What Have They Done To The Rain?

People now think of this as a song about acid rain, but it was originally written as part of a campaign to stop aboveground nuclear testing, which was putting strontium-90 in the air, where it was washed down by the rain, got into the soil and thence to the grass, which was eaten by cows. When children drank the cows’ milk the strontium-90, chemically similar to calcium but radioactive, was deposited in their bones. Mothers saved their children’s baby teeth and sent them in to be tested by scientists who indeed found elevated levels of strontium-90 in their teeth. A year after this song was written, President Kennedy signed the treaty against aboveground testing.

Malvina Reynolds

Come Leave My Van Allen Belt Alone, un’altra canzone della Reynolds nata nell’ambito delle campagne contro i test nucleari, in particolare quelli effettuati ad alta quota. E, in effetti, questo tipo di test fu interrotto nel 1962, ma non certo in seguito alle canzoni della Reynolds, o alle mobilitazioni di pacifisti e ambientalisti, e nemmeno perché molti di coloro che assistettero a quelle esplosioni finirono acceccati o riportarono seri danni agli occhi, e neppure per l’imprevedibilità dell’estensione e dell’entità dell’inquinamento dovuto alla ricaduta nell’atmosfera, e quindi sulla superficie terrestre, del pulviscolo radioattivo… Semplicemente i test nucleari ad alta quota, che già di per sé costavano un sacco, fecero miliardate di danni perché distrussero o misero fuori uso decine di satelliti militari e commerciali e crearono non pochi problemi alle telecomunicazioni in tutto il mondo.