industrialization

I’ve been  thinking a lot about Sudbury these days. Long the butt of moonscape jokes and widely recognized as one of the world’s “best” examples of industrial pollution, this Northern Ontario town has much to teach us about hope and moving ahead.

By the 1970s, after decades of exposure to sulphur-laden clouds emanating from open-air nickel and copper smelters, an immense blackened area encompassing Sudbury grew nothing but an occasional stunted birch tree. For Sudbury, environmental devastation was considered the cost of high-paying jobs.