Partnering with Gray Wolves to Solve the Conservation Crises of Our Time

Photo: Dreamstime

Original article on DiCaprio Foundation website.

By: Rebecca White

We are enduring the sixth mass extinction of life on our home planet. The Guardian UK recently reported on a studyshowing that 96% of all mammals remaining on earth are humans and livestock. Only 4% are wild mammals. Just since 1970, it is estimated we have killed off 60% of vertebrate wildlife. 40% of insect species face extinction. Scientists have stated that life will need 10 million years of evolution to recover from the onslaught of humanity on the wild world.

These numbers are horrifically difficult to read. On top of this, we are heating our atmosphere to the point at which large swathes of our home may become uninhabitable. And these twin crises – the biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis – are interlinked and self-perpetuating in ways we don’t fully understand.

But there is good news here, too: we are not alone in this battle. If we let it, the rest of life on earth will work with us to avert disaster.

Wolves as Partners in Fighting Climate Change and the Biodiversity Crisis

The gray wolf is a keystone species, without which its ecosystem “arch” falls in a jumble of nonfunctional rocks. It’s an apt analogy: the near-collapse of parts of Yellowstone National Park’s ecosystems after wolves were eradicated last century has become common knowledge.

A series of studies emerging from Yellowstone has explained how some of the park’s damaged ecosystems began to recover once their keystone was reintroduced. It’s a beautiful fact that indeed, rewildingmissing carnivores can restore ecosystems.

Wolves increase biodiversity. In Yellowstone, for example, the return of wolves led to changes in elk behavior that allowed streamside willows and aspen to regenerate. This in turn allowed for the return of songbirds, beavers, fish, and frogs. Wolves also feed their fellow species by leaving partially uneaten prey atop the winter snowpack, and thereby providing a feast for perhaps hundreds of other species from grizzlies to insects to fungi. Wolf-driven processes increase the complexity and health of their ecosystems.

Gray wolves can also contribute to climate stability. As a general proposition, functional ecosystems store more carbon. Beyond that, in some temperate forest ecosystems, the loss of wolves has meant the loss of new trees. Predator scientist Dr. Bill Ripple and others showed that when wolves were absent from Yellowstone, elk browsed all the young trees and shrubs from certain areas, leaving a 70-year gap in tree recruitment. His team found similar results in other North American parks where wolves had been absent for a time.

 

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Photo showing missing age classes of trees in Canada’s Jasper National Park, where wolves were mostly absent for about 25 years. Image copyright and courtesy of: Bill Ripple

What’s more, wolves create conditions for beavers to thrive. Beavers alter the flow of water through an ecosystem, slowing its flow and providing rich habitat for a complex array of species. Too, beavers build wetlands and ponds, which can lock away a great deal of carbon.

We know that millions of wolves once roamed the North American continent. Now, only 5,000-6,000 grace the lower 48, where many hundreds of thousands once practiced their particular brand of ecosystem services. Many vibrant, carbon-sequestering ecosystems have been lost.

A map of historical gray wolf distribution (shaded gray area) versus current range (bright green) is stark. But dark green areas shows zones to which wolves might still return and thrive, and serve again as ecosystem engineers of the highest order.

 

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 Map courtesy of the Center for Biological Diversity

From Wolves to the “Warning to Humanity”

Emerging from a deep dive into climate and biodiversity data, Dr. Ripple penned the now-famous “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, A Second Notice.” It traces worsening trends in key metrics and calls on the world to decarbonize the economy immediately, to protect and restore natural systems, and to control human population growth.

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Dr. Ripple sent the draft paper to 40 colleagues, hoping a few would sign on. By the time it was published, over 15,000 scientists from around the world had endorsed the warning, which went on to make international headlines and has become one of the most-cited papers ever published. It calls on leaders and citizens worldwide to make immediate and drastic changes in policy and behavior.

But at this critical juncture, when we are literally out of time and must try every potential method to stem ecological collapse, the Trump administration has proposed removing endangered species protections from gray wolves across the lower 48. Again, a mere 5,000-6,000 gray wolves remain here to do the work that hundreds of thousands once performed, and many, many habitats are still empty of wolves.

