Description
A History of Electricity and Life
Over the last 220 years, society has evolved a universal belief that electricity is “safe” for humanity and the planet. Scientist and journalist Arthur Firstenberg disrupts this conviction by telling the story of electricity in a way it has never been told before from an environmental point of view by detailing the effects that this fundamental societal building block has had on our health and our planet.
In The Invisible Rainbow, Firstenberg traces the history of electricity from the early 18th century to the present, making a compelling case that many environmental problems—as well as the major diseases of industrialized civilization, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer—are related to electrical pollution. The story of the invention and use of electricity has often been told before, but never from this point of view.
The assumption of safety, and the conviction that electricity has nothing to do with life, are by now so entrenched in the human psyche that new research and testimony by those who are being injured is not enough to change the course that society has set. Two increasingly isolated worlds—the one inhabited by the majority, who embrace new electrical technology without question, and the one inhabited by a growing minority, who are fighting for survival in an electrically polluted environment—no longer even speak the same language.
Arthur Firstenberg bridges the two worlds. In a story that is rigorously scientific yet easy to read, he provides a surprising answer to the question, “How can electricity be suddenly harmful today when it was safe for centuries?”
Softcover, 576 pages
