Of Teenagers and Whales
Roman Bystrianyk
Yesterday evening, after my teenage granddaughter had finished her
homework, we went at her request to a nearby mall. We drove, of
course.
While she was hunting around for some new acquisition of the
outlandish apparel teenagers relish these days, I sauntered idly
around the shops. The stores are all chains common to malls across our
country. She spent her time at two places I had never heard of, Rue 21
and Wet Seal, jam-packed with girls her age.
There was not a natural product among all the offerings as far as my
eyes could see. Every item of apparel was constructed of a man-made
fabric, mostly acrylic, some nylon. In the mall plaza where I then sat
down to wait, a free-standing booth was selling wind-up toys, plastic
one and all.
My granddaughter emerged with her purchases of a fake fur vest
(acrylic) and animal-patterned tights (nylon). She explained she
intended to wear this outfit as a Halloween costume, to be discarded
after that single use.
The common thread (no pun intended) throughout the mall is petroleum.
Both acrylic and nylon are manufactured from oil. Just as 98% of all
manmade chemicals are. Acrylic was originally created by DuPont.
Monsanto entered the picture when it developed a chemical process to
keep acrylic from pilling.
What's my point? These fabrics are (1) adding to an unthinking, wanton
use of the fossil fuels that are causing global warming, and (2) made
with toxic chemicals that eventually end up in our food, water, and
air. And (3) made by the same companies that lead in the national oil-
based production of polluting substances.
It is companies such as these two and the products they make - which
we so avidly buy and buy and buy - that end up causing the chronic
illnesses that beset one out of three of our children.
The mall we visited is called the Arsenal Mall, originally built to
store weapons during World War II. In its re-use as a mall of mass
consumption, it's simply shifted its destructive role.
Eventually our consumer products along with unimaginably massive
amounts of toxic chemicals find their way into lakes, rivers and seas.
Their spread extends far beyond the island of floating garbage in the
Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas.
You have to read the new book, Eye of the Whale, by Douglas Carlton
Abrams, to grasp the connection between the vast contamination of the
oceans and its inhabitants and our damaged human condition. In this
thriller in the tradition of John LeCarre (think The Constant
Gardener), Abrams writes, "The level of toxic pollution in even the
most remote locations and in sea life everywhere (is) staggering.
Perhaps this whale was demonstrating the aberrant development and
disease such contaminants were causing. Pollution was replacing the
harpoon as the greatest threat to whales, but pollution, unlike the
harpoon, was a danger not only to whales."
The book follows a young scientist, an expert in humpback whale
communication, as, piece by piece, she decodes a new whale song whose
meaning she deciphers as "babies in danger." She finds her own life
threatened by commercial whalers, chemical companies and their lackeys
in science, government, and the press, who need to keep these dangers
out of the public eye. There's nothing fictional at about such a cast
of characters.
Abrams wraps his mastery of the scientific evidence - of the link
between the poisoned environment and cancer, hermaphroditism, and a
damaged immune system, for example - in a fast-paced plot with lots of
heroes and villains and real tension about how the novel will end.
This book asks the same question that came to me as I watched the mall
shoppers on their voracious hunt for acquisitions. It seems as if the
way we live these days is killing us and the world around us. Aren't
there other ways to arrange a civilized life?
Can human nature live with nature?
Birth Defects Research for Children Holds a Green Auction
Coming November 9th to the 18th, help BDRC while saving the
environment. Over 100 green products will be up for grabs. Don't miss
this chance to get the ones you love a unique eco-friendly gift this
holiday season.
Click here www.cmarket.com/auction/AuctionHome.action?auctionId=93903607
to see the auction items and participate
(Alice Shabecoff is a member of the Board of Birth Defects Research
for Children, the eminent nonprofit resource for free birth defect
information, parent networking and birth defect research through the
National Birth Defect Registry.)
Alice Shabecoff is the co-author with her husband Philip of Poisoned
Profits: The Toxic Assault on our Children (Random House, 2008) where
you will find real stories about children across the U.S. harmed by
toxics in their daily lives and the scientific evidence of how toxics
work their harm, and about the companies and their lackeys, the same
cast of characters responsible for harming children as well as whales.