If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
The terrible evil of slavery still haunts the world. A seven-year exploration of modern slavery—from forced labor to pay off debts to outright bondage—finds it inextricably interwoven with some of the worst environmental destruction on the planet. Activist and writer Bales's powerful book shows how slavery is involved in harvesting shrimp and gathering the wood in the tables it is served on and even in the mining that enables manufacture of the world's favorite gadget: the cell phone. This ubiquity, Bales shows, means that all of us have a role to play in ending slavery and that doing so will also help remedy some of the biggest environmental challenges on earth, such as climate change. “There's always been a moral case for stopping slavery,” he writes. “Now there's an environmental reason too.”
It’s Time to Stand Up for Science
If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.
I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.
If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.
