How did you live your life during your early 20s?  What were your focuses?  Your significant other? School? Job? Figuring out ways to beat the beer chugging record at the local bar?  How about health?

Like many young adults, health was hardly a priority for me.  I almost routinely ate hotdogs for lunch, I stayed up until the morning hours, and the activity that came closest being an exercise involved clicking several hundred times a day on a computer mouse.  Health wasn’t a concern to me, meh, that was an issue for later on.

All that changed when I was diagnosed with Stage I Testicular cancer at age 23.  Initially I didn’t believe it –I thought, isn’t cancer for old people?  Sure, young people can get cancer, but that’s rare, nope, can’t be me!  A few hours after being told I “won” the cancer lottery, I came to realization and accepted the fact.  Being a nerdy guy, I searched the internet universe for answers as to why I contracted cancer, but it’s very likely I will never know the cause.

As if that wasn’t enough, I won bonuses too!  Next came non-alcoholic fatty liver, which are fat deposits in my liver slowly damaging the organ.  Okay sure, I will exercise and eat properly to burn off the fat in my liver.  A few weeks later during a routine check-up, my doctor said my blood pressure was high, and he needs to check again in 2 weeks.  If it is still high he will put me on high blood pressure medicine, at 23 years old.  I wasn’t even overweight!

With one health issue after another, I was angry at myself.  How can I have so many health problems at that age?  At this rate, I won’t live to 40!

Thus I began my health revolution. I learned as much as I can about health and reversed the fatty liver and high blood pressure.  I became very conscious of my surroundings, enough to annoy my family about their routine use of hot water bottles (why are they called bottles?), which emit a weird smell.  Better safe than sorry, I don’t know if the scent is hazardous or not, but they didn’t need hot water bottles, so they switched to electric blankets instead.

I thought I pretty much solved chemical exposures in my home, until I came to CEH.  It turns out that almost all of the 80,000 chemicals in consumer goods have not been tested for long term safety.  I was in complete shock, how can such incompetence and lack of common sense exist?   Now I understand a factor behind diseases occurring at younger ages.

I may never know what caused my cancer, but it’s clear that our current policies on chemical exposure are like a Wild West.  We need to at least make the cancer lottery harder to win.  Say no to cancer lottery tickets in furniture, homes and our bodies, just to name a few.

• The natural gas boom will make the US energy independent.

• Natural gas is the bridge fuel that will help us stop climate change and fracking helps us get there faster.

• Fracking is so safe and clean that you can drink the fracking fluids.

Health advocates, environmentalists and community groups reply:

• Fracking is dangerous and must be stopped.

• The methane releases from fracking are speeding up climate change.

• Fracking makes your water catch on fire.

• Ever since fracking started in my community, my daughter’s nose keeps bleeding and I have been having trouble breathing.

With all of these conflicting statements, how do you know what’s true? Now you can take a master class from expert geologists, toxicologists, and physicians to give you all the information you need to understand this hot topic and make your own decisions. As a bonus, if you are a physician, you can earn Continuing Medical Education credits through the Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY).

The nonprofit Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE) has gathered the nation’s leading experts from institutions including  Cornell and Stanford Universities to present the information about this issue in an easy to understand 7-part series that you can watch on YouTube. Divided into three modules, the series starts with an introductory course on geology and fracking and takes you all the way through to how it can affect human and animal health.

Once you have taken the course, tell all your friends, and then tell us. Then take action to keep New York safe from fracking.

Well, yes it is. But it’s also one of the scarier parts of the alphabet soup. For starters, it’s one of the most widely used chemicals in the world – two billion pounds used every year in the U.S. And it has enough health and safety problems that parents forced companies to stop using it to make baby bottles and sippy cups.

But BPA is still used to make lots of things that all of us are likely to use. CEH has recently found big on-line retailers selling plastic wine glasses, plastic tumblers, plastic pitchers, and plastic 5-gallon water jugs made from plastic that contains BPA. BPA is also used to make linings for food cans, cash register receipts, electronics, DVDs, and flame retardants.

California recently proposed to identify BPA as a chemical known to cause developmental problems. Developmental problems are health problems in kids that result from exposure before birth – exposure moms receive during pregnancy. If it’s listed, products that can expose consumers to BPA would have to carry warning labels. But the state proposal doesn’t go far enough – scientists say that tiny amounts of BPA can harm us, so the state should lower the proposed threshold that would trigger labeling.

