Ecotoxicology Books

War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Studies in Environment and History)

Edmund Russell

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In War and Nature Edmund Russell, Associate Professor of Technology, Culture, and Communication at the University of Virginia, cleverly traces the interaction between chemical warfare and pest control from World War I to the Vietnam War. His central thesis is that war and control of nature have coevolved: "the control of nature expanded the scale of war, and war expanded the scale on which people controlled nature" (p. 2). Following up on his dissertation (University of Michigan, 1993), which won the Rachel Carson Prize from the American Society for Environmental History, Russell culled a wide variety of recently declassified U.S. government documents, business publications, and contemporary books and articles. Russell finds that World Wars I and II and the Cold War forged close ties between military and scientific institutions, and efforts to maintain such links became hallmarks of the post-World War II era. Scientifically and technologically, pest control and chemical warfare each created knowledge and tools that reinforced the other (p. 4) For example, on the eve of World War I, there were few U.S. chemical companies. They manufactured primarily low-profit bulk chemicals. In contrast, Germany had the best chemical factories and schools and had the largest output of sophisticated products. Eight German companies made up almost 80 percent of the world's dyes (p. 18). However, the increased use of mustard and chlorine gas in the war boosted the demand by European allies for these chemicals from the United States. The "Chemical Warfare Service" was created within the U.S. Army to employ civilian chemists to conduct research on war gases. This research also stimulated the invention of new insecticides to deal with such menaces as the boll weevil (attacking cotton crops), house fly (spreading typhus), the San Jose scale (damaging fruit trees), and mosquitoes (spreading malaria).
The use of chemicals in warfare is not new. Interestingly, Russell points out that the first recorded use of poison gas was in 428 BC, when Spartans besieging Plataea attempted to kill its defenders by burning wood soaked in pitch and sulfur under city walls (p. 4). However, chemical warfare increased throughout the twentieth century. According to Russell, at least 90,000 people were killed in World War I by gas, and estimated 350,000 were killed by gas in World War II, not including all the victims in Hitler's gas chambers. Even these figures seem low. Russell skillfully shows through cartoons how federal entomologists and chemists used insects in their propaganda as metaphors for human enemies. One cartoon depicts a conversation between two worms, one of them exclaiming: "What! Me sabotage that guy's victory garden? What do you take me for-a Jap? (p. 100)."
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 sought to exclude gas from warfare and define the rights of combatants. Public outrage at the use of chemicals as weapons of war continued to mount. After World War II, the Chemical Warfare Service and other chemical companies lobbied Congress vigorously, stressing the need to develop war gases as insecticides, for which increased funding was required. Noted chemists testified before Congress, claiming also that chemical and biological warfare was "more humane" than conventional warfare. According to Russell, who interviewed several of these chemists, Chief Chemical Officer William Creasy inanely argued in 1958 that 25,000 American casualties on Iwo Jima could have been avoided had the U.S. military employed chemical weapons (p. 208). Miracle "psychochemicals" were promoted, such as LSD-25 that could temporarily incapacitate troops but not permanently harm them. Russell cites a US Army propaganda film produced in 1958 in which a cat chased and caught a mouse, inhaled an unnamed gas, and then cowered from another mouse (p. 208). This publicity campaign persuaded Pentagon authorities to increase the U.S. Army's budget to $80,000,000 for chemical research.
Research to fight insects increased simultaneously with the development of chemicals to fight humans. As thousands of families moved to the suburbs in the 1950s, gardening became a popular hobby and stimulated the desire for pest control. Pesticide manufacturers such as Du Pont and Dow increased their marketing to this group of consumers, while federal crop dusting programs using DDT were initiated.
Russell shows how Rachel Carson's publication of Silent Spring in 1962 galvanized the American environmental movement, leading eventually to the ban on DDT in 1972. This immediate bestseller detailed the noxious effects of DDT on plants and animals and characterized pest control as a self-defeating form of warfare (p. 229).
Reading this book, one is struck by the immense irony of the twentieth century and the causal interaction of peace and war. Never before have so many human lives been saved (thanks to pesticides killing disease-carrying insects and increasing crop yields) and so many destroyed (mostly due to incendiaries, but also chemical weapons). Americans got better at saving lives partly because they got better at taking them, and vice versa. While War and Nature is almost too dazzling in its rich detail and sometimes a bit careless in its logic (e.g. implying that human beings should not be considered part of nature), the book breaks new ground in its connection of two traditionally disparate fields of inquiry, environmental and military history. It should be required reading in college courses in both security studies and environmental science.---Johanna Granville, Ph.D. (Stanford University)

