The Global Chemical Village

摘要

The U.N. has endorsed a global classification system for chemicals. It asks every country to implement it by 2008. WHMIS is headed for an overhaul. The village has gone global. With the click of a button, e-mails are sent to colleagues in the United Kingdom. An hour or two each week are spent instant messaging children away at university. And purchasing goods and services online is a booming business. Cell phones, Blackberries, satellites and their invisible wires have brought people, places, goods and services closer than ever before. The global village — a term media visionary Marshall McLuhan once coined to describe the impact of modern communications — is filled with immediacy, convenience and no real need to get off the couch. But it's also a village filled with chemicals that can be hazardous to human health and the environment.