You can support this call for stronger BPA labeling, but we have just until 5pm tomorrow to take action! Join actress and mom Amy Brenneman in this petition calling for a stronger rule on BPA labeling!

Yesterday twenty-two medical and scientific researchers from Yale University, Columbia University, Tufts School of Medicine and other leading Universities, along with health advocates, sent a joint letter asking California to create an even stronger rule on BPA labeling, to protect our right to know when our children and families are exposed to levels of this chemical that can make us sick.

Amazingly, the chemical industry sued California for proposing to list BPA, claiming that “there is no scientific reason” supporting the state’s proposal. In contrast, the letter from the 22 esteemed physicians and scientists notes that “There is an enormous amount of research about developmental effects of BPA,” and cites ten recent animal studies linking low levels of BPA exposure to harm to the developing brain, mammary gland, ovaries, pituitary gland and other health concerns, as well as seven human studies linking BPA in the urine or blood of pregnant women to adverse maternal and/or child health outcomes.

Numerous health bodies have called BPA a potential threat to public health, including the Endocrine Society, the President’s Cancer Panel, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Medical Association.  It’s past time for California to require labels on products with BPA. Please sign Amy Brenneman’s petition today!

Oakland, CA – According to a recent study, players on both Los Angeles Major League Baseball teams, the Dodgers and the Angels may contain high levels of toxic flame retardant chemicals usually found in furniture, including most couches in American homes.

“We fear for the health and safety of the LA ball club players, who spent the entire month of October sitting on their couches watching the San Francisco Giants,  the Oakland Athletics, and other teams in the playoffs,” said Matt Nevins, Research Assistant at CEH.  “As fans of the game, we want to nurture rivalries of fairness – not ones in which our competitors have reduced baseball IQ due to increased exposure to harmful chemicals.”

When approached for comment, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said, “This is a problem that, fortunately, we have the monetary resources to buy ourselves out of. We intend to import high-end upholstery and make Dodger couches stuffed with dollar bills, which as we know contain no chemicals other than some green ink I think.”

A 1975 California flammability standard called Technical Bulletin 117 (TB 117) has prompted decades of widespread use of flame retardant chemicals. But a recent analysis by the Office of the Commissioner has found that the state’s focus on chemical flame retardants does not protect people from fires and that non-chemical methods are better suited to achieve fire safety benefits.

“It presents an unfair playing field issue,” said Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, upon hearing news of the study.  “Teams without the resources to compete at the highest level are left to wallow on their killer couches throughout the month of October.  We urge the State of California to adopt the updated TB117-2013 standard, resulting in better fire safety without the use of harmful chemical flame retardants.”

The Houston Astros, who lost 107 games last year and apparently had players spending much of their time on couches during and after the season had no comment on the recent findings.

-30-

Happy April Fool’s & Opening Day!

Michael Green talks flame retardants

CEH Executive Director Michael Green was recently a guest on the radio talk show “On the Green Front” hosted by eco-pioneer Betsy Rosenberg. In the interview, Michael discusses the “toxic shell game”–in which the chemical industry conducts unplanned science experiments on consumers by replacing toxic chemicals in consumer products with other untested chemicals that have similar or worse health effects. One example of the “toxic shell game” is displayed in a recent CEH study. CEH’s study found alarmingly high levels of toxic flame retardant chemicals in children’s nap mats. Tris, the flame retardant chemical used in nap mats was banned from children’s pajamas in the 1970s, but is now showing up in children’s nap mats and household furniture. Tris has been linked to a wide array of health problems including cancer, obesity, reduced fertility, hormone disruption, and allergies. Government studies and fire experts have found that flame retardants are ineffective as they are used in furniture and products like nap mats. Michael discusses the steps CEH is taking to protect families from harmful chemicals like Tris and end the “toxic shell game” for good.  Michael also informs consumers about easy steps they can take such to avoid chemical exposures and how they can become involved in supporting the end of this harmful experiment. Listen to the complete interview here.

Tony Stefani is an American hero. Not just because of his 28 years of service as a captain with the San Francisco Fire Department. Not just because he’s a cancer survivor who started a non-profit to prevent cancer among firefighters. All of that would make him hero enough, but not enough for Tony.