So much more than a wolf numbers game, this decision would turn wolf management over to state fish and game agencies. Although many states across the western U.S. have made headlines for their “green” governors and forward-thinking climate policies, most of our state fish and game departments remain mired in unenlightened, unscientific thinking about predator management. Rather than viewing keystone predators as partners in restoring healthy ecosystems for the benefit of all species, including humans, most “manage” wolves by killing them. In a time of urgent conservation crises, this is a terrible way to manage our precious and dwindling wildlife resources.

Americans are hurtling toward a decision that may make it impossible for our wolves to return home and partner with us in our efforts to stem climate change and biodiversity loss. We must not dismantle this crucial tool; the situation is indeed so dire that we must use all the options available to us. The Trump administration will likely soon finalize its proposal to remove federal protections from gray wolves across the lower 48. With enough voices speaking up to demand that we not only keep endangered species protections in place for our gray wolves, but that we actively work to help their populations recover in areas where they used to roam, we may yet correct that misguided course.

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Nonstick Pans: The Convenience Is Not Worth the Risk

Ultimately, we are trading possible cancer or other long term health problems for a way to keep eggs from sticking in the pan. Is this a trade you are willing to make?

A couple of years ago, we got rid of all our nonstick cookware, including a skillet or two, a rice cooker, and some assorted bakeware. I’ll be honest, I was prompted to do so by this fairly horrifying investigative journalism series by the hard-hitting researchers at the online magazine The Intercept.

The nonstick chemicals are part of a class of substances known as perfluorinated compounds (PFCs). These chemicals are 100% synthetic, and their name comes from the fact that fluorine atoms have been chemically substituted for a hydrogen atoms along the carbon chain of carboxylic acid. They are used in the manufacture of such extremely common substances as nonstick coating on cookware, the lining of microwave popcorn bags and fast-food wrappers, and stain resistant coatings applied to furniture and carpets.

DuPont, the manufacturer of Teflon, recently settled a lawsuit for $671 million regarding  pollution of the water supply from a Teflon-manufacturing plant in West Virginia. Thousands of area residents who were sickened by PFOA (one type of PFC, and the chemical formerly used to make Teflon) sued for damages. DuPont was separately fined $16.5 million by the EPA for its knowing release of PFOA at the same site.

In the lawsuit, DuPont agreed not to contest the evidence that PFOA causes various cancers. In fact, DuPont’s own panel concluded that there was a probable link with six illnesses: kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and high cholesterol. An external review panel appointed by the FDA and a science panel funded by the DuPont settlement later declared that PFOA is a “likely” cause of cancer. For the backstory on the federal enforcement action and lawsuits, see here.

When I learned about the DuPont/Teflon lawsuits, I’d just had our daughter, and I resolved to minimize the potential for any further nonstick chemicals to enter her body through the food she ate, including my breastmilk. Further research led me to reduce my family’s exposure to other products made with chemicals in the same toxic class, including stainproofing and grease-resistant coatings.

In 2009, as a result of the information brought to light in the legal challenges, the Obama EPA issued a provisional (meaning non-enforceable) safe drinking water limit on PFOA (used to make Teflon) at 0.4 ppb (parts per billion) and for PFOS (used to make other coatings) at 0.2 ppb. In 2014, EPA started the process of implementing a permanent lower 0.1 ppb safe limit for PFOA, but never finalized it. The gist is that PFOA and PFOS are extremely toxic even at the tiniest imaginable doses. In light of the fact that our current EPA administrator’s stated goal is to dismantle the EPA, I’d hazard a guess that this limit will not be put in place anytime soon.

And even if it were? More recent research has shown that 0.1 ppb may be 333 times too high. A Harvard toxicologist and a U Mass cancer epidemiologist recently proposed a maximum safe limit of 0.001 ppb, which is 100 times lower than the limit the EPA was considering. An independent re-evaluation of their data determined that their numbers actually suggested an upper safe limit of 0.0003 ppb, which is a significant reduction.

In light of this new data, the Environmental Working Group received a large National Science Foundation grant to partner with Northeastern University to gain an idea of how pervasive PFOA and the other PFCs are in our nation’s water supplies. They’ve published an interactive map that citizens can use to evaluate their own risk of exposure through drinking water:

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What about the “official” line that Teflon is safe? The American Cancer Society’s evaluation of risk regarding Teflon and PFOA is fairly reserved. It states “there are no known risks to humans from using Teflon-coated cookware.” I emphasize “no known risks.” Let’s not forget unknown, or unproven risks.

