Discussion
Guide for
THE
BELOVED COMMUNITY
A film by Pamela Calvert/Plain Speech
At the fenceline of Canada’s “Chemical Valley,”
girls are being born at twice the rate of boys.
How do you stay in the home you love when the price you pay may
be your children’s future?
SECTIONS
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please see also THE BELOVED COMMUNITY Facilitator
Guide
From
the Filmmaker
In
1996, I began a journey of discovery, anger, and action by working with
Judith Helfand on her remarkable documentary,
A HEALTHY BABY GIRL. Judith’s
mother was one of the millions of pregnant women who were prescribed
the anti-miscarriage drug DES—the very first synthesized hormone—and
at the age of 25 Judith developed cervical cancer from her exposure
in utero. She went home to heal and picked up a video
camera; the result was a funny and heartbreaking diary of the next five
years of her family’s life, of “wonder drugs” and rude awakenings.
DES was first prescribed in 1941; now we are all exposed
daily to literally thousands of synthetic chemicals that act like hormones
in our bodies, wreaking havoc on reproductive and developmental health
(see “Background Information,” p. 3).
Scientists began to put all the pieces together with wildlife
studies in the Great Lakes in the 1980s and 1990s—they were seeing birds
with twisted beaks and clubbed feet, thinning and broken eggshells,
infertility, ambiguous reproductive anatomy, nest abandonment—and in
1996 the book Our Stolen Future outlined the emerging
theory of “endocrine disruptors.” Published
in the same year that A HEALTHY BABY GIRL was released, Our Stolen Future has had a volcanic impact
on environmental health research and advocacy, in many ways serving
as the successor to Rachel Carson’s Silent
Spring.
The science surrounding the impact of endocrine
disrupting chemicals on wildlife is now established, and has raised
disquieting questions for humans—if we are sharing the same environment,
not to mention being further up the food chain, then what does day-to-day
exposure mean for the health and survival of our own species?
The consequences seem inevitable, but there hasn’t been a clear
“test case.”
Fast forward to the summer of 2004. I was living in Oakland,
CA and one day received a brief email
with a link to an article in the Toronto
Globe and Mail with the title
“Where the Boys Aren’t.” With
alarm, I read that for the past ten years, girl babies had been outnumbering
boys at a rate of 2:1 at the fenceline of
Canada’s “Chemical
Valley”—on Lake
Huron, the site of the original endocrine disruptor research.
Sound of the other shoe, dropping.
I emailed Judith: “You should make a film about this.”
Her response: “Why don’t
you?” Knowing what I did about how important this
story could be, I couldn’t walk away; the result isn’t a “who dunnit,” but a “what now.”
It took a long time for the film to tell
me its name, but it finally came, clear as a bell.
Dr. Martin Luther King spoke about The Beloved Community as a
reachable goal for human society in the here and now—not conflict-free,
not heaven, but a global condition in which simple human decency makes
hunger and hate (and dare I say toxic exposure) simply unthinkable,
and in which conflicts are resolved amicably but decisively on the side
of justice. Wherever I went in
Sarnia,
people were determined to tell me, “This is not a bad place.” Indeed it’s not—it’s a microcosm of the world
that all of us have made, and a most worthy place for Dr. King’s beloved
community to take root and grow.
Pamela Calvert
Oakland,
2007
The
Film
In
the summer of 2004, Canadian health researchers made a startling discovery
in the Aamjiwnaang (Chippewa) birth records
for the city of Sarnia, Ontario—for the past decade,
girl babies had been outnumbering boys at a rate of 2:1. Further investigation revealed large numbers
of miscarriages and widespread neurological problems among the band's
children.
THE
BELOVED COMMUNITY 
looks
at a Great Lakes oil town facing a
toxic legacy head-on. The nerve center of Canada’s petrochemical industry,
Sarnia once enjoyed the highest standard of living in the country—but
now the bill has come due, in compromised environmental and community
health. The city has already lost a generation of men
to workplace-related cancers. Now
the women are discovering a reproductive timebomb—because
of their own exposure to a cluster of hormone-mimicking chemicals called
"endocrine disruptors," the next generation may be at risk. How do you stay in the home you love when the
price you pay may be not only your own life, but your children’s future?
The impact of endocrine disruptors on the
reproductive health of wildlife is well-known, but the birth situation
in Sarnia has never been documented in a human
population exposed on a daily basis to industrial pollutants. Since these chemicals are in global use in everything
from pesticides to dry cleaning fluid, what is happening in Sarnia has captured the
attention of scientists and press all over the world.
A city mourning its past, Sarnia has suddenly found itself blind-sided
by the future. Women who have never thought of themselves as "scientists"
are now going door to door, collecting health data from their neighbors
in a search for answers and re-negotiating relationships with the complex
of giant multinationals—Dow, Shell, DuPont, Imperial Oil, Suncor, Nova,
Bayer, and dozens of others—which have set the city’s course until now.
