis elucidates how unregulated release of toxic substances results in high cancer rates, heart and lung diseases, infertility, brain damage, and death. Davis? writes with style and ease. She enlivens while she informs, and manages a rare feat, able to clearly elucidate detailed scientific concepts clearly, without oversimplifying. Davis? clarity and passion is illustrated in these quotes: On the dangers of leaded gasoline, which industry sources succeeded in insisting was perfectly safe: Why were the hazards of lead from gasoline not better understood? For several hundred years, heated or solid forms of lead had been known to injure, maim, and kill workers. As a heavy metal, ... lead chemically competes with and replaces calcium throughout the body. Calcium is one of those critical materials for life that gets to go wherever it wants, except when lead gets there first. In the bones, the brain, and the blood and throughout the nervous system, all of which depend on calcium, lead can trigger irreparable damage. (p 65.) On the urgent need to act even in the absence of absolute proof: By the time that we are able to learn whether [these] concerns are well founded, ... most of [us] will no longer be around. It all comes down to a question

Assn. Envir. Engineering & Science Professors Newsletter

WHEN SMOKE RAN LIKE WATER Devra Davis, Basic Books, New York, 2002 Who was your very best professor ever? Of all the perhaps hundreds of professors you had in undergraduate and graduate school, who stands out in your memory as the finest exemplar of the teacher/mentor/scholar? [After you have selected your finest professor, stop reading this review and if this person is still alive, write a short note to him or her. Just say that you are checking in, and describe a few things about your career and accomplishments. Indicate by some story or memorable quote that you remember the professor, and send along your best wishes. Then come back to reading this review] I so often hear that student evaluations of professors are imperfect because the value of a professor changes with time. There are those who believe that the mean guys you hated, the guys who forced you to work hard, will turn out to be your most respected and loved professors in the end. I have always personally disagreed with this assumption. My best (and worst) teachers when I was in school remain my best (and worst) 40 years later. So it did my heart good to realize that there is experimental evidence to back up my observation. One study found that there is no significant change in teacher ratings with time. Students asked 10 and 20 years after graduation to name their best instructors named the same instructors whom they rated highly while they were students. The tough instructors who had poor teaching skills regardless of how difficult their courses were were still rated poorly. In another study, when alumni were asked to describe their former professors, they told stories that illustrated the positive effect the teachers had on their lives. One alumnus, finishing his favorite story about his former professor, ended reflectively -- "I miss him" he said - thirty years after graduation. ( J. Educational Psychology 42(129-143), and Change, 28(6)). The same thing applies to books. I remember hating some of my texts (Gaylord and Gaylord still holds first place as the worst textbook ever) and loving others. And the ones I love I still have. (Gaylord and Gaylord was ceremonially burned when I finished my last steel design course.) Occasionally I pick up one of my favorites, riffle through the pages, and remember how the text helped me understand the subject. I think this book by Devra Davis is going to be one of those books to which I periodically return, both to enjoy her writing as well as to glean material for lectures. Davis is an environmental scientist and epidemiologist, and has had a distinguished career in and out of governmental service. She been personally involved in many of the significant cases of public protection from environmental pollutants such as the elimination of lead from gasoline. But her most important attribute is that she was born in Donora, Pennsylvania, and spent her childhood in the shadows of the steel mills that lined the Monongahela River. She speaks

A vividly written account of the battle agains air pollution

The headline in today's paper reads, "EPA drops clean-air action against plants." It goes on to say that after weakening the Clean Air Act for future power plant expansions, the Bush administration has now dropped enforcement actions already in progress against dozens of coal powered plants suspected of illegally pumping thousands of tons of pollution into the air. The headline makes it clear why we need more people like Devra Davis and more books like When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution.Davis, who holds a masters degree in public health, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, an adviser to the World Health Organization, and an original researcher into the impacts of air pollution on health worldwide. When Smoke Ran Like Water is her personal take on how letting businesses dump toxins into the air people breathe and the water they drink has resulted in illness-racked lives and hundreds of thousands of deaths throughout history. The story gets personal when she describes the clot of industrial pollution that settled over her hometown of Donora, Pennsylvania on October 26, 1948, sickening half the town and killing eighteen people outright. Like the deadly smogs that killed 12,000 people in London in 1952, the Donora deaths were swept under the carpet by officials; keeping the factories running was deemed far more important than a few "extra" deaths.The really shocking point Davis makes, however, is that such dramatic events represent just a tiny fraction of the illness, disability, and premature death caused by the long-term impact of chronic air pollution. Although the physician-philosopher Maimonaides warned of the health effects of breathing polluted air 800 years ago, it was not until the 1970s that epidemiologists convincingly proved that even low levels of pollution cause measurable increases in illness and premature deaths. By now they can pin it down to a deadly equation-whenever air pollution increases by so many millionths of a gram per cubic meter of air, there will be so many premature deaths. The numbers are staggering-Davis reports that air pollution has caused one million early deaths in the United States since 1980, and in China causes an estimated one million early deaths each year. Equally alarming are the increasing presence of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in air and water, with documented impacts on human reproduction and development.Davis also details how major corporations have fought-and, as the headlines show, continue to fight--to be allowed to pollute. They have blocked legitimate research, funded biased research, and used every tactic including intimidating researchers to keep the public from understanding the impact of pollution. They've smeared even the most careful and reputable research, published in leading, peer-reviewed scientific journals, as "junk science," and continue to lobby, with mounting success, for the right to continue to pump thousands

Compelling, Informative AND Inspiring

I am not a scientist, but I have practiced environmental law, as a regulator, for the past 14 years. Sad to say, what Dr. Davis represents as the roadblocks to a safer and healthier environment for all the earth's inhabitants are, largely, my experiences too. However, this is not a book of all doom and gloom. In the end, on the issues where there are individuals who refuse to give up, or be coopted, justice often prevails -- we just needlessly cause damage in our delay to get there! Dr. Davis is clearly one of those individuals born to fight and lead! You will be inspired.