Three-Mile Island embodies the Scientific Revolution’s dominion ideology backfiring

Evidence

The March 1979 accident at the Three-Mile Island nuclear reactor near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, epitomized the problems of the “death of nature” that have become apparent since the Scientific Revolution. The manipulation of nuclear processes in an effort to control and harness nature through technology backfired into disaster. The long-range economic interests and public image of the power company and the reactor’s designer were set above the immediate safety of the people and the health of the earth. The hid den effects of radioactive emissions, which by concentrating in the food chain could lead to an increase in cancers over the next several years, were initially downplayed by those charged with responsibility for regulating atomic power. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 1083

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete case of the death-of-nature thesis paying off — environmental racism/eco-justice thread on which communities bear technocratic risk. — connects to: The Scientific Revolution’s death of nature licensed nature’s manipulation — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 761

Broader Connections

• The Scientific Revolution’s death of nature licensed nature’s manipulation #expands (0.95) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 761