Dianne Dumanoski is the author, most
recently, of The End of the Long Summer: Why We Must Remake Our Civilization to Survive on A Volatile Earth,
which confronts the double jeopardy of the 21st century: modern industrial civilization is unhinging the stable climate required for the civilized way of life and,
at the same time, making human societies vulnerable to collapse through globalization.
She began reporting on the growing burden of human activity on the natural world in 1970 on the first Earth Day, and, in the four decades since,
her work in both television and print has chronicled the escalation from early concerns about dirty air and dirty water to today’s planetary emergency.
From 1983 to 1993, she worked full-time on the environmental beat at the Boston Globe and was among the pioneers reporting on the new generation
of global environmental issues, including ozone depletion, global warming, and the accelerating loss of species. Her reporting combined expertise in
the scientific questions with a strong interest in the political process of making policy. She covered not only the scientific expeditions to discover
why Antarctica was suffering dramatic ozone loss but also the negotiations on the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty signed in 1987 to phase
out the man-made chemicals attacking the ozone layer. In June of 1992, she reported on the Earth Summit in Rio.
With scientists Theo Colborn and Pete Myers, she wrote the book Our Stolen Future, now translated into 15 languages, which laid out the then
emerging scientific case that a wide range of man-made chemicals called endocrine disruptors can disrupt delicate hormone systems and derail
development. The consequences, sometimes not detectable until years or decades after exposure, include reduced disease resistance, diminished
and compromised intelligence and behavior.