DadTalk

Canada May Declare BPA Dangerous to Human Health

Canada may fire a great big salvo at the plastics industry by declaring Bisphenol-A a toxic chemical, reports The New York Times. BPA, as the chemical is known, is commonly “used in plastics for baby bottles, beverage and food containers as well as linings in food cans.”

Health Canada is expected to make a decision whether to declare the chemical a threat to human health sometime between now and late May. Canada would be the first nation to rule again BPA.

Some parents in the United States already have tossed suspect bottles in favor of aluminum or stainless steel versions. (We’re working on it.) Experts don’t seem to debate whether the chemical gets into our bodies. Writes the National Geographic Green Guide:

Ramblings on Sustainability, Economy and Pricey Shoes

While hunched over sick with the flu on the train ride home last week, I overheard this nugget from a fashionably-dressed, middle-aged woman talking to another:

“I don’t care what they’re made of, a pair of $16,000 shoes cannot be called ‘sustainable.’”

Both ladies were dressed in a style I would call, Green Green – that is, costly, yet fashionable “natural” clothing.

I’ve long wrestled with the idea of maintaining a “sustainable” lifestyle. During my 11 years in Arizona, I tried biking to my job. Considering that my work day started at 2 p.m. and ended at midnight – I had a four-day workweek back then – it didn’t work well.

Biking in when it was 110 degrees left me sticky with salt and I didn’t like how my shirt would stick for the rest of the day. Biking home at midnight left me unable to fall asleep for hours. Sustainability is a great concept, but it is a lot tougher to execute than is sometimes practical.

Worse, there are often those pesky unintended consequences. None is more obvious than skyrocketing food prices, caused in part by the need to use corn and other plant material to make biofuels, reports Paul Krugman of The New York Times.

Here’s a sample:

Eating Foreign Produce Kills Birds?

Sometimes the forces of sustainability, organics and eating healthy do not get along harmoniously. Take for example my recent article about eating cantaloupes in the winter where I reveal that I’m a fresh produce freak. I eat frozen only because I have to and I can only eat so many root vegetables before I start to lose my mind. Just like this guy at The Chicago Tribune.

One of my big comprises since coming to Chicago: I’ve become a little more flexible about non-organic produce. Sometimes, foods that I crave simply are not available in the organic form. Which is worse: re-hydrated starch or foreign-grown, non-organic fruit and vegetables?

More and more – and to my great dismay – it looks like the latter is worse. Biology Prof. Bridget Stutchbury warns that pesticide use in Latin American countries is skyrocketing to meet American demand for fresh produce year round. Worse, these countries use chemicals not approved in the United States, Stutchbury writes in The New York Times.

The chemicals are not only dangerous to humans, but to northern songbirds that travel south for the winter, reports Bridget. “Testing by the United States Food and Drug Administration shows that fruits and vegetables imported from Latin America are three times as likely to violate Environmental Protection Agency standards for pesticide residues as the same foods grown in the United States,” she writes.

This goes to my belief that resolving seemingly simple environmental, health and sustainability issues will not be easy by any measure:

• How do you get cars and trucks off the road if cities are vast?
• How do you build a computer without using toxic compounds?
• How do we feed the world if we’re going to use corn and sugar to make electricity?

Every action has complicated, unpredictable chain reactions. It seems there is no white knight to slay the evil lord. After all, the white knight’s armor is made of hardened, non-recyclable, plastic.

Why I Bought Obscenely Expensive Water Bottles

I hate plastic. I really, really hate plastic. Before having kids, most of my plastic use involved garbage bags, water bottles and lunch containers. Despite my better sense, though, I’ve managed to consume several lifetime supplies of petroleum-based products.

Take the thousands of miles I’ve spent on a bike drinking from old, soft plastic water bottles. When I lived in Arizona, the water would heat up and taste really yummy, like burnt marshmallows. I’m sure the water was totally clean of dangerous chemicals.

And during most of my adult life, I’ve been a brown bagger, or would that be plastic-container bagger? I now only use the plastic to transport the food, but for most of my career, I hesitantly microwaved each meal in delicious Polypropylene.

Until a few months ago, there wasn’t much evidence that scratched plastic is even worse than shiny new plastic. Gee, I think ALL of our plastic is scratched.

Nothing in my adult life, though prepared me for the onslaught of plastic after having kids: water bottles, cups, plates and silverware are coming out of every drawer. We find them under tables, desks and even in the heaters. (Lael drops all kinds of things through the little grates.)

A Simple Plan to Make Most Out of Drugs Found in Drinking Water

By now, you’ve probably heard about The Associated Press probe that found all manner of pharmaceuticals in our drinking water. Since the economy sucks, I was thinking this could be good news for money-strapped Americans:

Doctor: Hello fellow Americans! I’m so glad you could join this little forum! I know the cost of drugs has gotten out of hand, so I’m here to answer all your questions on where to find the cheapest drugs.

John: Doctor, I suffer from epileptic seizures, but my insurance won’t cover “unwarranted” prescriptions. What can I do?

Doctor: Ah, this is an easy one. Just move to Southern California! There is plenty of anti-epileptic medicine in the drinking water there!

Alice: Um, Doctor? My kids keep catching strep throat at school, but I can never get a doctor’s appointment when they’re sick. What can I do?

