Stain-resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof, and Lethal

Stain-resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof, and Lethal
Author: Callie Lyons
Publisher: Greenwood
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2007
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780275994525

"It's everywhere. It's toxic. And it lasts forever." Asbestos? Nuclear waste? No. This statement, made by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2003, refers to a little-known but ubiquitous chemical compound whose trade name is C8. Manufactured by DuPont, it is used in the making of a plethora of stain-resistant, waterproof, and grease-resistant consumer products. The first members of the public to hear about C8, in January 2002, were the residents of the Mid-Ohio Valley, whose water supplies were found to contain detectable amounts. The EPA launched a multi-agency review of the manmade chemical, which became the largest investigation of its kind. As a local journalist, Lyons has covered the C8 story from the beginning. Here she explains how the danger of C8 first came to light, how the investigation progressed, and what remedies have been initiated.

Pathways to Our Sustainable Future

Pathways to Our Sustainable Future
Author: Patricia DeMarco
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0822983001

Pittsburgh has a rich history of social consciousness in calls for justice and equity. Today, the movement for more sustainable practices is rising in Pittsburgh. Against a backdrop of Marcellus shale gas development, initiatives emerge for a sustainable and resilient response to the climate change and pollution challenges of the twenty-first century. People, institutions, communities, and corporations in Pittsburgh are leading the way to a more sustainable future. Examining the experience of a single city, with vast social and political complexities and a long industrial history, allows a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities inherent in adapting to change throughout the world. The case studies in this book respond to ethical challenges and give specific examples of successful ways forward. Choices include transforming the energy system, restoring infertile ground, and preventing pollution through green chemistry. Inspired by the pioneering voice of Rachel Carson, this is a book about empowerment and hope.

Emerging Contaminants Handbook

Emerging Contaminants Handbook
Author: Caitlin H. Bell
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2019-01-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1351665065

The term "emerging contaminants" and its multiple variants has come to refer to unregulated compounds discovered in the environment that are also found to represent a potential threat to human and ecological receptors. Such contaminants create unique and considerable challenges as the push to address them typically outpaces the understanding of their toxicity, their need for regulation, their occurrence, and techniques for treating the environmental media they affect. With these challenges in mind, this handbook serves as a primer regarding the topic of emerging contaminants, with current and practical information to help support the goal of protection where they are encountered. Features Explores the definition, identification, and life cycle of emerging contaminants. Reviews current information on sources, toxicology, regulation, and new tools for characterization and treatment of: 1,4-Dioxane (mature in its emerging contaminant life cycle) Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs; a newer group of emerging contaminant) Hexavalent chromium (former emerging contaminant with evolving science) 1,2,3-Trichloropropane (progressing in its emerging contaminant life cycle) Provides thoughts on opportunities in managing emerging contaminants to help balance uncertainty, compress life cycle, and optimize outcomes.

Toxic truths

Toxic truths
Author: Thom Davies
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2020-07-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1526137011

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Debates over science, facts, and values are pivotal in the struggle for environmental justice. For decades, environmental justice activists have campaigned against the misuse of science, engaging in community-led citizen science that champions knowledge produced by and for ordinary people living with environmental risks and hazards. However, post-truth politics have threatened science itself. Toxic truths examines the relationship between environmental justice and citizen science, focusing on enduring issues and new challenges in a post-truth age. The volume features a range of community-based participatory environmental health and justice research projects that seek to establish different ways of sensing, witnessing, and interpreting environmental injustice. From struggles in American hog country and contaminated indigenous communities, to local environmental controversies in Spain and China, this volume examines political strategies for seeking environmental justice. With international, interdisciplinary contributions from distinguished authors, emerging scholars and community activists, Toxic truths is essential reading for those seeking to understand the cutting edge of citizen science and activism around the world.

Information Resources in Toxicology

Information Resources in Toxicology
Author: P.J. Bert Hakkinen
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 1553
Release: 2009-08-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0080920039

This latest version of Information Resources in Toxicology (IRT) continues a tradition established in 1982 with the publication of the first edition in presenting an extensive itemization, review, and commentary on the information infrastructure of the field. This book is a unique wide-ranging, international, annotated bibliography and compendium of major resources in toxicology and allied fields such as environmental and occupational health, chemical safety, and risk assessment. Thoroughly updated, the current edition analyzes technological changes and is rife with online tools and links to Web sites. IRT-IV is highly structured, providing easy access to its information. Among the "hot topics covered are Disaster Preparedness and Management, Nanotechnology, Omics, the Precautionary Principle, Risk Assessment, and Biological, Chemical and Radioactive Terrorism and Warfare are among the designated. - International in scope, with contributions from over 30 countries - Numerous key references and relevant Web links - Concise narratives about toxicologic sub-disciplines - Valuable appendices such as the IUPAC Glossary of Terms in Toxicology - Authored by experts in their respective sub-disciplines within toxicology

Slow Death by Rubber Duck

Slow Death by Rubber Duck
Author: Rick Smith
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2010-04-06
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0307374017

