You shall know this EVEN BETTER

OUR PLANET:
BORROWING THE FUTURE



One day, repeating to myself the title, “Our
Planet”, I looked up at the night sky. Scientists
say it takes several, even thousands of years, for
starlight to reach our planet Earth. The twinkling
stars we now see may have already disappeared.
Like starlight taking a long time to reach us, the
long dormant consequences of environmental
factors can often suddenly appear.

This is true of chemicals. They have been a major
driving force behind industrial development and
much-improved human well-being — but quite
a few have become a threat. DDT (Dichloro-
Diphenyl-Trichloroethane), for instance, was
hailed in the 1940s as a miraculous insecticide
and its discovery was rewarded with the Nobel
Prize. But it was banned after thirty years of use
after its negative impact on the environment,
bioaccumulation and other side effects were
revealed. So the chemicals of today cannot simply
be praised for the convenience they bring to us:
they can be like a black box, possibly containing
negative secrets.




Maanee Lee
Minister of Environment,
Republic of Korea