And even despite this statement, the Cancer Society concedes that PFOA is present in “extremely small amounts” in Teflon cookware. A study showed that a residual 4-75 ppb of PFOA was present in Teflon cookware. Yes, that is an “extremely small amount.” Well, as the safety data have shown, an extremely small amount of PFOA is enough to make people sick, and this is why eventually, a safe drinking water limit of somewhere in the range of 0.001 ppb (a really, really “extremely small amount,” which is thousands of times lower than the residual amount found in Teflon) will be put in place.

Becoming a parent raised my level of concern and caution regarding chemical safety. The concept of the “body burden” for synthetic chemicals in our bodies has gained quite a bit of traction in the scientific literature, and in the media. This is the idea that many synthetic chemicals to which we are exposed remain in our bodies for various lengths of time, often up to years. American babies are widely exposed to a variety of chemicals through their mothers’ cord blood and later, through breastmilk and chemicals in the food they eat, the air and dust they breathe, the things they touch, and the water they drink.

This is worrisome for many reasons, chief among them that no studies have shown what effects most of the chemicals in production in the United States have on infants and children. Further, children are developing and changing rapidly, and this process relies on an incredibly complex web of hormonal signals and epigenetic responses. (Think it’s not that complex? Take a look at an endocrinology text sometime. It’s actually a mindblowingly immense body of chemical reactions, and science has yet to identify the vast majority of the body’s chemical signaling pathways.)

Endocrine disruption is one major way that a large class of synthetic chemicals, including the ‘nonsticks,’ interact within the body. My goal is to minimize as much as possible the chance that a synthetic chemical will derail some important pathway of growth and development in my daughter’s body.

The other major concern with the body burden concept is that fact that chemicals act in synergy — and no lab is testing these interactions. What this means in the real world is that the effect in the body of a single chemical may be negligible, but in combination with our underlying body burden of (potentially) hundreds of other chemicals, an unknown and harmful cascade of events leading to cancer or other illness is possible, or even likely.

The US CDC (Centers for Disease Control), has reported that four nonstick chemicals (PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, and PFNA), are present in small amounts in nearly all of Americans tested, indicating widespread exposure to these nonstick chemicals in the U.S. population.

PFOA alone was found in nearly all the blood samples collected by the CDC. PFOA was used to make Teflon from the 1940s until 2015. Some, but not all, drinking water supplies are contaminated with PFOA (contamination has been found in about half of US states). The CDC surmises the potential routes of exposure are drinking water and contaminated food. If only a portion of our water supplies are contaminated, the remaining route is contaminated food. How else would food be contaminated except by our cookware or packaging? It defies logic to accept at face value the proposition that nonstick cookware is not a significant route of exposure.

Researchers are working on the mechanisms of toxicity, but for now, the PFCs are thought to cause disease by interfering with the “peroxisome proliferator-activator receptors, thyroid hormone system, fatty acid homeostasis and cell communication.” Again, not things I wish to expose a growing kid to.

So how can scientists find out whether chemicals are harmful?

Because it is obviously unethical to dose people with chemicals then wait to see what happens, we have at least two ways to design studies to try to get at that information. One way is to dose lab animals with those chemicals and see how they respond. There are weaknesses with this approach (other than the ethical questions around killing lots of animals to test yet another unnecessary chemical product). One in particular is that the metabolic and hormonal pathways of other mammals are far different from ours. We can draw some conclusions from animal studies, but I consider them weak evidence at best.

The other way is to do a population-level study based on questionnaires and blood samples. This type of study would take a large group of people, test their blood or other tissues to see what chemicals are present, ask questionnaires about many lifestyle factors, and see what illnesses they acquire over their lifetime. If the researchers are able to fully account for the other disease-causing factors in their lives, they might be able to draw out a conclusion that “x chemical contributes to y disease.”

I consider this form of evidence to be much stronger. But the problem with this second approach is that it takes decades, because so many diseases occur many years after the triggering event, such as toxic exposure.

People in our culture have a hard time, cognitively, with far-off event horizons. The fact that something may increase our risk for cancer or another illness 30 years down the line is hard for us to internalize and act upon. It is especially hard for us to understand, much less act upon, the newly emerging research showing that epigenetic changes induced by synthetic chemicals may be passed to our offspring.

