This book describes what anyone who is even half awake in
2008 knows: that our air, water, and ground are all polluted by chemicals used
to provide us with our consumer conveniences.The focus here on children's health is well chosen because children are
at the same time the canaries in the mineshaft and the future of our world.
This compendious indictment of corporate malingering,
connivance, and bullying makes for grim reading, but the book is not without
hope as it ends with inspiring tales of grassroots parents' organizations that
persist despite the David/Goliath odds. Science, too, is changing, and, as it
becomes more sophisticated at the molecular level, less harmful formulae may be
in the offing.Here in Massachusetts at U.Mass/Lowell, through the
Center for Green Chemistry, doctoral students can opt for careers to advance
such improvements.
To heighten the drama, Alice and Philip Shabecoff have
chosen to present their research in crime thriller scenario:the first nine chapter headings are Inquest,
Indictment, Victims, Evidence, Scene of the Crime, Forensics, Perpetrators,
Co-conspirators, and Witnesses for the Defense.
What
are we really talking about here?We're
talking about 42 billion tons of manmade
chemicals a day -- imported and manufactured -- and over $600 billion a year.
90% are petrochemicals.Which of them
are among the most problematic?Take
your pick....
-Phthalates,
plastic and PVC softeners(endocrine
disruptors)
-PVCs, polyvinyl
chloride, packaging,water pipes, construction (carcinogen)
-TCE, trichloroethylene,
a solvent (cancer, birth defects, Parkinson's)
Who
is affected?Those who live near
manufacturing sites or near waste sites are clearly at risk.But some of these chemicals are invited into
our homes in treated wood (formaldehyde), carpeting (butadiene), cleaning fluid
(chlorine-based), furniture, bedding, clothes (flame retardants or polybrominated diphenyl
ethers) , cosmetics (phthalates), plastic food containers (PVCs, phthalates).How to avoid introducing harmful elements
into your midst?Read the twenty pages
of appendix devoted to tips for just that and resources you can take advantage
of in your quest.
But what about corporate industry?Why does it seem to be recalcitrant in this
area when so innovative in other ways? The reasons are several.First, as the authors suggest, primary corporate
responsibility is to stock-holders rather than to the public, which is how they
come to "externalize" many of their costs.An example from the book comes from an OMB (Office of Mangement and Budget)
Study:One ton of sulfur dioxide in the
air leads to $7,000 in public health costs, whereas not releasing it in the
first place would cost only $500.But
the corporation in question would rather not spend the $500 and so externalizes
that cost to the public. (p.162)A
second factor is that, in this country, chemicals are considered harmless
unless proven otherwise and proving otherwise is expensive for the government
or for anyone else.When challenges are
made, corporations usually have the funds to hire their own scientists for
their defense -- whose arguments are some times frivolous ones just to delay
judgment. (chapters 8 and 9) Third, though some states have recently sallied
into the fray, they have been denied the information they need in the name of
national security. And lastly, epidemiological data showing clusters of, say,
babies born with cleft pallets, doesn't amount to sufficient evidence because
association or correlation doesn't imply cause and effect.
Don't give up hope.The genome decoding of the last decade has made it ever clearer that, as
one doctor put it, "Genetics loads the gun, but the environment pulls the
trigger."As policy makers come to
recognize this, safer alternatives will be harnessed because it isn't only the
children of the poor who are suffering from autism, cancer, asthma, etc.If you want to see how the political process
can work to bring about a clean up, a local example is available in the book
and in the film "A Civil Action," available through the Cambridge Public
Library in video cassette or DVD.TCE
was being dumped by a tannery in Woburn
and children got sick and half a dozen died of leukemia.The story is told as a legal thriller and is
indeed gripping.If the cause of a
cleaner world prompts you to action, consider the advice of one savvy activist
quoted by the authors on how to bring about change: if you give a polluter or a
politician a story in which he or she is the hero, you will get results.