For years Tony has been a tireless advocate for better fire safety standards without harmful flame-retardant chemicals. His battle against these risky chemicals began after he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that his doctor said was usually only seen in chemical industry workers. Then he learned that two other firefighters from his station developed a more common version of the same cancer.

We are all exposed to risky flame-retardant chemicals every day. Most of the furniture sold in the U.S. is doused with these toxic chemicals — in some cases as much as two pounds of flame retardants are used in a single couch. In our recent work, CEH found flame retardants in baby products and nap mats used in daycares nationwide. Some flame retardants are known to causecancer, and others can interfere with hormones, reproductive systems, thyroid and metabolic function, and neurological development in infants and children, among other health hazards.

But firefighters face a double burden. In addition to these everyday exposures, firefighters can be dosed with massive amounts of these chemicals, and the cancer-causing dioxins and furans that are produced when the chemicals burn, when they work in and around burning buildings. A recent study found that the levels of a common flame retardant in the blood of 12 firefighters studied was 2-3 times higher than the levels found in the general population. One firefighter in the study had 11 times more of this flame retardant in his blood than average. Women firefighters face particular risks: A recent survey found that 10 of 117 women firefighters in San Francisco between ages 40 and 50 had developed breast cancer, nearly six times higher than the rate for women of that age in the general population.

When Tony Stefani connected his workplace exposures with his cancer diagnosis, he decided to take action. He founded the San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation, an all-volunteer non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention and detection of cancer in both active and retired firefighters of the San Francisco Fire Department. The group’s annual screenings have caught six cancer cases so far.

He also speaks out regularly at legislative hearings to insure that California lawmakers know that we need a new state standard for furniture flammability, one that offers better fire safety and doesn’t require companies to use harmful chemicals. Now, California regulators are listening. The state has finally proposed an update to a 38-year-old standard, an outdated approach that has resulted in widespread use of flame-retardant chemicals in furniture nationwide. The updated standard takes a modern, scientific approach to fire safety, without harmful chemicals.

What’s Tony’s response? He’s started a petition calling for support of this new, safer standard. He also plans to be in Sacramento on March 26 to speak at a public hearing on the issue and deliver the signatures on the day the public comment period closes.

Firefighters know the risks they face every time they respond to a call. Given their daily life-saving service to our communities, shouldn’t we all take one minute to help prevent avoidable illnesses to firefighters — especially when this simple action will also help protect our children’s and families’ health? Please take a minute today to sign Tony’s petition in support of safer fire safety.

In Ruth Ozeki’s heartbreakingly funny novel My Year of Meats, narrator Jane Takagi-Little reflects on her journey through fertility challenges and miscarriage while producing a documentary series for Japanese television on behalf of the American corporate meat exporter Beef-Ex. About midway through the novel, Jane realizes that a synthetic hormone once used in livestock production, diethylstilbestrol (DES), was also for decades widely prescribed to millions of pregnant women. Confronting her mother, Jane asks,

“Mom, when you were pregnant, did your doctor tell you to take any medicine? Any pills?”"I don’t remember … It was a bad time. Doctor say I am so delicate.”

… Doc must have subscribed to the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, seen the [DES] ads. So he gave her a prescription, probably about 125 milligrams of diethylstilbestrol, otherwise known as DES, to take once a day for the first trimester of me. To keep me in place, floating between her delicate hips.

Sadly for Jane and millions of real-life women, DES didn’t prevent miscarriages — in fact, just the opposite was true. In a chapter on DES for a 2002 report by the European Environment Agency, the authors note the higher rates of pregnancy problems among women who took the drug and further reproductive health problems among their offspring. Incredibly, the ineffectiveness of DESwas known by the early 1950s, and early warning signs about health problems were also overlooked. The authors state, “Had the data [about DES] been properly analyzed in 1953, nearly 20 years of unnecessary exposure to DES might have been avoided. The fact that this drug was prescribed for two decades after its lack of efficacy was clearly demonstrated illustrates a massive failure of the system.”