Epigeneticists are now showing that toxic exposures in our lifetimes can increase the risk of disease in our children’s — and even our grandchildren’s — lives. This seems to me like a pretty good reason to start to think intergenerationally — to consider the effects of our actions seven generations into the future, and not risk our great-great-great-grandchildren’s health without absolute proof of safety.

This is why I advocate for the precautionary principle. In practice, this means that until you have proof something DOESN’T cause harm, you don’t use it. This is how, for example, the environmental regulatory agency of the EU (European Union) evaluates new chemicals.

In contrast, the chronically underfunded underdog in the US, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) does not even have a mandate to test all chemicals or require proof of safety before approving them for the consumer market. EPA, sadly, allows a chemical to hit the market so long as it has not been made aware of a potential for harm. One can certainly imagine lots of ways in which the EPA might never be made aware of internal company research showing evidence of harm — and in fact, multiple lawsuits have been filed to challenge exactly this sort of chemical industry coverup.

Although new laws may change this (if the current administration actually enforces them), the EPA does not require safety testing unless it already has evidence that a chemical causes harm. For a brand-new chemical, you can see it is unlikely this would ever be the case. (And the current administration is actively and openly planning to further defund and defang the EPA, and is also openly and actively reversing its Obama-era safety decisions with a literal wink and a grin to the CEOs of big chemical companies. See here and here for information on EPA’s recent and shocking reversal on chlorpyrifos, a devastating neurotoxin, including a letter written by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 66,000 pediatricians, urging the EPA to ban that pesticide from food use.)

Why is the EPA’s “approval” process insufficient? Several reasons:

  1. Manufacturers perform their own research on their chemicals. Their in-house scientists have an incentive to provide results that fail to show harm.
  2. The EPA does not have the budget or mandate to perform its own independent research on each chemical.
  3. The EPA accepts the manufacturers’ data at face value; that is, the EPA has no way to know if a manufacturer has failed to present all its studies for EPA review. Product testing results that show harm are often held back from EPA oversight. And again, under current protocols, unless the EPA already has evidence that a new chemical causes harm, it can’t require a manufacturer to submit safety data.
  4. American chemicals companies have a long and tawdry history of putting profit over consumer safety. Civil lawsuits and criminal enforcement have brought to light a record of truly egregious behavior. See here and here for just two examples among many.

There are some 85,000 synthetic chemicals in circulation in the US market. Due to the weak laws governing the chemical industry, a mere handful of them have been independently tested for safety.

I trust independent research showing that a product is safe over a mere lack of evidence of harm (even if honestly provided by a manufacturer, which seems unlikely) anytime. But even if we had an EPA that was fully funded and directed to perform its own independent research on chemical safety prior to approval, without applying the precautionary principle, that safety data would still not be completely reliable.

This is because the kinds of studies that can give us really good information on the long-term effects of a new chemical take decades to yield their data. And, unless those long-term studies can take into account the body burden, or synergies of multiple chemical exposures, then they are not giving us the whole picture.

In sum, I am extremely skeptical of recommendations based on government or industrial safety data. I have been a government employee myself, and I am aware that the vast majority of government professionals are goodhearted people who really did get into public service to do just that: serve the public. Unfortunately, their work is frequently defunded or ignored by higher-level policymakers, depending on the whim of the administration.

So, should you stop using your nonstick cookware? In my opinion, yes, absolutely, especially if you cannot prove that it was manufactured after 2015 (the year DuPont stopped using PFOA to make Teflon).

Even if you buy brand-new cookware, I am going to recommend that you do not buy any with a non-stick coating. Why is this? Well, it goes back to the chemical structure of PFCs, the overall class of perfluorinated chemicals that includes the nonstick chemicals.

The phased-out chemicals PFOA and PFOC are long-chain PFCs. This means that they consist of a carbon chain that is at least 8 carbons long. Attached to it is a series of fluorine atoms. (Carboxylic acid is reacted with hydrofluoric acid, and the hydrogen atoms on the carbon chain are replaced with fluorine atoms.)

The replacement of hydrogen atoms with fluorine gives the PFC molecules their hydrophobic quality: that is, they repel water. In addition, they repel fat, which is why they are used to make nonstick cookware and stain-resistant coatings.