Rather than abandoning a place that's been called a "slow motion
Bhopal," or trying
to shut down the plants, they are pressing for answers that can close
the books on the past and reclaim the future.
Background
Information
Aamjiwnaang First
Nation
Aamjiwnaang (ahm-ji-nong) is both the name of a place
and of the people who live in that place.
The Aamjiwnaang are members of the
Ojibwe tribe, and have lived on the St. Clair River for more
than 6,000 years. Their land
originally covered large parts of southwestern Ontario. The
Aamjiw-naang had first contact with French
fur traders and missionaries in the early 1600s, and for the next century
carried on regular trading activity while maintaining sovereignty over
their lands.
From the mid-1700s when the first
permanent European settlers arrived, and over the next two centuries,
a series of government rulings alienated the Aamjiwnaang
from their culture and language through enforced attendance at residential
mission schools, and appropriated control over their land.
By the 1950s, the reserve had shrunk to its current size of 2,700
acres.
Canada’s Chemical Valley
The world’s first oil strike was in 1857, in Black Creek, Ontario. The city of Sarnia,
located on the nearby St. Clair River and on the border with the United States,
became a major refining and trans-shipment site.
During World
War II, Japan's
invasion of Malaysia cut off
supplies of rubber to the West—a catastrophic loss. In a crash program, the Canadian government
built a synthetic rubber plant in Sarnia
to supply the Allied war effort. After
the war, industries flocked to Sarnia
to take advantage of the new "petrochemical revolution." With access to raw materials, a network of pipelines,
a prime location, and exploding consumer demand, Sarnia became an economic powerhouse.
Today, Sarnia
is the site of 40% of Canada's
petrochemical industry, with dozens of plants stretching along the St.
Clair River waterfront. Immediately
to the south of Sarnia's "Chemical Valley"
is the Aamjiwnaang First Nations reserve.
Endocrine Disruptors
Certain synthetic chemicals interfere with hormonal
messages involved in the control of growth and development, especially
in the fetus. The developing
fetus uses these natural hormonal messages, which come from both from
its own hormone system and from its mother, to guide development. They
influence virtually all of the growing individual's characteristics,
from determining its sex to controlling the numbers of toes and fingers
to shaping intricate details of brain structure.
Scientific research accumulating over the
last 50 years, and accelerating during the 1990's, has revealed that
this hormonal control of development is vulnerable to disruption by
synthetic chemicals. Through a variety of mechanisms, hormone-disrupting
chemicals (also known as endocrine disrupting chemicals or endocrine
disruptors) interfere with the natural messages and alter the course
of development, with potential affects on virtually all aspects of bodily
function.
Source: www.ourstolenfuture.org
reproduced with permission.
Statistics
from The Beloved Community
- 40% of Canada's petrochemical industry is located in the immediate
vicinity of Sarnia, ON.
- There are currently forty two chemical companies listed on the
National Pollution Release Inventory within 10 km (6.2 miles) of Aamjiwnaang
First Nation. Plans have just been announced to build a 53rd petroleum
refinery in Sarnia.
- Beginning in 1993-94, girl babies at the Aamjiwnaang First Nation
(AFN) began to outnumber boys, at a cumulative rate of 2:1 over the
following decade. This has continued through the present. The normal
human birth ratio is for 105 boys to be born for every 100 girls.
The birth ratio for the non-Native population in Sarnia is unknown;
the birth ratio for the children of Chemical Valley workers is also
unknown.
- 39% of the women at Aamjiwnaang over the age of 18 have had at least
one miscarriage or stillbirth. This compares to 25% in the general
population.
The rate of learning disabilities in children at Aamjiwnaang is 23%;
Canada's average is 4%.
- In 2006, Environmental Defence tested families across Canada for
the presence of 68 toxic chemicals in their blood and urine. Two of
those families were in Aamjiwnaang/Sarnia and are in THE BELOVED
COMMUNITY: Sandy Kinart and her daughter, and Wilson Plain and
his son and granddaughter. Of all the volunteers across Canada, Sandy
had the highest body burden of toxics, including the presence of 30
carcinogens and 31 reproductive/developmental toxins. Wilson's 14
year old granddaughter already carries 12 hormone disruptors and 17
reproductive/developmental toxins in her body. For the full report:
www.environmentaldefence.ca/toxicnation/home.php
Solutions
For decades, the general population knew
little about the serious health effects of industrial chemicals.
However there is now a growing grassroots and scientific movement
for good health, environmental protection, and sustainable industrial
practice. The scope of the chemical
contamination is vast; a truly toxic-free future requires that we begin
employing practical solutions now. Following
are some of the ideas and principles on which solutions can be found
in science, industry, policy and communities.
