So this news piqued my interest: researchers from several leading universities now believe that even tiny exposures to common chemicals might pre-program children to be obesity-prone from birth. The article is from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The culprits? Tobacco (my mom smoked Marlboro Reds) and a little something called bisphenol A – a chemical that NRDC’s hotshot scientist Jennifer Sass has been working on. The Union-Tribune article includes this quote from Frederick vom Saal, a biology professor at the University of Missouri:
"You set up a metabolism that is entirely different from what it would have if it were not exposed." The result: Exposed mice are normal-weight at birth, but grow fat with age.Working with Dr. Sass – ok, Jen – to get the word out about her bisphenol A work, I’ve been pretty horrified to see what this stuff can do to you, and how many places it’s lurking. It’s in plastic food and drink packaging, baby bottles and in resins that are used to coat food cans, bottle tops, and water supply pipes. So if you eat or drink anything – you’re ingesting it.
Ah Nature. I work all year to protect it. Why has it turned against me on vacation this year? No sooner had we left Washington than we were assaulted by everything from rain, pollen, fog, sunburn, poison ivy, and — addition to the aforementioned insects — ticks, mosquitoes, and a disappointing lack of fireflies.
I am an urbanist, meaning — to me — that I live in the city where people should dwell so that during the week I can enjoy a 10-minute subway commute, lively community, and an energy-efficient, low-impact existence. Sure trees were cut down to build my neighborhood, but that was 100 years ago.
Then, for weekends and vacations, we head out into Nature, the kind without McMansions or 7-Elevens or even jet skis. We swim where there's no chlorine, walk where there's no pavement, cook where there's no roof. Through this, I remember many of the reasons why working to protect the environment is endlessly worthwhile despite the occasional frustrations of, say, the Bush administration denying that heat-trapping greenhouse gasses are pollution. During these sorties into Nature, I also hope to instill in my children this love of the outdoors that trumps their admiration for TV and dump trucks. Usually, it's blissful.
We came for our bite of nature. This summer, nature bit back.
Now I am hard at work at coming to terms with this. That, in its essence, our attempts to make a world in which no one gets bitten by a poisonous spider, steps on a bee, gets sunburn or poison ivy, or even gets wet in a rainstorm, are a big part of what got us in this heap of trouble we're in with Nature.
So here's where I'm at. In my little world of a small townhouse in Washington, DC I will expect to stay adequately warm, dry, cool, shaded, clean, and — after inspecting all my screens once I can finally travel home — insect free. I will expect the same in my office at NRDC. However — despite the searing pain in my leg and all the other ailments Nature has inflicted on my family members, I will not expect the same in Nature. I am here to be in the Outdoors on its own terms. I am not interested in some Nature-lite where a dozen cans of herbicide and pesticide later I can sit on a plastic chair on some mutant-bred imported species of carpet-like lawn-grass. One of the reasons I value Nature is that it must be on its own terms — otherwise, it's not Nature anymore. Any attempts to control it ruin it for me. However, keep in mind, as I write this, I am on a high dose of painkillers.
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