First, a personal note. In my youth, my family made an annual journey to my great grandmother’s farmstead in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, where there was a silent spring. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) pesticides sprayed on this farmland had killed certain wildlife.
In high school, I was exposed to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 warnings about the dangers posed by foreign and domestic governments. I have remained vigilant in looking for signs that the prognostications of those futurists were upon us. It was in these formative years that I recognized myself as a positive change agent. This identity caused me to look at science and technology and their dual use implications.
