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Environmental Health and Environmental Justice Knowledge

An Open Education Resources Curriculum for Post Secondary Students About Environmental Health and Environmental Justice

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You are here: Home / Lessons / A Brief and Recent Environmental Health History – Podcast

Uncategorized / 20 March 2024 by John

A Brief and Recent Environmental Health History – Podcast

In the podcast below, you’ll hear stories about Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, Theo Colborn and endocrine disruption, Lois Gibbs and Love Canal, Arlene Blum and toxic flame retardants in children’s pyjamas, in their own voices. The voices of researcher Carol Kwiatkowski and environmental health biologist Pete Myers are also engaged in telling the stories.

Note: These stories are by no means comprehensive, but rather reflect the author’s experiences and the individuals with whom she remembers most significantly.

Credits

Podcast Credits

This has been Unintended Consequences, “A Brief and Recent History of Environmental Health.”
  • Kelly Hendricks is editor and director
  • Kim Thomas, Advisor
  • Stephenie Hendricks is researcher, writer, producer, co-director and narrator.
Special Thanks to:
  • Arlene Blum
  • Carol Kwiatowski
  • Lois Gibbs
  • Pete Myers
Archival footage was used in this podcast, and we’d like to thank:
  • Bill Moyers Reports
  • The CBS Network
  • The Eleventh Hour
  • The Endocrine Disruption Exchange
  • The Goldman Fund
  • The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
  • The Purpose Prize
  • The Retro Report
  • The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Funded in part by the

Peter Wall Institute Catalyst Collaboration Fund

This has been a doctoral research project for the University of British Columbia Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Program, the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, Sustainability Theme. Dr. Greg Garrard, Principal Investigator. Stephenie Hendricks, Project Lead.


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Course Content

Lessons Status
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Learning Outcomes

2

A Brief and Recent History Instructor Guide

3

Key Concepts

4

A Brief and Recent Environmental Health History – Podcast

5

A Brief and Recent Environmental Health History – Essay

6

A Brief and Recent Environmental Health History – Explorations

QuizzesStatus
1

A Brief and Recent History of Environmental Health: Module Quiz

Key Concepts

All | D E L P R S T W
DDT
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is an organochlorine pesticide used broadly in the 1950’s and early 1960’s to kill mosquitoes carrying malaria and typhus. It was the first manmade toxic chemical discovered to be toxic to the environment and human health.The harmful effects on birds was the subject of Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring. It is an endocrine disrupting chemical, linked to breast cancer in daughters and granddaughters of women exposed in childhood.

Definition of Environmental Health
The concept that manmade toxic chemicals can harm the environment and human health.

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) 
Chemicals that interfere with the endocrine systems, impacting hormonal systems such as thyroid, immune systems, neurological and reproductive systems, even at low doses, and other health systems.

Love Canal
A contaminated Niagara Falls neighbourhood in New York where people became sick. Resident Lois Gibbs organized her neighbours to evacuate the area. The harm was so great that the U.S. government created the Superfund policy to tax corporations to clean up their toxic hazards.

Precautionary Principle
A concept coined at the Wingspread Conference that says that if there is a reasonable risk of harm from something, it should not be allowed in the public sphere.

Rachel Carson and Silent Spring
A biologist and writer and her book that contributed greatly to the launch of recent (last fifty years) environmentalism. Inspired the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other government regulatory agencies worldwide.

Superfund
U.S. EPA policy that states that polluters must pay for their toxic exposures. Inspired by the Love Canal tragedy.

The Ames Test
Test developed using bacteria to determine if a substance is mutagenic (disrupts DNA or genetic codes) and therefore carcinogenic (can trigger cancer).

Wingspread Statement
First ever declaration of concern about manmade toxic chemicals from an array of scientists,. created last the Wingspread Conference hosted by Theo Colborn and Pete Myers.

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