Au Natural

The bulk of this article is fine

But something jumped out at me that needs to be looked at further.

Before anyone advocates chopping down trees to clean up the air - forgetting, for one, that they give us the oxygen we breathe - scientists caution that whatever forests pump into the air is natural. They also provide shade and scrub many pollutants from the air.

I love that word. Natural. It encompasses everything in Nature, which of course is everything. Over time, the world has evolved to mean something a bit more specific. Natural now means "anything not produced directly or indirectly by Man." It also means, at any given time "healithier" or "better" or "cleaner" or any number of euphemistically happy words and connotations.

This goes on until we get to the stage where Andrew Bridges' bit like the above sounds (ahem) natural. But the contradiction is evident in the statement because not all "natural" things are beneficial or good for humans. A plant that "naturally" emits high levels of chlorine gas certainly isn't good to have around. And I'm sure Mr. Bridges and the scientists he can tell the difference and know of the difference between good and useful "natural" things and those that aren't.

It's the unspoken assumption that bothers me. It's a lazy blanket statement.

Posted by Drizzten at March 17, 2003 09:48 AM