At least since Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was published in 1962 and helped kick off the environmental movement, we’ve known that pesticides were poisoning our earth. Silent Spring said that “uncontrolled and unexamined pesticide use was harming and even killing not only animals and birds, but also humans.” ⁽¹⁾

The question today is what have we done about it? Have we stopped polluting the earth? Have we at least slowed down poisoning our environment?

Dr James Siow of Australia’s National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM) is telling the Clean Up 2013 conference his answer: No, we have not stopped and there’s little evidence we have even slowed down! ⁽²⁾

I found an interesting discussion of his talk in an article on Medical Xpress, Everyone ‘is now polluted.’

The article quotes Dr. Siow, “There is no doubt at all that pollution is now a global issue – and that nobody is spared, not even newborn babies.” ⁽²⁾

How do we know that pollution is continuing at increasing levels and affecting all of us including our children? A recent U.S. study “found 232 industrial chemicals and pollutants, including known carcinogens and complex mixtures, in the (umbilical) cord blood of newborns. This means that children are coming into the world already polluted with things that could kill them.” [emphasis added] ⁽²⁾

From epigenetics, we know that pollution can affect at least three generations. “The genetic damage caused to grandparents by common toxins can go on to affect their grandchildren. The rise in autism spectrum disorders is considered by many scientists one possible outcome of this process.” ⁽²⁾

A special concern is that the combination of multiple chemicals, even though each one is only a small amount, may be even more toxic. ⁽²⁾

Governments have been slow to act because to protect society would require that thousands of products (including foods) be removed from the market and the cost would be very high.

However, since chronic debilitating diseases are becoming more and more common, the cost to our health and personal finances of not avoiding these poisons may be even greater than the market loss from removing them.

Yes, I do believe we must take responsibility to be aware of what products we are using and what foods (and their sources) we are eating, but it would be very difficult for us to clean our air, water, and earth by ourselves.  We need to support organizations that are working to help accomplish this, for example, the National Health Federation, Food and Water Watch, and the Cornucopia Institute.  I’ve linked some of these organizations in the right sidebar under Real Food Rights – Food Freedom.  We need to work together to have any hope of improving our environment.

If you have suggestions for other organizations that should be included in the list, please tell us who they are in the comments.

Sources

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring
² http://medx.cc/news/2013-09-polluted.html

Photo credit: Wikipedia