Do you ever have a day when it is so hard to get out of bed? Last night I set my agenda for Green Talk. But my world took a step backwards last night. I heard terrible news. A young man that I knew died of a rare form of stomach cancer. He was only 20. He attended nursery school with my son.
But I shook my head again and said under my breath, “why isn’t the toxic chemical discussion just as important as climate change?” Shouldn’t those two conversations be talked about simultaneously in the board room, at conferences, and in the press?
But for some reason his death really hit home.
Our kids played together.
It was just too painful to get out of bed today.
Safe Chemicals Act
Over the years, I have been fighting for safe chemicals and very much an advocate of the Safe Chemicals Act. I am thankful for EWG, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Child, Healthy World, Moms Clean Air Force and Women’s Voices for the Earth who are daily advocating to keep us safe. (As well as the countless not for profits that I didn’t name.)
There are 2 Undeniable Camps
But truth be told there are two different camps in the “green” sphere: energy efficiency (climate change) and toxic chemicals (health.) When I built my eco-friendly house in the early 2000, it was so evident when I insisted on building an energy efficient and non-toxic house. Everyone got energy efficiency but few understood the toxicity of building products.
Those two worlds don’t speak to each other.
Honestly, ask yourself. When you read about big business you hear they reduce their water usage by “x” amount, or reduced their energy usage by “x” amount. We even hear stories about how they changed their packaging to corn based packaging rather than use plastic. (Don’t get me started about that subject.)
I can’t even count the number of business conferences I attended where all they talk all about is climate change. Rightful so. Climate change is very important.
But you never hear “great job. But while you are at it, what is your plan to remove certain chemicals in your products?” Not too often.
Understand, I don’t want to diminish the environmental work they are doing, but as a sustainability consultant, I know that most of those improvements affect their bottom line for the better. Companies wouldn’t make changes that don’t make economic sense.
Nothing Changes Without a Public Outcry
But do you ever hear stories about the big beauty product companies that have decrease their use of toxic chemicals? Or the cleaning product giant removing toxic chemicals from their household products? Or that giants like Coke changed their ingredients? Or big box stores refuse to carry BPA products?
Oh and have you had a chance to read their stellar sustainability plans?
And yet, many of the key sustainability players funded the opposition to Proposition 37 requiring disclosure of GMO ingredients in food.
Sadly, it takes a public outcry to change product formulations. For example, recently P&G agreed to reformulate its Tide Free and Clear to remove 1,4 dioxane from the product or Pepisco’s agreement to remove a flame retardant from Gatorade. Sadly, that same flame retardant will remain in Mountain Dew products.
The reality is toxic chemicals have a footprint too on both humans and animals. Studies have shown that certain pesticide are causing bees to die. No bees. No food.
Chronic illness is on the rise due to toxic chemicals: cancer, asthma, fertility issues, and the list goes on and on.
High Time to Demand the Dialog
Isn’t time to open the dialog about saving both the planet and humans? It belongs in the same conversation.
I for one have my feet planted in both camps. How about you?
Join the Conversation:
- Do you think the conversation needs to be more inclusive about Climate Change and chemicals.
- What do you think needs to change for this two worlds to co-exist?
Photo by Kevin Krejci
Similar Posts:
- HealthyToys Implements HealthyStuff.org which Tests Your Stuff
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- Safe Chemicals Act Must Pass for Our Children. Get Involved.
- Safe Chemical Reform. Lend Your Voice to Say It’s Time Congress.
- Toxic Chemicals: Say No More. Urge 7/25 Vote for the Safe Chemical Act
Lindsay says
Thanks Anna, great post. We agree! We work with many Arctic Natives who also see the connection bw climate change and toxic chemicals. As the polar ice caps melt, they are releasing long held toxic chemicals back into the environment!
Anna@Green Talk says
Lindsay, I didn’t know that. That is scary.
karen says
So sorry about your son’s friend. No parent should have to lose a child. I can’t imagine what must be going through their minds.
