A Hazardous Environment
One aspect of Human/Nature
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Hazards might be natural or man-made.
They can be
o Physical
o Biological
o Chemical
o Cultural
o Social
The most common environmental hazards (c.f. Clean Air Council) include:
o Tobacco Smoke
o Air Pollution
o Mercury
o Pesticides
o Lead
o Dioxins
o Drinking Water Contamination
Consider reducing purchase of products with hazardous ingredients. Learn about the
use of alternative methods or products—without hazardous ingredients—for some
common household needs.
Selected Resources
Agin, DP. 2010. More than genes: what science can tell us about toxic chemicals,
development, and the risk to our children. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scientific evidence to argue that the fetal environment can be just as crucial as genetic hardwiring or even later environment in determining our intelligence and behavior. Add in
exposure to a host of environmental toxins as well as maternal substance abuse. Cogently
argued, thoroughly researched, and accessibly written, More Than Genes challenges many
long-held assumptions and represents a huge step forward in our understanding of the
origins of human intelligence and behavior.
Amiard-Triquet, C, PS Rainbow, & M Roméo. 2011. Tolerance to environmental
contaminants. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Multidisciplinary approach across contaminant types, habitats, organisms, biological levels
of organization and scientific disciplines. This volume covers mechanisms of defense
involved in the acquisition of tolerance, different classes of environmental contaminants,
positive and negative ecological consequences of tolerance, and the impact of tolerance in
bacteria, plants, and insects on society.
CDC National Center for Environmental Health
http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehhe/
Davies, K. 2013. The rise of the U.S. environmental health movement. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield.
This book offers a comprehensive examination of the environmental health movement,
which unlike many parts of the environmental movement, focuses on ways toxic chemicals
and other hazardous agents in the environment effect human health and well-being. Born in
1978 when Lois Gibbs organized her neighbors to protest the health effects of a toxic waste
dump in Love Canal, New York, the movement has spread across the United States and
throughout the world. This book describes the movement’s historical, ideological, and
cultural roots and analyzes its strategies and successes.
Environmental Health Hazards. Clean Air Council.
November 2015
http://www.cleanair.org/program/environmental_health/childrens_environmental_healt
h/environmental_health_hazards
Hazardous Waste. Environmental Protection Agency.
http://www3.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/
Monosson, E. 2012. Evolution in a toxic world: how life responds to chemical threats.
Washington, DC: Island Press.
While the study of evolution has advanced many other sciences, from conservation biology
to medicine, the field of toxicology has yet to embrace this critical approach. This book
traces the development of life's defense systems—the mechanisms that transform, excrete,
and stow away potentially harmful chemicals—from more than three billion years ago to
today. Beginning with our earliest ancestors' response to ultraviolet radiation, Monosson
explores the evolution of chemical defenses such as antioxidants, metal binding proteins,
detoxification, and cell death.
Scott, DN. 2015. Our chemical selves: gender, toxics, and environmental health.
Vancouver: UBC Press.
Everyday exposures to common chemicals found in homes, schools, and workplaces are
having devastating long-term and inter-generational consequences on human health. At the
same time, the effects of the exposures (and the burden of managing the risks of
exposures) rest disproportionately on the shoulders of women. This book critically
examines the system that manufactures the chemicals as well as the social, political, and
gender relations that enable harmful chemicals to continue being produced and consumed.
Vogel, SA. 2013. Is it safe?: BPA and the struggle to define the safety of chemicals.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
We are all just a little bit plastic. Traces of bisphenol A or BPA, a chemical used in plastics
production, are widely detected in our bodies and environment. Is this chemical, and its
presence in the human body, safe? What is meant by safety? Who defines it, and according
to what information? Is It Safe narrates how the meaning of the safety of industrial
chemicals has been historically produced by breakthroughs in environmental health
research, which in turn trigger contests among trade associations, lawyers, politicians, and
citizen activists to set new regulatory standards. Vogel explores the roots of the
contemporary debate over the safety of BPA, and the concerns presented by its estrogen-like
effects even at low doses. Ultimately, she contends that science alone cannot resolve the
political and economic conflicts at play in the definition of safety. To strike a sustainable
balance between the interests of commerce and public health requires recognition that
powerful interests will always try to shape the criteria for defining safety, and that the
agenda for environmental health research should be protected from capture by any single
interest group.
November 2015