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Inspiration and information to protect Our |
Ocean Book of the Month Each month in 2006, The Ocean Project will highlight a book focused on our blue planet or environmental sustainability. Books for all age groups will be covered, non-fiction and fiction, prose and poetry. If you have a suggestion, please let us know.
Most importantly, this book details the ways in which manmade endocrine-disrupting chemical contaminants alter the natural processes of our own bodies, all the way down to the fetus carried in a mother's womb. (The body's endocrine glands secrete important chemical messages we call hormones.) The scientific processes of endocrine disruption are described, along with ways to protect oneself and one's family from its harmful effects. By tracing the proliferation of manmade chemicals in the environment through a historical series of increasingly troublesome environmental occurrences, the authors demonstrate the real threats to human and environmental health that exist. Libraries full of books have been written on the cancer causing effects of deadly environmental toxins. Our Stolen Future does not diminish the importance of ridding the world of these deadly poisons, but does recognize that not all dangers result in visible signs of sickness. An expectant mother may look and feel perfectly fine, but still have accumulated a high enough level of toxins over her lifetime that will pass on to her child. Hormone-disrupting chemicals can result in brain damage, reduced fertility, genital defects, or accelerated puberty and a variety of other problems in humans and other animals with whom we share this planet. The animals that live downstream from our polluting ways are suffering , and our ocean is accumulating more and more of these harmful chemicals with many unknown ramifications. These contaminants are showing up even in deep ocean animals such as the sperm whale. Low doses of these contaminants have already been demonstrated to have adverse effects on frogs and oysters. Our Stolen Future demonstrates how entangled in our own poisons this world has become. It offers many precautions and recommendations to take, but at the same time clearly shows the seriousness of the chemical crisis we face and the amount of work that needs to be done before we can rest assured that our health and that of our children is as safe as it can be. The newest edition of this book is released with an epilogue that contains the latest scientific findings. This classic is a must read for anyone concerned about their own health, their family, and the health of our blue planet.
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Our Stolen Future , by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers (and with a foreword by former Vice President Al Gore), was first published in 1996 to much critical acclaim. This book opened up a much needed discussion on the consequences, both to the environment and our own bodies, of the presence of manmade chemicals in the environment. In simple and clearly comprehensible laymen's terms, Our Stolen Future deciphers the bewildering array of scientific discoveries that have been made concerning these chemicals, and translates scientific knowledge to the information that every person should know in order to protect their own health, that of their family, and our environment, including our ocean.
© 2007 The Ocean Project - All rights reserved.
Images: © 2004 Wolcott Henry