The chemicals now being used instead of PFOA and PFOS differ only in that the carbon chain is shorter: 6 or fewer carbon atoms versus the 8 or more in the older compounds. The hydrophobicity (water-repelling) and lipophobicity (fat-repelling) properties of the molecules are not affected by the carbon-chain length; those properties are characteristics of the fluorination. This suggests that the factors which make the longer chain compounds harmful would remain unchanged in the shorter chain compounds. And, although limited research has started to appear showing that these new PFCs are also harmful to human health, the chemicals are just too new and there hasn’t been time to present a full range of research.

Starting in 2009, DuPont phased in a compound called GenX to replace PFOA in Teflon and other products it manufactures. Research already shows that this substitute is toxic to humans in some of the same ways as the earlier generation of PFCs. Indeed, in the last couple of months, the Cape Fear (North Carolina) Public Utility authority and a conservative advocacy group called Civitas have separately issued notices of intent to sue DuPont over contamination of North Carolina drinking water with GenX.

To me, the precautionary principle and the EPA’s abdication of  its responsibility toward the public (not to mention the manufacturers’ appalling record of lying and coverups) mandate that consumers make the choice NOT to expose their families to these new compounds until they have been throughly vetted with perhaps decades of data proving their safety.

So, I hope I’ve convinced you to get rid of your nonstick cookware. Don’t worry, there are alternatives. For pans, you can choose enamel-coated iron or high-quality stainless steel. With a good application of cooking fat, you will be able to cook most things without sticking. For baking, there are regular metal pans or inert silicon cake pans and muffin tins which are close to nonstick. I was able to find a rice cooker that has a stainless steel bowl, instead of Teflon.

There are other places PFCs lurk that you will probably want to take a look at too. A group of scientists recently called on “the international community to cooperate in limiting the production and use of PFASs [PFCs] and in developing safer nonfluorinated alternatives.” They recommended manufacturers stop using all PFCs, and recommended consumers stop buying “products containing, or manufactured using, PFASs [PFCs]. These include many products that are stain-resistant, waterproof, or nonstick.”

  • Fast food wrappers contain PFCs. The residue has been shown to soak into the food. One third of fast food wrappers tested contained PFCs.
  • Coated “gliding” dental flosses are typically coated with PTFE. For floss, I substitute a natural string floss coated with beeswax. It works just as well.
  • Microwave popcorn bags are coated with a grease-repellant that is made with PFCs. Pop it the old-fashioned way. It tastes better with olive oil and sea salt, and is better for you anyway!
  • Carpets, upholstery, and clothes that have been treated to be stain-resistant (with Scotchgard or something similar) contain PFCs. When you recarpet, you can choose one that is wool (naturally stain-resistant) or another carpet that has not been treated with stain repellants. Many furniture manufacturers now refrain from treating their upholstery with stain repellants, and the ones that do so typically advertise it!
  • Studies show household dust is a major source of toxic exposure, especially for kids, who are often down on the floor among the dust bunnies. Molecules of volatilized PFCs (and many other synthetic chemicals and toxic heavy metals) collect in your household dust. Dusting with a damp cloth and vacuuming regularly with a HEPA filter are effective ways to reduce this exposure route.
  • Finally, view the Northeastern University map for whether your drinking water might be contaminated. When reviewing the numbers, remember, research now suggests that a level of no more than 0.001 ppb in your drinking water is safe. If your water district shows numbers higher than this, you might want to consider a reverse osmosis filter for your drinking water.

Ultimately, we are trading possible cancer or other long term health problems (for us and our kids) for a way to make eggs stick less in the pan. Is this a trade you are willing to make?

 

Need Hope? Draw It Down!

The image above is from the website, http://www.drawdown.org.

I could spend hours summarizing what can be found there, but really, I think you should just go to the website and wallow in hope and solutions for a few minutes (or days). Really, we can do this! The world does not have to end for us to draw down greenhouse gases enough to reverse the worst impacts of climate change–in fact, a more peaceful, healthy, and beautiful world is within range. All we have to do is stop fighting with each other, and focus together! Easier said than done, I know, especially when it seems that no one here in the U.S. can get along, but at least there’s a roadmap for a set of solutions. We just have to get on board.