Science—Green Chemistry
Green chemistry is “the design of chemical products and
processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous
substances.” Green Chemistry pioneers Paul Anastas and John Warner have proposed twelve principles, which
include the following:
Prevention:
It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after
it has been created.
Designing Safer
Chemicals: Chemical products should be designed to effect
their desired function while minimizing their toxicity.
Design for Degradation:
Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of their function
they break down into innocuous degradation products and do not persist
in the environment.
Inherently Safer
Chemistry for Accident Prevention: Substances and the form of a
substance used in a chemical process should be chosen to minimize the
potential for chemical accidents, including releases, explosions, and
fires.
(from
Paul Anastas and John Warner, Green Chemistry:
Theory and Practice. New
York: Oxford
University Press,
1998. Complete text of the twelve
principles available at www.greenchemistry.ca)
Industry—Ecological Intelligent Design
Michael Braungart, an ecological
chemist, and Bill McDonough, an architect and designer, have created
products and buildings using the criteria of what they have dubbed “Ecological
Intelligent Design.” As one example,
they designed an upholstery fabric derived from the ramie plant that
can be composted and decomposes with no toxic byproducts. The dyes and chemicals used in the manufacturing
process are likewise free from toxins; Braungart
and McDonough approached sixty different chemical companies with specifications
for a product free of mutagens, carcinogens, bioaccumulative
compounds and persistent toxins, heavy metals and endocrine disruptors. Ciba Geigy agreed
to supply a dye with these criteria after considering 8,000 chemicals
and eliminating 7,962. When regulators
came to test the effluent from the manufacturing mill, they thought
their instruments were broken because they found that the water coming
out of the factory was as clean as the water going in.
McDonough calls this the “next industrial revolution” and believes
regulations should be seen as signals of design failure.
(For more information
about ecological intelligent design and sustainable production, including
other case studies: Clean Production
Action, www.cleanproduction.org)
Policy—The
Precautionary Principle
The Precautionary Principle is based on the basic premise
that “when the health of humans and the environment is at stake, it
may not be necessary to wait for scientific certainty to take protective
action.” It has been applied in many contexts—including
the Hippocratic Oath’s “First, do no harm”—and is coming to be a very
powerful policy tool addressing industrial practices and pollution.
Precaution places the burden of proof on proponents of an activity
rather than on victims or potential victims of the activity, and requires
that they explore alternatives to possibly harmful actions
and make substitutions wherever possible.
In the most ambitious adoption of the Precautionary
Principle to date, the European Union’s 2006 REACH policy (Registration,
Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) requires chemical manufacturers
and importers to do rigorous testing and publish comprehensive safety
data at an information clearinghouse where consumers and professionals
can find hazard information. For
chemicals found to cause cancer, gene mutations or reproductive hazards,
to build up in the body (bioaccumulate), or to cause other serious health and environmental
impacts such as endocrine disruptors, REACH mandates that such substances
be phased out and less hazardous substitutes be found.
In Canada
and the US,
the Precautionary Principle has been adopted on a local level so far.
Citing the Precautionary Principle as their basis for decision, more
than 70 Canadian municipalities have banned the cosmetic use of pesticides,
and in 2003, San Francisco became the first government body in the US to make the
Precautionary Principle the basis for all its environmental policy.
(For more information
on the Precautionary Principle: Science
and Environmental Health Network, www.sehn.org.
For more information on REACH:
European Commission, ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_intro.htm)
Community—Environmental Justice
In 1987 the United Church of Christ published “Toxic Waste
and Race,” which documented the siting of
hazardous waste facilities in communities of color in the U.S., compared to more white and affluent
communities. Delegates to the
First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991
adopted seventeen “Principles of Environmental Justice” to address the
disproportionate impacts of toxic exposure on communities of color and
low income white communities, who take the brunt of polluting industry
because they typically have less political power, fewer resources, and
cultural and language barriers. These
Principles include:
The cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous
wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers
be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the
containment at the point of production.
- The right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment
without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment.
- The right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making,
including needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement
and evaluation.
- That we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices to consume
as little of Mother Earth’s resources and to produce as little waste
as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize
our lifestyles to insure the health of the natural world for present
and future generations.
(For more information
and the full text: Environmental
Justice for All,
www.ej4all.org)
Thinking
More Deeply
Discussion
Questions
- Is there anything in this film that surprised you?
- What character do you identify with the most? Why?
- Does Sarnia's story have anything to do with you or your community?
Are there any economic connections between your community and Sarnia?
Are there any similar health issues your community is facing?