I’ve recently written about synthetic chemicals that can mimic and alter our bodies’ natural hormones, chemicals like DES that can lead to harmful effects at even very tiny doses. Two decades ago, when researchers first documented these kinds of chemicals it seemed almost like science fiction. But 20 years later the evidence is stronger than ever, and now a team of 16 scientists from ten nations has released a decade-long research report on the global evidence of health hazards from these hormone-mimicking substances. Unlike DES, we are not exposed to these chemicals as prescription drugs, but through hundreds of everyday products, like food packaging, plastics, cosmetics, baby products, furniture and other products containing flame-retardant chemicals, and many other common products. Our risk of diseases related to exposures to these chemicals may be significantly underestimated, especially since there has been little attention to the exposure our children and families typically receive to the mixtures of the many hormone-altering chemicals in our homes, schools, and workplaces.

The summary of the joint World Health Organization-UN Environment Program (WHO-UNEP) report notes that there are about 800 chemicals known or suspected to be such hormone-altering, “endocrine-disrupting chemicals” (EDCs). Like the vast majority of chemicals in current use, most known or suspected EDCs have never been tested for impacts on our health. The WHO-UNEP report warns that our health depends on our ability to reproduce and develop normally, and that this becomes impossible when chemicals impact the function of our natural hormones. The growing concern around EDCs stems from evidence of the high incidence and increasing rates of endocrine-related diseases, mounting numbers of studies linking endocrine disruption to disease, and increasing observations of endocrine-related impacts on wildlife.

In a press statement, Dr. Maria Neira, WHO’s Director for Public Health and Environment, noted, “The latest science shows that communities across the globe are being exposed to EDCs, and their associated risks … We all have a responsibility to protect future generations.” Among the report’s findings:

• Exposure to hormone-altering chemicals during fetal development and puberty is associated with increases in reproductive diseases like infertility and endocrine-related cancers, like breast cancer. This mirrors findings of a 2010 report by the Breast Cancer and Chemicals Policy Project, which found that hormone altering chemicals “should be strongly suspected of increasing breast cancer risk.”

• Exposure to EDCs has been linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.

• Exposures have also been linked to increased rates of dyslexia, mental retardation, ADHD and autism.

• Some EDCs can transmit health problems across generations, so that exposures during pregnancy can create health problems for several generations. This is the case with DES, which caused abnormal female sexual development in the granddaughters of patients who were prescribed the drug.

So how does the report recommend protecting our families and future generations? More research, better testing, more product information, more coordination internationally — all good ideas that are highlighted in the report’s conclusions. But earlier, in a mostly-overlooked passage, the authors hint at the need for stronger action. In a discussion about the history of the use of lead in gasoline and paint, they note that, like now with EDCs, scientists knew long ago about the potential for health risks from lead, but policymakers did nothing for decades. They conclude:

Scientific data [about lead poisoning] were present many years before the policies were changed and the chemical was banned. During that time, children’s health continued to be harmed. So the question is, when are there sufficient data to act? Perhaps the answer is in making more use of the precautionary principle to ban or restrict chemicals in order to reduce exposure early, even when there are significant but incomplete data and before there is significant and long-lasting harm.

The notion of taking precautionary action, of regulating potentially harmful chemicals and requiring safety testing before they come to market, rather than waiting until our children and families get sick, seems just common sense. In the case of EDCs, for example, it should be simple to immediately ban the use of flame-retardant chemicals in children’s products, where these chemicals have proven ineffective and where they could create serious long-term health problems.

But the flame-retardant chemical companies don’t see it that way. For decades they have usedevery trick at their disposal (and massive political spending) to thwart common-sense health protections.

In a commentary on My Year of Meats, Ruth Ozeki muses about the power of imagination in making a better world,

Jane needs hope. AS a DES daughter there is still a chance that she might develop cancer, and she acknowledges this. What’s important here is her awareness that although writing a happy ending might not change the future, it is still important to imagine one … Without the power of the imagination we lack the power to alter outcomes, so if we can’t imagine better outcomes in a better world, we cannot act to achieve these. You can’t make something you can’t imagine first.

I can imagine a world where children are not threatened by harmful chemicals in their daily lives, where simple acts of precaution are commonplace, and where our families’ health matters more than short-term profits. If you can too, I urge you to act for our children and future generations by joining the call for safer chemicals.

Crossposted from Huffington Post

When is a flame retardant not a flame retardant?

When it is no more effective in retarding flames than, well, nothing.

Since fire safety experts and government studies say that chemical flame retardants as they are used in many products are not effective, maybe we should stop calling them flame retardants.

