Home | About Us | Our Products | Our Services | E-Newsletter | Resources | Contact Us | Site Index
SHOP ONLINE NOW
|
E-Newsletter 
Newsletter
Radio
Shows
|
New! Search All Of My Articles By Topic With Quick and Easy Links If you like this article, please link to it, instead of copying it. Thank you. Green Living Now News, Edition Thirteen 1. Dangerous Lead Levels in Children's Vinyl Lunch Bags Found Does your child have a "Tweety Bird", "Powerpuff Girls", or "Superman", or other vinyl lunch bag? If so, they may be exposed to high lead levels. Independent laboratory testing found that the "Angela Anaconda" lunch box, made by Targus International, had lead levels that were more than 90 times the 600 parts per million legal limit for lead in children's products. Other lunch bags showed between 2 and 25 times the legal limit for lead paint in children's products. What's lead doing in children's products anyway? What the heck is going on? The Center for Environmental Health (CEH) is filing lawsuits today (9/6/05) against makers and retailers of soft vinyl lunch boxes because they can expose children to harmful levels of lead. Lead is known to be harmful to children in minute amounts. It can cause: damage to the brain and nervous system, behavior and learning problems (such as hyperactivity), slowed growth, hearing problems, headaches. It's not like lead doesn't also affect adults. Some of the health effects are: difficulties during pregnancy, other reproductive problems (in both men and women), high blood pressure, nerve disorders, memory and concentration problems, and muscle and joint pain. The higher lead levels are usually found in the lining. So, imagine opening your lunch box, removing your lunch (which may have lead dust on it) and then eating your food, along with lead. Unfortunately we can't tell from looking at the lunch bags whether or not the bag contains lead, so CEH is advising that people avoid vinyl lunch bags altogether. They suggest a reusable cloth bag instead. And, of course there's always the brown paper bag. Lawsuits or violation notices are being filed against lunch box producers: Igloo and InGear, Toys "R" Us, Walgreens, Big Lots, Ross Stores, Warner Brothers, Time Warner, and DC Comics. Sources: 2. "I Don't Think Anyone Anticipated A Breach of the Levees". Not true. On September 1, 2005, appearing on "Good Morning America" with Diane Sawyer, President Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated a breach of the levees". The truth, according to one of many sources-- the Chicago Tribune (that same day) is "Despite continuous warnings that a catastrophic hurricane could hit New Orleans, the Bush Administration and Congress in recent years have repeatedly denied full funding for hurricane preparation and flood control. That has delayed construction of levees around the city and stymied an ambitious project to improve drainage in New Orlean's neighborhoods". On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana told the Times-Picayune, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us". According to Mike Tidwell, author of "Bayou Farewell" The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast" printed in 2003, the Bush administration was "besieged with urgent requests for levee restoration and building by the State of LA and by New Orleans itself for years. They heard repeated urgent pleas for federal money contributed towards the $14 billion coastal restoration plan, which is a plan to reengineer the coast of LA and recreate the islands and the wetlands that have disappeared. This President ignored or dramatically under-funded all requests for federal involvement in that plan." How very sad and shortsighted. The much-maligned LA Governor Kathleen Blanco even met with Bush a few months after he was elected. She told him how the LA coast was disappearing and was outlandishly vulnerable to hurricanes. The President's response was, "I'd like to help you as long as the science is sound". Then he proceeded to do nothing. In 2004, the Army Corp of Engineers asked for $105 million to hurricane and flood projects in New Orleans. The White House slashed it to $40 million, and Congress approved $42.2 million, less than half of the requested amount. Instead, our government spent $231 million on a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, and for dust control on Arkansas roads, and other "pork" projects. Now look at how much money the government is spending on the disaster in the Gulf Coas, after the fact. But don't take my word for it, do an Internet search on the terms, "Did the New Orleans catastrophe have to happen" or words to that affect. You will find numerous articles and sources of information. There is another important issue beyond how the federal government failed the people of the Gulf Coast and the rest of us by making it vividly clear that we are not protected in the case of an emergency, either manmade or natural. (I'm not going to discuss racism and poverty in this article as I want to focus on the environmental issues). As many of us now know, the Gulf Coast has always been vulnerable to coastal storms. The sad thing is that for the love of money, people