Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, Chapters 1-6

Sandra Steingraber weaves her personal story of developing bladder cancer as a young adult with a scientific review of the state of environmental causes linked with cancer in Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment. The result is a touching story that engages audiences and reminds them of the devastating personal effects that cancer has on individuals, families, and communities as well as a review of the current state of knowledge and a charge that communities should demand limitation of exposures to contaminants even in the face of incomplete evidence that certain contaminants cause cancer.

“How much evidence do we need before we act?” This question was posed to a group of academic and governmental agency scientists about a year ago during a workshop I was taking on amphibian and reptile diseases. The speaker was a young scientist studying amphibian immune response to the deadly chytrid fungus. She was focused on the mechanism of how the pathogen leads to disease in amphibians, but she made a point that the focus on the mechanisms is not essential to put into place strategies for conservation of populations in the wild. It seems that since that time this question has come up again and again, especially during this seminar. How much evidence do we need that amphibian are declining from disease before we act? How much evidence do we need to know where to place protected marine sanctuaries? How much evidence do we need about climate change before we enact policies? How much evidence do we need about environmental causes of cancer before we limit our exposures? The answer to this question seems to becoming a bit clearer. Well, at least we know what we don’t need.  We know we do not need perfect data to move forward with action.

Steingraber convincingly makes the case that we know that our mothers, sisters, husbands, fathers, and children are suffering increased incidence of cancers that could be caused by environmental exposures of classes of contaminants that mimic hormones of the human body. And though the data are not perfect, there is enough evidence to suggest that limiting our production and release of these compounds may reduce cancer incidences. Steingraber artfully makes this argument by summarizing a massive amount of literature on documented causes of cancers. She deftly describes why it is so difficult statistically and experimentally to prove this point beyond doubt while at the same time pulling on the readers emotions as she relates her own experiences of living with cancer. While I am convinced that she is making an important point that the public needs to hear and in a way that would connect with many readers, I am anxious to see if she proposes how we become a community that demands the precautionary principle over the financial gains of industry.

Oil and Honey Ch 1-4

A spoon full of honey makes the climate change story go down.  In Oil and Honey, author and activist Bill McKibben eases the delivery of a frustrating story of efforts to prevent construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline by showcasing the development of an apiary with his friend, Kirk Webster. Without this balance of story telling, I don’t know if I could have kept trudging through the endlessly challenging story of the formation of 350.org and their abilities to organize people and protest against big oil.

I’m not quite certain of McKibben’s intent showcasing the story of his bee-keeping friend against his development as a climate change activist, but I do know what effect it had on me as a reader. First, reading about the honest development of an apiary from a personal viewpoint gave me a reprieve from the draining story of McKibben working as an activist. McKibben recounts the development and organization of 350.org with a group of undergraduate students from Middlebury College in Vermont. The group has achieved quite a lot since their development including organizing multiple worldwide demonstrations and helping to galvanize other climate change activist groups in brining attention to the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. However, this side of the story is not without struggle. Although the group has faced insurmountable power and influence of big oil, they have contributed to the stalling of construction. But these challenges set against them will likely never end. As a reader, it makes me feel grateful for their efforts and hopeful for their success, but fearful of what they’ve taken on and the challenges that lie ahead.

At just the right times, McKibben interjects with Webster’s story which shows a person committed to developing a sustainable, honest lifestyle through organic bee farming. Of course, Webster’s story is not without challenges as well. The apiary faces the impacts of extreme weather events caused by climate changes, threats of mites, the flooding of the honey market by cheaply produce honey from China, and developing practices devoid of using pesticides. Webster, with the financial support of McKibben, succeeds in developing an apiary that overcomes these challenges and at the same time minimizes it’s impact of the world that surrounds it. Simply, hearing about this story makes me want to keep reading. It is a story of hope through commitment to the land and community that is hopefully one that we all might gain a little inspiration from in the face of the challenges of climate change and our reliance on fossil fuels.

“Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story about Looking at People Looking at Animals in America” by Jon Mooallem, Intro-ch. 8

What will the graduate students of 2100 be studying? Based on the premise of the trajectory of biodiversity set forth by Jon Mooallem in Wild Ones they’ll be entranced by bullfrogs, dandelions, cockroaches, and mosquitoes. The species we consider as weedy pests will rise in the ranks of revered life forms that have been able to withstand the test of time and our transformative impacts on the landscape. Maybe they’ll finally assign names to all those diverse forms of fungi, bacteria, and viruses, unearthing a diversity of life only seen through a microscope or by the signature of DNA.  They may likely be as concerned (but not more so) than we are about the state of the environment and the influence of humanity, pointing to ever mounting stories of species and ecosystems pushed to extinction like polar bears, Atelopus frogs, and coral reefs. They will likely parrot the same things that we are saying now and have been saying since the 1800s in an effort to help other people understand their impact on the environment.