- How much data should people have to prove about the presence
of toxic chemicals and direct health impacts before a community can
take action on clean-up and prevention of further harm? Who should
bear the burden of proof, the community (to prove that something is
causing harm) or the corporation (to prove that it's not)?
- Does industry have any inherent responsibility to clean up
its processing and products? Why should companies install cleaner
operating systems if it will cost their stockholders money?
- Industrial groups like the Sarnia Lambton Environmental Association
say they should be responsible for deciding how to operate safely-they
understand their operations best, and they can be more responsible
to the local environment than would be possible with uniform standards
and mandatory legislation. Do you agree? Why or why not?
- Do you think it's inevitable that some communities like Sarnia
are going to have to be less healthy so that industry can continue
to produce the necessities of modern life? What's the alternative?
- What would Sarnia look like if the local corporations operated
their facilities sustainably?
- How do the perspectives and interests of community advocates,
industry representatives, and elected officials align and diverge?
How do you think those similarities and differences will help or get
in the way of finding solutions to the environmental and public health
challenges in Sarnia?
- What kind of influence do consumers have over how industries
make their products? Do consumers have any responsibility to exercise
that influence? Why or why not?
Bringing It Home
Suggestions for Action
No matter whether you are a large
and active advocacy organization or a single individual, there are concrete
and substantive steps you can take to
support environmental health and justice.
- Educate yourself. Go to www.scorecard.org
(US) or www.pollutionwatch.org
(Canada),
enter your ZIP or postal code and read your community’s “pollution
report card.” Find out what
facilities are polluting your own home, what chemicals they are releasing,
and what health impacts are connected with those chemicals. The scorecard.org website lets you send
a fax directly to the company, email the EPA, and connect with others
who are concerned with this facility.
- Educate others. Talk with your friends, neighbors, and
elected officials about what you find out on the Scorecard website,
and what you’ve learned from watching THE BELOVED COMMUNITY. Write a letter to the editor, or post something
on a popular listserv or blog.
- Support other educators. Call the chemistry department of your local
college and ask them if they are teaching about green chemistry in
their curriculum. Donate the
book Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice by Paul Anastas
and John Warner to their departmental library.
- Change the market. Take the alternative products you’ve found
to your employer, your school, your local government, and the businesses
you patronize, and help them change their institutional purchasing
practices.
- Change the rules. Advocate for your municipality, county,
state/province, or tribal government to enact and enforce environmental
policies based on the Precautionary Principle; you can find many examples
from the US, Canada and Europe at www.sehn.org/govposit.html . Set the bar higher than the best policy
you find there, and make it the new standard.
Resources
for Further Study and Action
Center for Health,
Environment & Justice
www.chej.org
Through skill training, strategic analysis and scientific research,
CHEJ empowers communities to take steps to protect themselves from unnecessary
chemical threats. Current campaigns
focus on environmental health threats to children, and building public
support for preventive action to protect public health, the environment
and the economy.
Clean Production
Action
www.cleanproduction.org
CPA promotes the use of products that are safer and cleaner across their
life cycle for consumers, workers and communities. They work with companies to substitute hazardous
chemicals in products and production processes with Green Chemistry
and safer substitutes, and promote waste reduction through producer
responsibility for product take-back.
Collaborative
on Health and the Environment
www.healthandenvironment.org
CHE is a diverse network of over 2700 individual and organizational
partners in 42 countries, working collectively to advance knowledge
and effective action to address growing concerns about the links between
human health and environmental factors.
Environmental
Health News
www.environmentalhealthnews.org
A daily digest of articles in the world press about
environmental health. Topics carried include chemical contamination,
children’s health, water and air pollution, sewage, environmental justice,
reproductive disorders, and genetic engineering, as well as climate
change, biodiversity, and sustainable business stories with a health
dimension.
Indigenous Environmental
Network
www.ienearth.org
IEN builds the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments
to protect sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, and the
health of all living things. IEN
maintains an informational clearinghouse and organizes public awareness
campaigns and direct actions.
Our Stolen Future
www.ourstolenfuture.org
The book Our Stolen Future
brought world-wide attention to scientific discoveries about endocrine
disruption and the fact that common contaminants can interfere with
the natural signals controlling development of the fetus. This website
tracks the most recent developments, including information about ongoing
policy debates and suggestions about what consumers and citizens can
do to minimize risks related to hormonally-disruptive contaminants.
Refinery Reform
Campaign
www.refineryreform.org
Refinery Reform is a national campaign seeking to clean up America's oil
refineries and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Its “Bucket Brigades” program provides a simple,
effective tool for grassroots communities to test their air for toxic
chemicals.
THE
BELOVED COMMUNITY is a co-production of Plain Speech and Detroit
Public Television, and is distributed by California
Newsreel. All rights reserved. For more information: contact@newsreel.org www.newsreel.org
