You know how it is…you are enjoying a fine meal, a fancy new piece of fashion or furniture, or even the simple pleasure of a freshly cleaned floor…and you’re suddenly overtaken with anxiety. Sometimes, knowledge is a curse.
You know when things don’t add up. Usually, price is the first clue. Whatever it is, if it’s cheap, it’s probably not good. It’s probably grown or manufactured under less than ideal circumstances, comprised of materials and chemicals that simply aren’t safe, or it’s been shipped so far from its place of origin that it’s mere presence forces you to stop and question. Then, once it – whatever it is – has served its primary purpose, you know full well it’s physical presence will remain indefinitely, cluttering up a landfill somewhere and leaving evidence of your excess for future generations to discover.
Isn’t knowledge supposed to mean power?
Well yes, indeed, it does. Knowledge does mean power. It means we have the power to choose wisely, and the power to change.
My friend Rick Smith knows. And, he wants us all to have more power. Power, that is, over what we surround ourselves with, what we choose to use, and most of all, over what we can actually do to make change.
So Rick, along with his friends Bruce Lourie and Sarah Dopp, have gone and written a book, titled Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects our Health. I’m off to the Ottawa launch next week to learn more.
Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie. Photo by Anne deHaas, via booklounge.ca
Now my friend Rick is a funny guy. Yes, he’s an important environmentalist, and yes, he’s a serious scientist, but he’s also got quite a sense of humour. And, this isn’t just any book about “what we can all do to change the world”. Instead, this a real live account of what Rick has already experienced doing nothing to change his world. This is a book about just living life in our everyday environment.
For the period of one week, Rick and his friend Bruce ingested and inhaled the commonplace things that we have around us all the time, and they carefully kept track of their impact. In the end, this scientific experiment turned up results that weren’t all that funny. Yikes!
Now if this whole “toxic” mix scenario has you recalling the 1981 movie “The Incredible Shrinking Woman” starring Lily Tomlin, you are not alone. When I heard of Rick’s book, I too had flashbacks of this old favourite that foretold of the damaging effects of household chemicals, and I wondered how my friend Rick managed to maintain his full height! Then, I remembered that I too have to survive my own environment, and decided there was nobody I would rather learn from than him.
So, no more “ignorance is bliss”. I will head out to next week’s book launch and empower myself with knowledge. That way, real change will be up to me and the choices I make…
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.
Ultimately hopeful, the book empowers readers with some simple ideas for protecting themselves and their families, and changing things for the better. - From the publisher
Collage images via Flickr, babyivebeenthinking.blogspot.com & amazon.ca.
