An interdisciplinary analysis of human interactions with mercury through history that sheds light on efforts to promote and achieve sustainability.

In Mercury Stories, Henrik Selin and Noelle Eckley Selin examine sustainability through analyzing human interactions with mercury over thousands of years. They explore how people have made beneficial use of this volatile element, how they have been harmed by its toxic properties, and how they have tried to protect themselves and the environment from its damaging effects. Taking a systems approach, they develop and apply an analytical framework that can inform other efforts to evaluate and promote sustainability.

Henrik Selin is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He is the author of Global Governance of Hazardous Chemicals (MIT Press). Noelle Eckley Selin is Associate Professor in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT. Her research focuses on the environmental transport and fate of mercury and other chemicals.

1 Mercury Elementary
Part I: A Framework for Analysis
2 Analyzing Human-Technical-Environmental Systems
Part II: Sustainability Stories about Mercury
3 Global Human-Technical-Environmental Cycling: Chasing Quicksilver
4 Human Health: Mercury's Caduceus
5 Energy, Industry and Pollution: Mercury, Winged Messenger
6 Assets and Liabilities: Mercury, God of Commerce
7 Mining and Sustainable Livelihoods: Mercury, God of Finance
Part III: Lessons for Sustainability
8 Sustainability Systems: Seeing the Matrix
9 Sustainability Insights: Earth "Under Pressure"
10 Sustainability Champions: "We'll keep on fighting..."