Good and Green

October 26, 2010 1:10 PM

Time Magazine recently profiled Richard Fuller and his Blacksmith Institute in the magazine's series, "Power of One." Fuller, the president of an environmental consulting firm, is also the founder of the Blacksmith Institute, a non profit organization which is dedicated to identifying and cleaning up badly polluted sites in the developing world, especially those sites where children are at risk. Charity Navigator indicates the institute is efficient with its approximately $4 million in revenue, but it has greater ambitions. One project is to build a $500 million public health fund "to fight and eliminate legacy pollution."
posted by bearwife (3 comments total)

"The low priority that the world—including the media—tends to place on toxic pollution in developing countries is one of the reasons Fuller founded the nonprofit Blacksmith Institute in 1999."


And it might also explain why a very interesting post has no comments....

In the handful of intro to urban studies and intro to environmental policy courses I've taught I've been surprised to learn that few students are familiar with the term "Superfund site," or can identify any of the 100+ sites here in New Jersey. I've long tried to tease out whether this failure of public awareness (and public memory) represents more 1) our enduring commitment as a society to the free market and progress at any cost 2) payoffs to the right folks to make the problem appear to "go away" or simply be ignored or 3) a general lack of public interest on the issue.

The Blacksmith Institute is doing excellent and important work. Thanks for the post bearwife.
posted by tidecat at 11:22 PM on October 26, 2010

I hadn't heard of this guy or his work before. Thanks for the post.

"This is a finite problem that can be solved in our lifetime."

I'm glad to hear an expert say it. But they take donations of stocks and securities? I've never heard of that before. I can't imagine being rich enough to do that, but I guess if you're looking for big donations, you want to make it as easy and convenient as possible.
posted by harriet vane at 4:48 AM on October 27, 2010

I think it's really good that he's taken on an issue no-one's interested in and done something about it, it's impossible for anyone poorer than that to do it so someone rich has to.
There a lots of 'legacy pollution' sites here in the UK, but you only hear about them when thre's a court case or an accident. Until the internet, you had to be a persistent campaigning single-issue bore to spend enough time to uncover that kind of thing...
posted by maiamaia at 6:39 AM on October 27, 2010