Fun from the Wayback Machine!

So first check out the headline on this piece of environmental writing from the archives on the New York Times: “Waterways, Waste, and Words. Polluters’ Activities Obscured by Muddy Phrases.” And then, check out the date: October 20, 1968. Wow! Some things never change. Here’s the quote the kills me:

…euphemisms are sometimes used to camoflauge unpleasant facts, lulling the public into a false sense of security

Well, fast forward 40 years and that’s still true: The polluters are still trying to lull the public into complacency by hiding the ugly truth behind jargon and euphemisms. They can get away with anything they can paint in abstractly scientific terms. But now, there’s a whole generation of nature protection and pollution control professionals who have been trained in natural sciences rather than social sciences – and we’re lulling the public into complacency ourselves, totally by accident!

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