This image is the one that comes to mind for me as I think about what the future might hold after reading the first half of Wild Ones. Although people have an undeniable need to interact with wildlife in some way, seemingly we cannot balance our desire to protect wildlife with our capitalist needs for the bigger and the better. What I take away from this reading is a dismaying story of our inability to balance our desires and moderate our habitats to protect the things that we care about outside of our immediate concerns. The efforts that people who are trying to preserve our wildlife are outweighed by the choices that others make.

No other story illustrates this point as does the polar bear, our primary example of the enormous effects of climate change on a species. The carbon we release as a byproduct of most things that we do (driving, heating/air conditioning, buying products, growing food, farting, etc.) is directly linked to deterioration of the habitat the polar bears need to survive. Are we worried about their existence? Overwhelming, scientists and non-scientists alike agree that the answer is “yes!”. We rush to photograph and film these creatures, evidence of our interest and admiration of this species and effort to spread the word of their peril. Yet, frustratingly the collective efforts sum to far less than 0 because we are not able to pass the legislation that would ultimately limit carbon emissions, warming of the planet, and the destruction of their habitat. 

All we can do is manage the extinction of species. Like the polar bear, some species of butterflies like the Lange’s metalmark are endangered past the point of return to stable population sizes. Many of these tremendous declines are caused by habitat destruction and fragmentation. In these cases, underfunded, understaffed efforts towards conservation only slow the evitable process of the loss of another species. What changes must we make in order to even begin to undo our impact? I think Naomi Klein was right. Nothing but the complete reorganization of society will save us now.   

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change

Naomi Klein makes a compelling argument for the complete reorganization for human society as we know it in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change. After reading this book, I am left speechless and a little afraid about what the next 50 years of our lives will look like. The vision that has inspired this apprehension in me most strongly is Klein’s comparison of the dissolution of our reliance on fossil fuels to the abolition of slavery.

First, do we have (or can we build) the social inertia to over the reigning political, social, and economic ideologies of our times? We are an individualistic society focused on expanded our personal gain through competition. To fight against the impending doom that will ultimately come as a result of climate change, we must turn into a society that values cooperation, reciprocity, and the good of entire groups of people, not individuals.

For the changes that Klein calls for, in the very least we need 1) a congress and a judicial system that is supportive (and imaginative) to push for the necessary changes, 2) a society of people who are willing to abandon their dearly held beliefs, and 3) industry innovation to change from the use of an infrastructure present on almost every place on the globe. Maybe all three are not absolutely needed, but at least two of three would be.

I’m left with a pit in my stomach with the full knowledge that they system as we know it is not sustainable, but I’m left wondering what kind of effort will be needed to push us into the transition of the next stage? Will blood be spilled in wars as was necessary in the Civil War? Will inequality of disadvantaged groups remain as freed slaves were forced into indentured servitude? It doesn’t seem like the answers to these questions are obvious or easy, but we must start pushing for them to be asked because the alternative is not so bright.

Merchants of Doubt Ch. 5-Epilogue

Merchants of Doubt continues to be a fascinating, if not soul-crushing, story of how a few scientists, aided by well-meaning journalists, engender doubt in the public mind about environmental and human-health related catastrophes. This week’s readings were a bit easier for me to digest compared to last week because of the pace of the writing. The authors inched away, ever so slightly, from the laundry lists of committees, people, and he-said, she-said accusations and had a stronger focus on the actions of events, which was aided by the inclusion of more emotions.

The authors added just a sprinkling of human emotions through the use of humor and frustration. The humor, at times, came coated in very nerdy references with which only a small portion of readers might connect. For example, “…type 2 errors aren’t really errors at all, just missed opportunities.” (p 157).  This humor might connect more strongly with a comprehensive exam question than as a joke for a broad audience. I can see students sweating as their committee asks them to explain, given this excerpt 1) the validity of the claim that type 2 errors are missed opportunities and 2) how the probability of the missed opportunity might change with varying levels of alpha. Although experimental biologists might have felt like the authors were giving them a secret high-five with this aside, this line would not connect with most of the general population. Potentially adding more comic relief would help connect with the audience.  

The authors do connect with the audience in a more direct way when their show of emotions comes in the form of anger. When describing the unethical steps the “Cold Warriors” took to discredit science by “…attacking science in the name of freedom” (p 166), the authors reference an unattributed quote of an unnamed epidemiologist criticizing the work of the EPA as “rotten science” (p 166). The authors react in what I could only assume was outright indignation, “Did any one actually say that? Maybe yes, maybe no—there’s way to tell, because it was given without attribution. It’s not the sort of thing scientists typically say, but even if it were true, so what? It would just be the opinion of one man—and hardly evidence of a conspiracy to undermine the free market.” (p 166).

This reaction by the authors in all likelihood mirrors what the readers are feeling. The realization that these men are making conscious, immoral decisions to promote distrust in science is appalling. Both reader and author can throw their hands up in shared frustration that the unethical actions of a small group have permeated so many modern human-health and environmental crisis. This type of response in which authors place themselves within the story by communicating their thoughts and feelings about the given circumstances, does so much to improve the readability of the text. This type of author involvement in the prose was much more common in Elizabeth Kolbert’s writing. Without much use of this technique in the current book, we can observe the power of this technique when it is excluded.