Editorial Review:

While cultural and scholarly traditions have led us to believe that war and control of nature are separate, there are many more similarities than most people might suspect. Tracing the history of chemical warfare and pest control, Edmund Russell shows how war and control of nature coevolved. Ideologically, institutionally, and technologically, the paths of chemical warfare and pest control intersected repeatedly in the twentieth century. War and Nature helps us to understand the impact of war on nature and vice versa, as well as the development of total war, and the rise of the modern environmental movement. Edmund Russell is an assistant professor in the Division of Technology, Culture, and Communication in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. This is his first book.

Ecological Risk Assessment

Glenn W. Suter II

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Recently, environmental scientists have been required to perform a new type of assessment - ecological risk assessment. This is the first book that explains how to perform ecological risk assessments and gives assessors access to the full range of useful data, models, and conceptual approaches they need to perform an accurate assessment. It explains how ecological risk assessment relates to more familiar types of assessments. It also shows how to organize and conduct an ecological risk assessment, including defining the source, selecting endpoints, describing the relevant features of the receiving environment, estimating exposure, estimating effects, characterizing the risks, and interacting with the risk manager.Specific technical topics include finding and selecting toxicity data; statistical and mathematical models of effects on organisms, populations, and ecosystems; estimation of chemical fate parameters; modeling of chemical transport and fate; estimation of chemical uptake by organisms; and, estimation, propagation, and presentation of uncertainty. "Ecological Risk Assessment" also covers conventional risk assessments, risk assessments for existing contamination, large scale problems, exotic organisms, and risk assessments based on environmental monitoring.Environmental assessors at regulatory agencies, consulting firms, industry, and government labs need this book for its approaches and methods for ecological risk assessment. Professors in ecology and other environmental sciences will find the book's practical preparation useful for classroom instruction. Environmental toxicologists and chemists will appreciate the discussion of the utility for risk assessment of particular toxicity tests and chemical determinations.

The Wabash River Ecosystem

James R. Gammon

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Editorial Review:

Despite our enormous environmental problems and the pollution of most of our rivers, there have been very few longitudinal studies of any of our major rivers. Jim Gammon has worked on the Wabash River for 30 years, monitoring its general quality as demonstrated through the populations of the River's many species of fish. The study focuses on a 160-mile stretch of the river between Delphi and Merom, Indiana. Judgments are made about the nature of pollutants and their impact, especially agricultural runoff. Perhaps the most important finding is that reductions in pollutants reaching the river have a fairly immediate effect on the size and health of fish populations.

Current Developments in Bioerosion (Erlangen Earth Conference Series)

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A little more than forty years has past since the concept of bioerosion was formally recognised as the biological erosion of hard materials. In that time, it has become apparent from the literature that bioerosional processes affect a wide range of biological and geological systems that cross many disciplines among the sciences. This book is dedicated to crossing those traditional disciplinary boundaries to present a united and current perspective on the pattern and process of bioerosion.

The book opens with papers on the evolutionary significance of bioerosion, and subsequently ventures out to explore the remarkable diversity of bioerosive biota. From microboring bacteria to grazing echinoids, the studies use a variety of techniques ranging from field observations to sophisticated micro-computed tomography to investigate the ecological and environmental role of these organisms, including symbiotic interactions and alteration of non-carbonate substrates. The book concludes with a primer on the bioerosion bibliography website.

A diverse set of two dozen articles, including case studies and extensive reviews, highlight many aspects of the growing discipline of bioerosion research, from the early Palaeozoic to the present, from the Tropics to the Arctic, and from terrestrial environments to the deep-sea.

