Chemical Secret: Stage 3. Tim Vicary

There are two ways of committing a crime. You can do it with your eyes open, or you can do it with your eyes closed. Not many of us intend to do wrong, but almost all of us close our eyes to certain kinds of crime.

But what is a crime? Is it something that the law tells us is wrong, or something that we know in our hearts is wrong? There are many kinds of crime — crimes of greed, of violence, of anger and hate. But there are also less obvious crimes — the ones that we commit against the world: against the sky, the sea, the land. They are the crimes that we commit against the future and against our children — by closing our eyes and pretending that we cannot see.

John Duncan is a biologist. When he took the job at the chemical factory, he thought he was protecting his children. He wanted to buy them the good things of life: a big house, a boat, exciting holidays… But what kind of future was he buying them?