Funny, thought-provoking, and incredibly disturbing, Slow Death by Rubber Duck reveals that just the living of daily life creates a chemical soup inside each of us. Pollution is no longer just about belching smokestacks and ugly sewer pipes - now, it's personal. The most dangerous pollution has always come from commonplace items in our homes and workplaces. Smith and Lourie ingested and inhaled a host of things that surround all of us all the time. This book exposes the extent to which we are poisoned every day of our lives. For this book, over the period of a week - the kind of week that would be familiar to most people - the authors use their own bodies as the reference point and tell the story of pollution in our modern world, the miscreant corporate giants who manufacture the toxins, the weak-kneed government officials who let it happen, and the effects on people and families across the globe. Parents and concerned citizens will have to read this book. Key concerns raised in Slow Death by Rubber Duck: • Flame-retardant chemicals from electronics and household dust polluting our blood. • Toxins in our urine caused by leaching from plastics and run-of-the-mill shampoos, toothpastes and deodorant. • Mercury in our blood from eating tuna. • The chemicals that build up in our body when carpets and upholstery off-gas. Ultimately hopeful, the book empowers readers with some simple ideas for protecting themselves and their families, and changing things for the better.

Environmental Change and Human Security: Recognizing and Acting on Hazard Impacts

Environmental Change and Human Security: Recognizing and Acting on Hazard Impacts
Author: Peter H. Liotta
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 483
Release: 2008-07-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1402085516

Environmental and Human Security: Then and Now 1 2 ALAN D. HECHT AND P. H. LIOTTA * 1 U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development 2 Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy Salve Regina University 1. Nontraditional Threats to Security The events of September 11, 2001 have sharpened the debate over the meaning of being secure. Before 9/11 there were warnings in all parts of the world that social and environmental changes were occurring. While there was prosperity in North America and Western Europe, there was also increasing recognition that local and global effects of ecosystem degradation posed a serious threat. Trekking from Cairo to Cape Town thirty years after living in Africa as a young teacher, for example, travel writer Paul Theroux concluded that development in sub-Saharan Africa had failed to improve the quality of life for 300 million people: “Africa is materially more decrepit than it was when I first knew it—hungrier, poorer, less educated, more pessimistic, more corrupt, and you can’t tell the politicians from the witch-doctors” (2002). While scholars and historians will debate the causes of 9/11 for some time, one message is clear: An often dizzying array of nontraditional threats and complex vulnerabilities define security today. We must understand them, and deal with them, or suffer the consequences. Environmental security has always required att- tion to nontraditional threats linked closely with social and economic well-being.

The Triumph of Doubt

The Triumph of Doubt
Author: David Michaels
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2020-01-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190922680

Well-heeled American corporations have long had a financial stake in undermining scientific consensus and manufacturing uncertainty. In The Triumph of Doubt, former Obama and Clinton official David Michaels details how corrupt science becomes public policy -- and where it's happening today. Opioids. Concussions. Obesity. Climate Change. America is a country of everyday crises -- big, long-spanning problems that persist despite their toll on the country's health. And for every case of government inaction on one of these issues, there is a set of familiar, doubtful refrains: The science is unclear. The data are inconclusive. Regulation is unjustified. It's a slippery slope. Is it? The Triumph of Doubt traces the ascendance of science-for-hire in American life and government, from its origins in the tobacco industry in the 1950s to its current manifestations across government, public policy, and even professional sports. Amid fraught conversations of "alternative facts" and "truth decay," The Triumph of Doubt wields its unprecedented access to shine a light on the machinations and scope of manipulated science in American society. It is an urgent, revelatory work, one that promises to reorient conversations around science and the public good for the foreseeable future.

Healthy Buildings

Healthy Buildings
Author: Joseph G. Allen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2022-10-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674287460

A revised and updated edition of the landmark work the New York Times hailed as “a call to action for every developer, building owner, shareholder, chief executive, manager, teacher, worker and parent to start demanding healthy buildings with cleaner indoor air.” For too long we’ve designed buildings that haven’t focused on the people inside—their health, their ability to work effectively, and what that means for the bottom line. An authoritative introduction to a movement whose vital importance is now all too clear, Healthy Buildings breaks down the science and makes a compelling business case for creating healthier offices, schools, and homes. As the COVID-19 crisis brought into sharp focus, indoor spaces can make you sick—or keep you healthy. Fortunately, we now have the know-how and technology to keep people safe indoors. But there is more to securing your office, school, or home than wiping down surfaces. Levels of carbon dioxide, particulates, humidity, pollution, and a toxic soup of volatile organic compounds from everyday products can influence our health in ways people aren’t always aware of. This landmark book, revised and updated with the latest research since the COVID-19 pandemic, lays out a compelling case for more environmentally friendly and less toxic offices, schools, and homes. It features a concise explanation of disease transmission indoors, and provides tips for making buildings the first line of defense. Joe Allen and John Macomber dispel the myth that we can’t have both energy-efficient buildings and good indoor air quality. We can—and must—have both. At the center of the great convergence of green, smart, and safe buildings, healthy buildings are vital to the push for more sustainable urbanization that will shape our future.