How to Stop Poisoning Yourself

Part 1: Personal Care Products

Well, hey, sometimes we’ve just got to take a clear-eyed look at some things. And when it comes to our health and that of our children, we need to not only see things the way they are, we need to take matters into our own hands to solve them.

Of course, we can debate whether science proves this or that, or whether we should trust our government to protect us from toxic exposure. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. If the chemical skeptics are even half right, staying away from synthetic chemicals is a net win for you. And if they’re later proven to be totally right (as they have been so many times before … added nicotine, DDT, RoundUp, just to name a few off the top of my head), then you’ll thank yourself for making the wise choice now. And that choice is to stop poisoning yourself.

So, I’m going to start with personal care items. I’m including things like lotions, shampoos, nail polish removers, deodorants, sunscreens, toothpastes, perfumes, and so on. I’m also including cosmetics. Listen: most of this stuff is super-toxic. The problem is that cosmetics and personal care items fall into a no-man’s land of the U.S regulatory space, so there’s really no agency that oversees what manufacturers put into them. Luckily, the Environmental Working Group has stepped in to fill the breach. Don’t take my word for it, just go to their website and look up the products you use in their easy-to-search database. You’ll see what you’re putting on your skin, and in your body, and you won’t like it. Here’s the link.

I did it, and it kind of sucked. I was in denial for a while, as many of my favorite products ranked pretty poorly for toxicity. But I gradually started to assimilate my new reality — one without most commercial personal care products. And I started to look for alternatives.

Even if you aren’t motivated to protect your own health by looking for alternatives, at least look up the products you use on your kids and babies. Some of them are not so bad, but some of them (even brands that claim to be “natural”) are pretty darn bad. I did this, and ended up throwing out several almost-full bottles of supposedly all-natural baby care products that I couldn’t even bear to give to friends because I didn’t want to poison their babies either. Be sure to check out your kids’ shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and sunscreen, for starters. I  can tell you right off the bat that two brands of baby stuff are safe: California Baby and Earth Mama Angel Baby. I have found these at Babies R Us, so they’re fairly easy to find. And good ole coconut oil is always nontoxic and so safe for your kids … you can use a tiny bit to detangle hair or moisturize skin.

And if anyone in your family uses nail polish or gets mani/pedis, read this quick link. You gotta know this stuff to protect your family.

So here are some alternatives I’ve found for my own personal care products.

Deodorant: Easily make your own from inexpensive ingredients. Here’s one I found that works great for me (and I’ve never found a “natural” deodorant that would work for me). This one even works for the guys who have tried it. I used Recipe #2 on this site. So easy, even I couldn’t mess it up. Took like two minutes. I halved the recipe, so the ingredients probably cost no more than $1. And it has lasted a few months so far. Crazy cheap and effective.

Lotion: Coconut oil. Virgin if you like coconut scent, refined if you want no smell. A large tub of coconut oil can be found for about $10 … compare that to a bottle of lotion, plus the coconut oil lasts way longer. It’s not diluted with water like most lotions, so you don’t have to use much. I even use a little on my face. It does not clog pores and may even have slight antibacterial properties. Plus it leaves my cheeks super soft.

Shampoo: There are people out there going “no ‘poo” but I’m just not ready. Maybe I’ll experiment with it later. You can google “no poo experiment” and find lots of bloggers who’ve done it if you want to get crazy with it. My solution is to buy Lush shampoo bars online. They’re super sudsy, make your scalp and hair feel great, and they’re so nontoxic, you could basically eat them. Also they’re way cheaper than bottled shampoo.

Conditioner: I’ve been going back and forth between a couple of things. Both work pretty well. Basically, I use no conditioner in the shower. Then after I’ve dried my hair a little, I either rub a tiny bit of coconut oil in my hands and smooth into my hair, or I use a little bit of Aveda’s argan oil throughout my hair. (I am not sure how great the argan oil is, since it has not been reviewed in the Skin Deep database yet.) Both of these methods leave my hair pretty soft and controlled. Everyone’s hair is so different that you just have to experiment at a time when you are willing to risk a bad hair day. But you might end up with the best hair day ever, who knows?

Soap/body wash: Dr. Bronner’s. Easy.