What could have we done to prevent ti? Is it our fault?
But you are absolutely right! We so need to get both worlds to collaborate visibly. People might think the two camps are related so they will take care of each other, somehow.
But not all people correlate the two easily.
{hugs}
Anna@Green Talk says
Karen, it just seems the talk is always about climate change. It is time that the Fortune 500 start talking about chemicals too. How can you be deemed a sustainable company with producing products with harmful chemicals?
Mary Hunt says
I’m so sorry to hear of your loss Anna. It’s always sad to lose one so young and for something that could have been preventable.
Agreed – public outcry for all sustainable actions need to be addressed, but in a way that provides teeth to the message. Sustainable Manufacturing Standards offer that balanced monitoring and proof of performance for eco, health, and social issues and yet they are not getting the support they need.
Thank you for adding a sad touch of reality to the issue.
Anna@Green Talk says
Mary, do you have a link to those standards. I would love to read their standards.
Lori Popkewitz Alper says
I’m so sorry for your loss Anna. The sad truth is that so many of us have similar loss in our lives that stem from cancer or other illness. If we want this place to be around for generations to come we need to address both. There is no way to separate them since everything is interconnected. Thank you for all you do.
Anna@Green Talk says
Lori, the thanks is for your 2 wonderful campaigns to highlight the hidden secrets of what we use isn’t so safe for us. It just can’t be a Mom discussion. It needs to be a boardroom discussion.
michele says
So sorry Anna! I personally took a moment of silence for you, your son, and the family involved. My sister at age 40 was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and died 5 years later, so I’m feeling you today in a personal way! It was the event that gave me the current status of Domestic Goddess, needing to suddenly raise my two and my sisters 3 kids. I read the article and i wholeheartedly agree. Its really this whole huge web of faults interconnected, interwoven…so yes of course it all needs major work, no logical thinking human can deny. I do think the Cancer picture is a complex puzzle in terms of deaths from cancers. In 1950 the cancer death rate was 193.9 deaths for every 100,000 citizens. It reached its peak around 1990 with 216 deaths/ 100,000 and has been decreasing since then and in 2004 stood at 185.8/100,000. The consideration here is that in the early 90’s we were blasted with stop smoking campaigns. It helped a lot of people to quit. So yes the numbers are decreasing. What is unclear are the multiple effects that specific cancer causing chemicals have, how much of them are going into our food, water, air, clothing…(dreams…scratch that …nightmares) etc., what are the safe exposure levels, how long does it take for them to breakdown, are they stored in the body, are they flushed out or stored in lipids (fat). Really we are left in one place of being at the mercy of those who produce products of any sort. Yes we can fight it, one exhaustive battle at a time (and yes I’m up for that and you are too obviously, lots of the wonderful people here are )But we have to hope and pray that the research has been done well, that we have actually identified the chemical among the host of them that is the root of the problem, an ever increasing challenge and issue for the scientists to sort out. All that being said we have been highly successful in some areas, DDT for example…caused a thinning of egg shells in all birds. Red Breasted Robins are once again flying in large flocks in my state! But those were the days when there were only a few big baddies being put into our environment. In contrast the suspected causes of ADD and ADHD are they known at this point? I know the thoughts on the causes of those issues have changed many times. There are so many opinions on it because there are so many bad things in our environment at this point! Someone here would have to update me on that end of things its been years since I was a special ed assistant, so I’m no longer up to date on it. The FDA still passes substances that they shouldn’t. I think we need to get a lot more political! We need to question especially we need to question the men in charge! We need to stop “big money” and “big business” from making their profits at the expense of our health and planet! This picture is hugely complex. All that above, is only the surface…what about when unnatural chemical A meets unnatural chemical B and they party together creating something that we aren’t even aware of…IT WILL HAPPEN! That’s what chemicals do! We have to keep spreading the GREEN message! We need to be absolutely fierce in our roars on this! And we need to each do what we can at home to create as healthy a life as we can for ourselves and our children! We need to learn new skills that were basics for people at the turn of the century and we have to put forward effort and work in this, very seriously!
