Social Justice Events
Chasing Molecules:
Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the
Promise of Green Chemistry
by Elizabeth Grossman
Author book talk at First Unitarian Society
900 University Bay Drive
Friday, October 9, 7pm, Atrium Courtyard A-C
Free!
Each day, headlines warn that baby bottles are leaching dangerous chemicals, nonstick pans are causing infertility, and plastic containers are making us fat. What if green chemistry could change all that? What if rather than toxics, our economy ran on harmless, environmentally-friendly materials?
Elizabeth Grossman, an acclaimed journalist who brought national attention
to the contaminants hidden in computers and other high tech electronics,
now tackles the hazards of ordinary consumer products. She shows
that for the sake of convenience, efficiency, and short-term safety, we have
created synthetic chemicals that fundamentally change, at a molecular
level, the way our bodies work. The consequences range from diabetes to
cancer, reproductive and neurological disorders.
Yet it’s hard to imagine life without the creature comforts current materials
provide — and Grossman argues we do not have to. A scientific revolution
is introducing products that are “benign by design,” developing manufacturing
processes that consider health impacts at every stage, and is creating
new compounds that mimic rather than disrupt natural systems. Through
interviews with leading researchers, Grossman gives us a first look at this
radical transformation.
Green chemistry is just getting underway, but it offers hope that we can
indeed create products that benefit health, the environment, and industry.
Elizabeth Grossman is the author of High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health, Watershed: The Undamming of America, and Adventuring Along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Her writing has appeared in Mother Jones, The Nation, Salon, The Washington Post, and other publications. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