Manicures/pedicures: gave them up. Nail salons are basically toxic chemical stews, mostly unregulated and never well-ventilated. You can tell just from walking in that it’s not good to breathe that air — kind of smells like the pesticide aisle at the hardware store. There are a couple of less-toxic nail polish brands you can find at natural food stores … I have a crazy little kid so my nails aren’t too much of a priority for me right now, but I may look into these brands more later.

Toothpaste: I’m still on Tom’s of Maine. It’s available everywhere and I like the taste. Most of their toothpastes rank very low for toxicity. There are definitely DIY options to look into. I just haven’t made it there yet, and I’m not sure I will, since Tom’s seems OK.

Lip balm: old standby, coconut oil.

I think that’s about it, so far. I am in no need of sunscreen for a few months, so I’ll check into that a little later. I did look into the sunscreen we bought for the kid, and the Badger Baby sunscreen was super safe. Whole Foods and the like carry it —  or there’s always Amazon.

I don’t wear makeup except for special occasions. When I do, it’s always Aveda … and I don’t know much about Aveda products since they’re not listed on the website. They advertise that they’re nontoxic though, so I’m going with that for now, until I know better. I’ll update this if I find out more.

So, today was Personal Care. Here’s some topics for posts I’ll be doing in the next couple of weeks:

  • Cleaning Supplies
  • Your Food and Water – including why you have GOT TO get rid of that non-stick cookware.
  • Chemicals Around the House – garden stuff, pet stuff, paints, flooring, fabrics, air fresheners, etc.

 

 

 

China’s Richest Man Buys American Wildlife Reserve

On the West Coast anyway, there’s been lots of buzz about Chinese investors buying up U.S. properties as investments. Now, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba and China’s most wealthy individual, has spent $23 million to buy a property in the Adirondack Mountains and turn it into a wildlife preserve. It is a beautiful property — 28,000 acres of rolling, forested mountains with good wildlife habitat and pristine streams, ponds, and river stretches — according to the marketing video, below.

This rural New York parcel, surrounded by Adirondack Park, includes some of the best brook trout fishing in the country. A previous owner donated a conservation easement on the property to the Nature Conservancy. This restriction means that Mr. Ma may now carry out only certain activities on the property. In this case, he may do some logging and construct nine more homes on the land, but may do no commercial development. While enviros were hoping that the state of New York might purchase the property for a public park — or that a nonprofit might do so and hold it until it could be sold to the state — it was simply too expensive. In addition, the conservation easement already in place provides pretty strong protection, so this parcel wasn’t a high priority for state or nonprofit acquisition when compared to other properties at higher risk of development.

Now, if our many American billionaires would join Mr. Ma in protecting wildlife habitat by purchasing it, that would be great!

 

2015 Was Actually a Pretty Good Year for the Environment

You will hear that 2015 was the hottest year on record, but it was also a year of important environmental breakthroughs. Here are several signs that things are starting to get better:

  1. Americans finally believe climate change is real. A recent poll shows 76% of Americans now know climate change is happening. Even a majority of Republicans, whose party has been in aggressive denial about this issue, now understand it’s a problem. Our politicians have the population’s mandate to act. They must therefore stop throwing roadblocks in the path of important and necessary policies, like the EPA’s new Clean Power Plan, which will set the first nationwide limits of power plant emissions (the U.S.’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions).
  2. Other important greenhouse-gas producers, like China, are cutting emissions too. China is a particularly important example — it’s both the world’s largest population center and our largest emitter of Barack Obama, Xi Jinpinggreenhouse gases. The Chinese government is experimenting with carbon trading markets in five cities and two provinces, which altogether contain almost a fifth of China’s population and produce a quarter of its gross domestic product (economic output). This is in preparation for launching a Chinese national carbon trading market in 2017. This is a good sign that China is taking its responsibility to act on climate change seriously.
  3. The U.S. and Cuba are getting along. I posted recently about how Cuba and the U.S. have agreed to work together to monitor marine life in the oceans between the two nations. Because many important marine species cross the international boundary, monitoring them has been challenging. Now the two nations will share data that will make science-based management of fisheries and other ecosystems possible.
  4. Powerful sensors are becoming commercially available. What this means is that realtime data on the presence of toxic chemicals in our day-to-day environment will now be available on a large scale. For example, a large segment of citizens wearing wristband sensors that detect chemical residues could allow for the creation of a large database of chemical abundance. This would allow policymakers to base their decisions regarding the licensing of certain chemicals on real numbers describing how chemicals spread throughout the population. It also means that groups who lobby for tougher chemical safety regulations will have strong data on their side — countering the too-frequent excuse of chemical companies and their lobbyists that “you can’t prove it.”
  5. Scientists finally have a handle on methane emissions. Methane, which is many times over a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is emitted as a byproduct of many processes, particularly those in the oil and gas industries. With new data in hand, states, scientists, and climate activists are now able to push for stronger regulation of methane emissions. Thanks to a series of 16 research projects conducted over the past five years, there is now strong enough data on this pollutant that the federal government has proposed, for the first time, methane-specific regulations for the nation.