Anna@Green Talk says
Michele, as always, well said. It take a village which includes big business. And it takes education to let people know what they are really eating,wearing, and buying.
Michele Elise says
I apologize AGAIN about the length of this. If you give me the boot I won’t hold it against you! …lol…Yeah about that…I was doing some separate research mostly because I am ALWAYS working to improve conditions and quality of life for my chickens and came upon some sad facts, just to point out how serious and how insidious these issues have become. I keep chickens and I feed them a commercial feed that is widely recognized as a good feed, offering the hens a balanced diet. I supplement that feed with a treat of flax seed with a small bit of molasses mixed in which is good for their digestion and is a bit of a natural sweetener for livestock. Chickens, by the by, are omnivores, contrary to what lots of people believe, who would think they were herbivores. So I feed them a great lot of scraps from my kitchen. They can eat most things we can with the exception of a few items, like for instance potatoes (from the nightshade family)So they get carrot peels, cores of apples, cut ends of various veggies (chopped up of course because yes chickens can choke). They can even eat meat, but I go light there because our diet has a lot of chicken in it(um yeah NOT the ones we keep!) and it can occasionally cause them to become cannibalistic and I never want to go down that road, but certainly left over bits of fish are acceptable and good. Today’s treat was ground flax seed, stale Cheerios ( that the kids wouldn’t eat, made from oats, also excellent for them) and about 2 tablespoons of molasses, which attracts the chickens and also makes the ground flax seed stick to the cheerios as people often complain that its hard to get their chickens to eat the flax(lol I can be tricky!) I also try to use up EVERYTHING AND throw away nothing!
The important aspect of what I learned yesterday though, is that corn, now mind you, corn for human consumption and grown as to be feed for livestock, all the cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, sheep, any animal that eventually through the sacrifice of their lives ends up on our plate to feed us, is fed corn to some degree. It is a normal and usually a large component percentagewise of livestock feeds. That corn is sprayed with pesticides and herbicides galore. I found a list from a group of people in North Carolina who are actively fighting this and there were 19 different chemicals on the list some applied repeatedly. And 17 of them were dusted on the crops which can really travel! http://www.toxicfreenc.org/inf....._chems.pdf YES this is why all the honey bees are dying! And they are an indicator species showing us what we are doing to the planet! These are all poisons designed to kill other forms of life, bugs and weeds! They further went on to say that people should be aware that these chemicals leach into ground water and travel and if you live near a corn farm (or anything farm really) and they dust the crops and you are trying to grow your lovely little organic garden in your corner of the universe…then guess what….you REALLY DON’T have an organic garden. Really unless you are growing EVERYTHING you eat and live at the top of some mountain in seclusion and miles away from another living soul, your garden CANNOT be organic.
By all accounts how I raise my chickens is outstanding and falls well within the guidelines to be able to call my eggs organic Omega-3 Omega-6 eggs from happy, healthy chickens who are loved…but I am not buying organic feed that is over 3 times the cost, 50$ for a 40lb. bag instead of 15$. I can’t afford to do that!…and sadly even if I did who’s to say that the farm that is growing that corn that is in my chicken feed isn’t right next door to a farm that is dusting their crops. Furthermore the best you can get is non-GMO feed for chickens that they list as “organic” but the corn is still dusted! You have to be pretty savvy these days to pick up on all the lies that government and big business is feeding us. Even the “organic industry” is fraught with more problems than you can shake a stick at and is a complete and treacherous misnomer.
I would be more inclined to think that if you really want to buy “organic” (which likely no longer truly exists in our entire country to be honest) then you need to look for the produce that has been eaten by bugs and choose that particular item, showing those nibble marks may indicate that it was missed by pesticides! If its not good enough for nature to take a nibble at then really its not good enough for you and has likely been touched by some herbicide and pesticide.