Recently nonprofits from seven states announced that nap mats used in daycares nationwide contain harmful flame retardant chemicals, including a flame retardant that has been linked to cancer and others linked to hormone disruption and other serious health problems.

Maybe we should stop saying “flame retardant chemicals” and start calling them what they are: hidden time bombs.

Since most daycares don’t allow the kids to smoke at nap time, flame retardants are not only ineffective in nap mats, they’re also completely unnecessary. One of the unnecessary flame retardants found in several of the nap mats we tested is chlorinated Tris, a chemical linked to the development of cancer that was removed from children’s pajamas more than 30 years ago.

How did this happen? How could we allow chemical companies to put these useless and harmful chemicals in products our children and families use every day?

The Chicago Tribune recently exposed how decades ago, Big Tobacco and Big Chemical got together to promote the use of chemical flame retardants, in order to fend off legislative efforts calling for fire-safe cigarettes. Their advocacy (read: money) resulted in a 1970s-era California flammability standard (called TB 117) that to this day promotes the use of chemical flame retardants in furniture and other products sold nationwide.

Thankfully, last summer California Gov. Jerry Brown ordered state regulators to revise the standard to avoid supporting these harmful chemicals, and just this month the state released its proposed new rule (TB 117-2013). Due to the size of the California market, a new state standard here will impact furniture and other suppliers nationwide. So everyone in the country should write to the California Department of Consumer Affairs in support of the proposed standard.

But there’s still another reason that flame retardants have remained in use long after their severe health impacts were discovered. It’s the same reason that lead was used in gasoline and other products, and asbestos was used in hundreds of products, even decades after it was clear that people were getting seriously ill from these substances.

For too long, we have had the idea that products should be allowed on the market and considered safe until proven otherwise. The proof of safety, then, doesn’t happen with lab experiments on guinea pigs. Instead, our children and families are the guinea pigs in the chemical industry’s experiments.

What if we did things differently? What if chemical companies had to demonstrate that their products were safe before they were allowed to put them into our children’s nap mats, and into hundreds of other products our children and families use every day?

That’s a common sense change that could end needless illnesses and suffering. It’s also a change that would spur innovation in business, creating incentives for truly sustainable products that reap sustainable profits — not decades of lawsuits by victims who were sickened by hazardous products.

This ”safety first” approach is why we support the Safe Chemicals Act, which would for the first time in more than 30 years revise the main law governing U.S. chemical policy. The chemical hazards that we found in children’s nap mats show that it’s long past time to make this change, for our children’s health.

Crossposted from Huffington Post, see original article here.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Department of Environmental Conservation have a late February deadline to decide whether to lift the moratorium on fracking that has been effect in New York for the past 4 ½ years. Recently, media attention and public scrutiny has focused on fracking because of concern over toxins, sediment, and natural gas being released during the process and contaminating our air and groundwater.

Fracking has been banned by other places, including France (which banned fracking in 2011), but this method is still widely used in the U.S. In New York and elsewhere, CEH is concerned that we don’t know enough about the health and environmental consequences of fracking, and that in the rush to produce profits for the natural gas industry, protections for our health will be overlooked.

On Monday, February 4^th anti-fracking groups rode in the early hours of the morning, making the long bus ride to Albany for a state legislative hearing on fracking. The hearing was the opportunity for the state legislature to question the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on the agency’s proposal to permit future fracking and drilling projects in NY State.

NY State is faced with a February 13^th deadline when the revised Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) will or will not appear in the DEC’s Environmental Notice Bulletin. The SGEIS legally has to be posted for 10 days in order to issue the final Findings Statement and final regulations by Feb 27th.

Additionally, the DEC, state Department of Health, and outside experts are currently working on a health review of fracking. Despite legal requirements for a full assessment of the health impacts from fracking, the agencies instead decided they would simply conduct review of the existing literature.

CEH and others have criticized this decision, which we believe could fail to adequately provide New Yorkers the information on health impacts that we need to inform decision making. Furthermore, the entire health review process has been shrouded in secrecy with no transparency or opportunity for public comment.

We have joined other New York health advocates in urging the Governor to open up the health review process and allow for public participation. We are calling on DEC to stop the finalization of the SGEIS, let the current regulations expire, and extend the moratorium on fracking.