Read more details about these issues at the Environmental Defense Fund website. Photo in body of post taken from EDF website.

Header photo from U.S. EPA. View original post here.

Rewilding: The Last Truly Wild Horses Return Home

The Przewalski’s horse has rebounded from near extinction. There were once only 12 of these pony-sized wild horses remaining in the entire world. Even just a few years ago, all the existing Przewalski’s horses lived in captivity, and the species was listed by the IUCN as “extinct in the wild.”

42-22097706.jpg__800x600_q85_cropNow, thanks to a captive breeding program, there are over 2,000 of them worldwide, with about 350 living in the wild in Mongolia. These little horses are the last truly wild horse species in the world. The American mustang and other well-known “wild horses” are actually feral rather than wild — they descended from domesticated horses that got free and chose to live in the wild rather than go back to captivity.

The Przewalski’s horses are not out of the woods. There are concerns about their survival in the age of climate change should Mongolia begin to experience unusually harsh winters. And it is possible that they may interbreed with feral horses, diluting their bloodline so that they would no longer be a distinct species. But the Przewalski’s horse seems to have avoided the biggest threat to species recovering from near-extinction — a lack of genetic diversity leading to inbreeding and health problems.

Read more at Smithsonian here.

Read more at Newsweek here.

All images taken from the sites linked above.

A Good Day for Chimps

It has been a season of good news for wild animals in captivity. I recently posted an article about SeaWorld’s announcement that it will be ending (some of) its killer whale shows. While this big announcement amounted to no more than media spin to deflect the public outcry raised by the film Blackfish, it does look like SeaWorld is eventually going to have to bow to pressure and end its captive orca programs entirely.

Now, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which has long been the government body tasked with approving research projects using chimpanzee test subjects, has announced that it will no longer be keeping a supply of captive chimps for this purpose. It will also continue to phase out all the chimp research funding it has, in the past, provided to outside facilities.

Since 2013, the NIH has been in the process of reducing researcher reliance on chimps. Most of its 360 captive chimps were to be retired, with a group of 50 to be kept in case they were needed for future research. Now, in a document leaked by an NIH employee, the head of the agency has stated that these last 50 chimps would be retired, as well.

Last June, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service listed captive chimps under the Endangered Species Act, making it that much harder for the NIH to approve them for research uses. In addition, any researcher wanting to use chimps would have had to show that the planned research would in some way benefit wild chimps. These strict conditions were apparently enough to deter new chimp-based research, because no new applications for chimpanzee projects were received after the status change went into effect.

Some who would like to have access to captive chimps for use in studies to benefit wild chimps and other primates may be disappointed by this news. Chimp research has already been outlawed in many places. So, overseas researchers who, for example, wish to test ebola vaccines meant for wild chimps on their captive cousins may have trouble finding test subjects. The NIH’s director, however, believes that other species of primates still available to researchers can serve as suitable test subjects for these types of vaccine trials.

The NIH is in the process of preparing a retirement plan for its captive chimps as well as those in other facilities it has been funding.

View the Science magazine article here.

A Beautiful Photo: Little Pika

These little guys, which have been described as a cross between a bunny and a mouse, are undeniably adorable. They are also very picky about where they live. Their physiology requires them to always stay cool, so they can only live at very high altitudes. They can actually die when exposed to temperatures over about 78 degrees Fahrenheit for more than a few hours. They are primarily found in the high Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains.

Photo credit to Jon LeVasseur (www.sharetheexperience.org).

View the original UDSI post here.

because we live in a beautiful world