Pulitzer prize-winning author Caroline Fraser on the link between air pollution in the US and male violence
The Pulitzer prize-winning author Caroline Fraser grew up in Seattle in the 1970s, a decade that has the highest crime rates in recent US history. At that time the US was entering a peak era of serial killers, and Fraser tells Michael Safi what it was like, especially for a woman, to grow up with violent men like Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer operating locally.
Fraser outlines her investigation into the ‘lead crime hypothesis’, which links male violence with exposure to air pollution, and shows how that theory might help explain the relationship between the sharp drop in violent crime and the phasing out of lead fuel and inner-city smelting, and why the impact of pollution in our environment should not be overlooked.