At the legislature’s hearing on February 4,  DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens said the state could not predict a date for finishing the new fracking rules, and that any decisions would be dependent on the findings from the health review. He said he expects to get a report from New York Health Commissioner Nirav Shah in “a few weeks.” He also said that if the health review team finds additional measures that need to be addressed that it would be difficult to meet any deadlines.

Senator Tony Avella stated that, “My concern is that the DEC review was nothing and the scientists were asked to look at this and they are reviewing nothing”

Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton said that DEC’s review was a “backwards process, a convoluted process, and certainly not an open process.” She also made comments about the law adopted in Pennsylvania that bars doctors from sharing information about patients with health impacts from fracking. She asked Martens, “Doesn’t this kind of thing make you uncomfortable?”

Martens responded that any kind of government corruption made him uncomfortable but that it is not true that the entire industry is corrupted.

The hearing room was packed. One person estimated that there were about 350 people in the room. A line of protestors waited outside the hearing room trying to gain access. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, was among those present along with actor Mark Ruffalo, Josh Fox (Gasland) and other celebrities.

Following the Commissioner’s testimony about 500-600  protestors gathered in the staircase in the capitol building for a rally and a press conference chanting “Not one Well.”

Since the hearing, one of the Reviewers, Dr. Richard Jackson held a seminar where he called for an in-depth health impact assessment. He noted however, that his comments weren’t necessarily reflected in his review of the New York regulations:

“You can do health impact assessments briefly or you can do them in great depth,” Jackson said during the seminar. “I think we need a national one in great depth and it’s just absurd that we’re five to seven years into this vast enterprise of doing hydraulic fracturing and there’s not been a full-blown, national health impact assessment.”

As published on Huffington Post.

Earlier this month, the first-ever legally binding global treaty to protect people and the environment from mercury pollution made history when 140 nations reached agreement after four years of talks. The Minamata Convention on mercury pollution was hailed by Human Rights Watch, which has been battling to protect children in small scale gold mining communities from inadequate child labor protections and the severe health threats from mercury pollution related to mining.

Most Americans have also never heard of the Minamata mercury disaster. In the 1950s, in the town of Minamata, Japan, the Chisso Corporation began dumping large amounts of mercury into Minamata Bay and Minamata River. As a fishing and fish-eating community, when mercury moved up the food chain, the toxic chemical affected virtually everyone, killing 700 people, crippling as many as 9,000 others, and poisoning up to 50,000 who lived within 35 miles of the bay. Children born with mercury pollution suffered for decades more.

Like Monsanto’s years of dumping PCBs in Anniston, Ala., or DuPont’s dumping of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, also known as C8) in Wood County, W. Va., company documentsshow that Chisso knew about the health effects from its mercury dumping, yet continued the practice for years as thousands of people suffered. Today, fracking companies are still allowed to use mass amounts of undisclosed toxic chemicals that can cause serious air and water pollution.

When I founded the Center for Environmental Health in 1996, one of our first efforts successfully helped close California’s last medical waste incinerator, a polluting plant in a low-income community just a stone’s throw from San Francisco Bay. At the time, medical waste incineration was known as the fourth leading source of mercury pollution. Community-based groups pointed to the environmental injustice of incinerators and other polluting industries that are disproportionately sited in their neighborhoods. We joined with the community-based groups working to shut the incinerator in support of environmental justice and because we believe that everyone has the human right to an environment free from chemical health threats.

To some, calling environmental health a human right seems radical. But as Rachel Carson said inSilent Spring, “If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons… it is surely only because our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom and foresight, could conceive of no such problem.” Today, several state constitutions contain provisions on the right to a healthy environment, and their courts have used these provisions to establish the states’ right to act to prevent pollution in the face of serious health or environmental threats. Of 193 UN member nations, 177 today recognize the right to an “environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being… ” The U.S. remains one of the few holdouts unwilling to recognize this fundamental human right.

Fernando Lugris of Uruguay, the chair of the Minamata Convention on mercury pollution, noted on the adoption of the treaty that “[W]e have… opened a new chapter towards a sustainable future. This has been done in the name of vulnerable populations everywhere and represents an opportunity for a healthier and more sustainable century for all peoples.” Let’s take this as one hopeful step towards environmental justice and the right to a healthy environment for all.

Follow Michael Green on Twitter: www.twitter.com/4envirohealth

See the original article on Huffington Post here.