Cancer survivors can be a powerful lobby for change. We can show the human cost of past polluting practices. We can reimagine a future built on the principles of precaution, green chemistry, and green engineering. But only if we don't confine ourselves to the present moment. Living each day as if it were your last is not all it's cracked up to be. In fact, discounting the future and ignoring the past is how we've contaminated the earth with toxic chemicals in the first place.
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Sandra Steingraber contributes weekly posts to the Huffington Post website. Here are her most recent posts:
A Poem for the Marcellus
(May 2, 2012)
In honor of both National Poetry Month and Earth Day, I offer below a love song to the bedrock: the methane-suffused shale that geologists call the Marcellus, which now lies in the crosshairs of the oil and gas industry.
How to Have a Colonoscopy
(April 23, 2012)
Colon cancer is a leading killer. Colon cancer is highly preventable. The stakes are high. But so is public confusion about screening guidelines.
Cancer in the Ransom Note
(April 5, 2012)
Why should cancer patients in the United States and Canada — and those who love or diagnose them — care about a report about looming water shortages in distant countries such as South Africa and Argentina?
A Bridge to Somewhere – Responding to the President's Cancer Panel Report (Part 3)
(July 7, 2010)
The President's Cancer Panel report has been provoking passionate responses. An attack by the nation's leading cancer charity against a report that argues for cancer prevention via stronger environmental reform deserves a closer look.
A Bridge to Somewhere – Responding to the President's Cancer Panel Report (Part 2)
(June 15, 2010)
There is also a disconnect between what we in the scientific community know about the roles that chemical exposures play in the story of cancer and what cancer patients are told.
A Bridge to Somewhere – Responding to the President's Cancer Panel Report (Part 1)
(June 7, 2010)
The government has a role to play in making cancer-preventing dietary choices available and affordable for the citizenry and in divorcing our food system from its current dependencies on carcinogens.
The Hope Inside Canada's Garbage Cans
(May 24, 2010)
The Canadian government hopes to do away with trash altogether by making manufacturers responsible for products throughout their life cycle. Already, it's impressively far down the road.
Canadian Bylaws; American Lawn Flags
(May 10, 2010)
In Canada, the ban on nonessential uses of pesticides began with old-fashioned citizen activism in the small village of Hudson in Quebec.
Escape from the Heartland – Atrazine, Susan G. Komen, and KFC
(May 5, 2010)
When you are peddling fried chicken breasts in the name of addressing breast cancer, you are distracting us from an ongoing battle about the use of atrazine in the creation of that food.
Release the Day – My Secret Desire to Waste Time, Investigate the Past, and Imagine the Future
(April 25, 2010)
Cancer survivors — and there are more than ten million of us in the United States — can be a powerful lobby for change. We can show the human cost of past polluting practices and fight for a safe, just future.