First Large Scale Chlorine Release -- 1915

["Mark Robinowitz" <mrobinowitz@igc.apc.org>]

On April 22, 1915, the German army released a huge chlorine cloud at 
Ypres, France, that killed over 5,000 "Allied" soldiers and injured 10,000 
more.  (It's possible that Germany would have won World War One if their 
troops took advantage of the chaos they caused.)

Mustard gas and phosgene, two other chemical weapons used in WW I, are 
based on chlorine.  (Nerve gases are organic phosphorus compounds -- 
malathion is a diluted version of these much more dangerous, but not 
bioaccumulative, poisons.)

The International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes cited the emissions 
of phosgene from trash incinerators as a reason why they should be shut 
down.  (Incinerators are of course factories for creating new chemicals 
not present in the original trash.)

I look forward to hearing some evidence from the industry reps on this 
list for natural sources of chemicals with chlorine-carbon bonds that are 
beneficial to mammalian biology, and developed through the painstaking 
trial and error process of evolution.  Specfically, some organic chlorine 
compounds similar to those made by industry that are found naturally in 
mammals and other complex life forms that have necessary functions for 
life functions.

"500 million years of evolution can't be wrong, but it might be stopped if 
we don't change course"