have made things worse. What am I talking about? Ironically the landscape of Gulf Coast depends on regular floods to build up the sediment and keep the landscape above water. Instead, since the 18th century, people have been trying to dominate the region by building levees, dams, spillways, and other things along the bayous, streams and rivers. The flood control projects have sent the nourishing sediment into the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. Clear thinking people should have recognized the madness of building a port and a vibrant city on the shifting mud of an area regularly ravaged by storms. The opportunity to make money overrode their common sense. Naturally, where there is a port, there are settlers. Then, in the 20th century, oil and gas refineries were built, and to make matters worse, they added petrochemical factories. It's a sad fact that most petrochemical factories are located in poor communities, as the people generally do not have the funds to fight them. A number of years back at the peak of my environmental activist career, I was sent by the nonprofit, Clean Water Action, to St. Louis for a conference about water. I met many wonderful people, mainly women, from Louisiana, who shared their stories of living surrounded by so many toxic chemical plants. They told us about the disease and health issues rampant in their community, which they knew was tied to the release of toxic chemicals from these plants. Even legally released toxic chemicals cause health impacts to surrounding communities. Now New Orleans is a clearly bowl of toxic soup. But, I digress… The first line of defense against hurricanes and storm surges are the islands. Without the regular deposit of sediment, the islands have shrunk significantly in the last several decades. Then there are the marshes, which are said to be able to absorb one foot of a hurricane's storm surge (the water pushed by the wind). According to Mike Tidwell, "… the same Bush administration that ignored the warnings about the levees in New Orleans also ignored the warning about the barrier islands and the wetlands buffering the coast of Louisiana. They did nothing, and now we have a million refugees (I don't like that word) and tens of thousands of people probably dead and who knows much economic damage. Their negligent policy led to or contributed to this catastrophe. They are now ignoring the same ironclad data from their own agencies saying that climate change is real. And one of the impacts is going to be one to three feet of sea level rise in the 21st century". This means that every coastal city in America is at risk. The science behind global warming tells us that
ocean levels are rising as a result of the higher global temperatures
melting the polar ice caps. There is also the fact that storms are
more intense as a result of global warming. We can't let our government
keep ignoring danger signs until crisis hits. http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/gsteps.asp Sources: 3. Common Chemical In Cosmetics Ages Skin In Sunlight The synthetic chemical, methlyparaben, used as an antiseptic agent in many cosmetic products, has been found to advance the aging process of your skin when exposed to sunlight. The reaction causes wrinkles and liver spots. Whoa, hold on there, we certainly don't need to speed up the natural aging process, do we? So, what products contain methylparaben? It's in sunscreen, moisturizer, lipstick, eye makeup, mascara, powder, shampoo-thousands of products!! It's the most commonly used antiseptic agent. If you go to the ewg.org website, and click on "How Safe Are Your Cosmetics" (on right hand side towards bottom), then go to "searchable product guide" and then down to "Search for an ingredient" and select "M" for methylparaben, you will find this about methylparaben, " May alter hormone levels, possibly increasing risks for certain types of cancer, impaired fertility, or alteration of the development of a fetus or young child". Yikes! Professor Toshikazu Yoshikawa and a team of researchers from the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine conducted the study on methylparaben. They were looking for any side effects from normal use, despite the fact that the government has deemed the chemical safe. They found that the skin cells with methylparaben when exposed to sunlight (the average amount on a summer day) had three times the lipid peroxide (driving force behind the aging process) than the skin cells without methylparaben. Professor Yoshikawa said that the findings confirm that methylparaben, when exposed to ultraviolet rays, advances the aging process in skin cells. So, either you stay in the dark (pun intended)
or you choose products without methylparaben (and other synthetic
chemicals). None of the products that I sell contain methylparaben.
http://www.greenlivingnow.com/products.htm http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200508260139.html
It's free to subscribe to my monthly newsletter. Sign up for Green Living Expert, Amy Todisco's,
|
Email: info@greenlivingnow.com
Phone: (802) 434-3813 Toll Free Number: 1-888-GREEN08
© 2004-2005 Green Living Now. All rights reserved.