And remember when we talk about herbicides and pesticides….herbicide is herb+i+cide= plant+i+kill pesticide is pest+i+cide or pest+i+kill which includes rodents and bugs generally. We are literally spreading poison on our food, and we are at the big industry’s mercy. I assure you they have none! I sound extremely militant about this here and I assure you I am not. I simply commit myself to doing the best with what I have and don’t fret over the multitudes of things that I can’t change in the world. I think that is the best any human these days can manage, but yes we are eating poisons on a daily basis and there REALLY IS NO getting away from it. Sadly Vegans are likely even more at risk, because the chemicals used in livestock see a lot more regulation than those used on vegetables. Really animal welfare people jumped on that wagon decades ago and the whole green movement is still young so a lot needs to be done here. I used to work on a dairy farm for instance, if a cow was sick and fed antibiotics it had to by law, be taken off the milk production line for a month to ensure that the antibiotics weren’t going into the milk! And they were! Vegetable farms are not required by law to stop spraying their fields a month before harvest (unless I’ve missed the legislation (unlikely but possible) So the smartest thing pick out fruits that have buggy bites in them, then wash them well, then say a few prayers and likely the most effective thing will be the prayers actually. But DON’T give up organic gardening and striving for your best because your produce will likely still be healthier than anything in the market! Oh and gads, stop trying to grow pretty lawns to keep up with the Jones of the world. Those scott’s formulations do nothing but poison your space on this planet with rain water picking up the chemicals and washing into that organic garden that you’ve worked so hard for! A grass lawn does little for air quality, it doesn’t produce seeds for rodents and birds to eat and it is never thrifty in the water department! Ecologically speaking it is a devastating and sinful waste!
I keep one poison in my house. Wasp and bee killer because we have lots of yellow jackets that attack in a pack (likely because they find a safe haven from chemicals on my plot of earth)! Even the hose won’t put them off once they’ve zeroed in on you. That is it! I won’t give that one chemical up! Figure out where you personally want to draw your own line in the sand. And to each his own to strive for their personal best and what’s important to them! But the word “organic” these days…really is it a valid word at this point? I have my personal doubts as you can see!
Really Anna this is an amazing space you created! I love the exchange of thought and idea and ideal. You should be commended! I wish everyone health and happy gardening to the best of your abilities! I’m going to go play with my girls (the hens)! By the way I feed my family and 4 others, 18 people in all and still bring eggs to the local food bank from my 13 girls. No charge for anyone! One of those neighbors shares his organic produce with me! I implore you all to reach out to neighbors when possible in these difficult economic times! It’s REALLY IMPORTANT to not miss on the social factor of all of this! Love the earth and love your neighbor too!
Anne says
Anna, excellent job tying these critically important topics together. So sorry for the tragedy of your young friend. As you remind us, we can’t turn away from so much tragedy like cancer — instead it points us to the truth that everything around us must somehow be connected. Yes, these conversations should be taking place, and they should be mainstream.
Anna@Green Talk says
Anne, I agree. Why do you think that these 2 topics don’t seem to be talked about in the same breath?
John@DECSolar says
Thanks for posting this, and unfortunately until there are green energy lobbyists with as much $ as other corporations – talks won’t change. Good thing we’re starting to see it turn around…
Anna@Green Talk says
John, I agree. It just gets me so upset that health isn’t getting the same respect.
Jeff @ Green Chemicals says
I think that all the big manufacturers should be held responsible for what they’re doing to us and to the planet. Unfortunately, it rarely gets mentioned or talked about. I do love that some of them have started to pay attention to petitions and the like from sites like change.org. Maybe there is hope after all.
Anna@Green Talk says
Jeff, in fact I have a petition over at change.org right now about arsenic. I love your @ tag. What do you do? Anna