EcoMoms Is a Small, Positive Step Toward Saving Earth

February in Chicago is all about blah. Extreme cold, the flu, rain and snow, and cabin fever all conspire to banish happy feelings. Even the news media tends to be more surly.

So it’s nice to see a positive story for a change. This one brings to light ‘EcoMoms,’ parents who get together to discuss living in environmentally-friendly ways. Writes The New YorkTimes:

The women gathered in the airy living room, wine poured and pleasantries exchanged. In no time, the conversation turned lively – not about the literary merits of Geraldine Brooks or Cormac McCarthy but the pitfalls of antibacterial hand sanitizers and how to retool the laundry using only cold water and biodegradable detergent during non-prime-time energy hours (after 7 p.m.).

Move over, Tupperware. The EcoMom party has arrived, with its ever-expanding “to do” list that includes preparing waste-free school lunches; lobbying for green building codes; transforming oneself into a “locovore,” eating locally grown food; and remembering not to idle the car when picking up children from school (if one must drive). Here, the small talk is about the volatile compounds emitted by dry-erase markers at school.

Yeah, I realize a lot of folk will make fun of these wealthy moms – I can hear the Left Coast jokes already – but I for one find hope in the idea that there are other people out there who worry about toxic gases coming from Calico Rose (red)-painted walls.

The EcoMom Alliance already has 9,000 members nationwide and is creating its own niche in the blogosphere. Here are some key sites:

• EcoMom
• A Shade of Green
• Eco-Chick

If you expect gruff men will make fun of these woman, who apparently suffer from what has been coined “ecoanxiety,” you probably would be correct. That’s because women generally express higher levels of environmental concern than men, according to Riley Dunlap, a professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University.

But I’m with the women on this on. Maybe I can persuade them to rename their group the EcoParents Alliance?

New Maps Paint Vivid Picture of Ocean Damage

Not to take anything away from the global warming debate, but for the last two years, I’ve been more concerned about the world’s oceans.

More than 40 percent of the world’s waters are severely compromised, according to new ocean maps that chart how human activity has been damaging our ecosystems. The maps were created by researchers from the U.S., Canada and Britain, who spent four years on the project, reports ScienceNow.

How bad are human impacts on water? Writes ScienceNow:

The data suggest, for example, that ecosystems found in rocky reefs and on continental shelves “are being impacted even more” than coastal coral reefs, which get much more attention. But coral reefs are in bad shape themselves: The map indicates that nearly half of global reefs are experiencing serious, multiple impacts, including damage from fishing and ocean acidification.

While the maps are not perfect, they offer a vivid picture of how human activity is damaging an irreplaceable resource. Writes The Washington Post:

Americans, Others Turning Backs on Great Outdoors, Study Finds

When I read the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov years and years ago, I wondered how anyone would allow an entire planet be covered by city. Now that I’m older and a shade wiser, I realize no planet could really survive the complete destruction of its ecosystem.

Still, it’s kind of worrisome to read that humans in industrialized nations like the United States are turning their backs on nature, according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“As a scientist and a conservationist, I find these results almost terrifying,” Oliver Pergams, assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lead author of the study, tells The Nature Conservancy.

The study, which is behind a frigging firewall, looked at camping, backpacking, fishing, hiking, hunting, visits to national and state parks and forests in the U.S., Japan and Spain. From 1981 to 1991, the per capita use of nature recreation has dropped up to 25 percent.

Chicago Transit Is a Rip Off

Last week my Chicago Transit Card started to die. The card, which automatically deducts $1.75 from my credit card for every bus ride, was refusing to register without 3-4 swipes.

Actually, Chicago Transit makes interest off the $60 it deducts from my credit card whenever the balance drops below a few bucks. Then the agency takes $1.75 a trip from an interest-bearing account that benefits Chicago Transit.

Gee, $1.75 to ride on buses that pump diesel directly into the cabin. I’m paying to get lung cancer.

So I ordered a replacement card and Chicago Transit, in all it’s rip-off splendor, CHARGED me $5 for the new one. I paid that same amount for the original less than a year ago.

It’s not my fault those things are JUNK. Worse, Chicago Transit deactivated my card immediately. In other words, BEFORE the new one arrives. I guess I’ll be walking home. Oh wait, it’s 8 degrees outside.

Double bonus: it’s $2 for cash payers. Meanwhile, Chicago-Transit continues to make interest on the $60 they pulled out of my credit card the other day.

It’s hard to understand why the transit agency continually threatens to cancel bus routes; is it really running out of money? (Yeah, probably.)

Still, this is the third or fourth time Chicago Transit has scared the heck out of commuters since the summer. Talk about customer service.

If it didn’t cost $32 a day to park in the Loop, I’d drive to work and say to heck with the environment. My Toyota Echo, which is still in storage, puts out fewer fumes anyway.

Blowback From Using Corn as a Petroleum Substitute

Sometimes being “green” can be bad for us and those less fortunate. It feels odd to write those words, but mandatory ethanol production has a lot of unintended consequences.

The most notable to Americans is rising food prices, writes The New York Times. As you can see from the chart, it’s not your imagination that feeding our kids is getting ever-more pricy. Until now, I thought more expensive mini-wheats was just a feature of living in the big city, but apparently food prices have risen sharply since I left California and moved to Chicago.

There are two primary culprits, which are inextricably linked: 1. higher oil prices, which make it more expensive to grow, harvest and ship food. 2. The subsequent rise of corn-made ethanol.