Page 101 - ECOlogic Book

He describes the reaction of some of his friends to information they’d rather
not know. They “think I have been duped somehow, and they continue
making sure that they are not exposed to the facts that duped me.” 110

In 1994 I read in a Detroit News/Free Press front page article that the
“years-long effort to clean up pollution in the Great lakes is paying off . . .”
Calling it a “success story,” the article reported that concentrations of toxic
chemicals in people’s bodies and in the environment had dropped sharply
since the 1970’s. PCB levels in trout were tumbling and DDT levels in milk
from nursing mothers had fallen sharply, the report said. Wildlife too was on
the upswing, it said, with bald eagles nearing the highest level ever
measured.

“The Institutional controls on polluting substances that were put into place
by the United States and Canada over the last three decades seem to have
worked,” 111 Barry Johnson, assistant administrator of the Federal Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Control was quoted as saying.

Although the article goes on to point out that other scientists said we were a
long way from declaring victory, the overall tone of the article was rosy. I
breathed a sigh of relief and slept well that night, comforted by the
knowledge that since 1972, when DDT was outlawed by the United States,
and since 1978, when PCBs were banned, levels of both had dropped
dramatically in both the Great lakes fish and people. “At last, all the hard
work of environmentalists has paid off,” I thought. “Humans are capable of
making the right decisions! We can do the right thing!”

I stopped reading articles on organochlorines. I started glossing over
reports that had negative information about Great lakes pollution. I slid into
denial, ignoring the article’s conclusion that foreshadowed more recent
information: “some health specialists said concentrations of toxic chemicals
still may be high enough to cause cancer and a spectrum of other health
problems in people, such as infertility, that have appeared in laboratory
animals.” 112

110 IBID.

111 Schneider, Keith, (New York Times), “Great Lakes Clean Up: Scientists Say toxins Deop, Animals Thrive,”
the Detroit news and Free press, May 7, 1994.

112 IBID.

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