Toxicants in the Aqueous Ecosystem

T. R. Compton

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Editorial Review:

This book provides a complete coverage of all aspects of the occurrence, toxicity and analysis of toxicants in the aqueous ecosystem. The aqueous ecosystem includes natural waters such as rivers, coastal waters and open seawater. It also includes sedimentary matter present in these waters, creatures (fish, crustacea) and plant life. Chapters dealing with toxicity measurement, control of pollution regulation and toxicity data systematically discuss metals, organometallic compounds and organic compounds. In addition, Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the effects of these types of toxicants in natural waters and water creature s tissues, whilst Chapter 8 deals with the health of such creatures. Contents:
* Toxicity Evaluation - Water Based
* Toxicity Evaluation - Animal Tissue Analysis Based
* Control of Pollution Regulations
* Toxicity Data
* Effects of Dissolved Metals in Water on Creatures
* Effect of Organic and Organometallic Compounds in Water on Creatures
* Pollution of Sedimentary Matter
* Polution of Sea Organisms
* Phytoplankton
* Algae and Weeds - Toxicity, Concentration and Analysis
* Pollution of Potable Water
* Radioactivity in the Environment
Toxicants in the Aqueous Ecosystem is essential reading for all Analytical Chemists, Environmentalists and Toxicologists working in the field.

Metal Ecotoxicology Concepts and Applications (Advances in Trace Substances Research)

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This book provides an in-depth discussion of various aspects of metal ecotoxicology. State-of-the-art information and techniques in areas ranging from metal behavior in surface waters to bioaccumulation kinetics and toxicokinetics to community effects are presented in a hierarchical arrangement. Specific topics discussed include metals in abiotic components of ecosystems, autecology (effects of metals relative to the individual or a single species), and metals in marine and freshwater systems in the context of synecology (species associated and interacting as a unit). This is an important book that will be useful to researchers, risk assessment consultants, regulatory personnel, and teachers and students.

Environmental Contaminants in Wildlife: Interpreting Tissue Concentrations (Setac Special Publications Series)

W. Nelson Beyer, Gary H. Heinz, Amy Walters Redmon

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Many books have been written about the effects of toxic chemicals on wildlife, but none has focused on the practical question, "How much of a chemical in the tissues of an animal is harmful?" This book deals exclusively with that question. This comprehensive reference will certainly become the standard resource on the topic, offering authoritative and sound advice on many environmental contaminants. With chapters written by outstanding experts in their respective fields, this is not only a scholarly collection of discussions on different chemicals, but, for those who have the day-to-day task of evaluating the harm of environment contaminants to wildlife, this book will provide answers on, for example, how to interpret 1 ppm lead in the liver of a duck or fish. The authors explain the snags of interpreting data that are sometimes conflicting or insufficient, providing the reader with helpful advice on how to cope with such data. Each chapter reviews literature on a specific chemical, followed by a easy-to-understand summary providing technical guidance. For many years this book will remain the preeminent reference on how to interpret contaminant levels of organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, dioxins, PAHs, metals, selenium, and fluorides in wildlife.

Wildlife Toxicology

Tony J. Peterle

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Death in the Marsh

Tom Harris

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Editorial Review:

Selenium, essential in microscopic doses, can be deadly in larger amounts. "Death in the Marsh" explains how federal irrigation projects have altered selenium's circulation in the environment, allowing it to accumulate in marshes, killing ecosystems and wildlife, and causing deformities in some animals.

Introduction to Environmental Toxicology: Impacts of Chemicals upon Ecological Systems

Wayne G. Landis, Ming-Ho Yu

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Introduction to Environmental Toxicology focuses on the impacts of chemicals upon ecological systems ranging from the molecular level to the dynamics of ecosystems. This unique book emphasizes the use of toxicity tests and provides important examples. It also details molecular, cellular, and physiological effects. Biodegradation, structure-activity relationships, atmospheric pollutants, and the effects of elemental pollutants on living systems are but a few of the important topics covered in this broad-based text/reference. Environmental toxicology is addressed at the ecosystem level. Significant attention is devoted to examining the difficulties of assessing impacts within ecosystems, reviewing the potential of biomarkers, and noting limits to prediction. Although intended as a text for upper division undergraduates and beginning graduate students, the book will be an excellent reference for anyone in environmental toxicology and chemistry, regulators, risk assessors, environmental consultants, ecologists, and students.