How toxic are we?

One of my favorite readers here, Briareus, left a link to an article dealing the molten iron found at the foundation of the twin towers. It's a rather disturbing fact that the 9/11 commission doesn't really address.

While Christine Todd Whitman, then administrator of the EPA, told New Yorkers that the air was safe to breathe in the days and weeks after 9-11, Cahill said there were enormous violations of standards that jeopardized the health of anyone exposed to the plumes coming from the rubble. Those most affected by the toxic smoke were the thousands of workers who labored on top of the rubble pile, he said.

This is simply more evidence that the buildings were set to demolish that day, but what I find even more interesting is just what toxic lives we all lead. The mere destruction of these high rise buildings was a toxic nightmare. Our very own cities turn conventional bombs into toxic bombs.

What doesn't seem to get asked enough is could we live a lot less toxic? Is it really such a good idea to live surrounded by things that can kill us? I know we all love our computers and the fancy gizmos we have, but what if we lived in communities where social interaction and political discussion occurred on a daily basis in the town square? What if you didn't need to blog because we discuss the issues as a community on a daily basis?

I'm not suggesting there is some "green" utopia out there, but at the very least shouldn't we try to actively minimize our exposure to toxic substances? We have an interesting convergence of crises at the moment. On the one hand there is the mounting evidence of an environmental crisis like we have never seen due to Global Warming. On the other hand we are reaching the world's peak in oil production, which has created a bit of an energy crisis already. It seems that in light of both of those we would want to create more organic and localized communities that would naturally conserve energy and put a smaller burden on the environment. That is, by lessening our impact on the environment we could develop a way of life that is more sustainable and much less dependent on fossil fuels.

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