Monday, July 7, 2008
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
15
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
You have a gun and I have a gun, and
we'll settle in the streets.
- Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, sarcastically commenting on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision
striking down Washington, D.C's handgun ban, as reported yesterday by The Washington Post.
Outlook overcast or sunscreen
Rock n' recycle
L
a gho
white
every
step
when
looks
than
watt li
I end
second
sunbu
forces
peelof
of deac
et's start with a confession:
I'm terrified of the sun.
As
stly pale
guy,
time I
outside .
the sun
brighter
a 100-
ght bulb, GARY
up with GRACA
d-degree
rn that
me to bathe in aloe vera and
fnotebook paper-size sheets
d skin.
The lies my
PF told me.
S
To make matters worse, I heard
from very credible experts trying
to sell me skin care products on
television that skin cancer is appar-
ently as common as hangnails and
infinitely more deadly. Given my
luck, of the more than 1 million
people diagnosed with skin cancer
each year, I'm bound to be the one
who gets from the first sunburn.
I'll probably be the one who gets
the rare, fast-growing, untreatable
type that causes intense, recurring
sunburn that slowly leads to my
death, too.
So naturally, because of my par-
anoid aversion to the sun, my best
friend during the summer is sun-
screen.
That miracle potion keeps my
skin milky white, and better yet,
it comes with a convenient label
telling me how strongly it will
defend my fragile skin against our
fiery sphere of pain. This way, all I
have to do is grab the Coopertone
SPF 6,000, lather up and rest easy.
There's no way I'll get cancer if I'm
wearing a name-brand sunscreen
with so much radiation protection
that I could survive a nuclear fall-
out along with the cockroaches.
Given my dependence on the
stuff, imagine how - upset I was is on an international manhunt for
when I found out that most sun- salmonella-infestedtomatoes), the
screens don't really do all that EWG study is an embarrassment.
much. Or at least that was the con- You wouldn't think it would be
clusion reached by the Environ- too hard to come up with a good
mental Working Group in a study system for labeling and testing
released last week. sunscreen - but apparently the
After investigating . almost notoriously slow-to-action FDA
1,000 different sunscreens, the has been working on just that
research organization found that since 1978.
85 percent of sunscreens with an But lastsummer, the FDA finally
SPF above 15 offer inadequate came up with its long-awaited solu-
protection from the sun. Of those, tion, one it borrowed from the place
the worst offenders turned out to where all great ideas in the United
be from the Big Three of sunscreen States come from: Europe. The sys-
makers: Coopertone, Neutrogena tem would include a four-star rat-
and Banana Boat. Only one out of ing system for UVA protection and
the 144 products from these three more strict standards for the mis-
companies met the minimal stan- leading and arbitrary claims like
dards that the EWG set for safety "total protection" that plaster the
and effectiveness. sides of sunscreen bottles, among
One of the biggest problems other changes.
noted in the study was inadequate While these changes aren't that
protection against UVA radiation. revolutionary, they would still be
The U.S. Food and Drug Admin- a big shift away from our current
istration only system that lets the big brands
requires thatsun- y , get away with making people
screens protect think they are selling water-
against UVB resistant, ultra-sensitive sun
radiation, repellant instead of mediocre
the type that sunscreen.
causes sun- Nothing came of that plan,
burn and is - though. Supposedly, it's still
directly stuck in the "comments"
linked rstage ofFDA policy,which
to skin sounds eerily similar
cancer. to the "big business
Simi- ;. doesn't like
larly, the this idea so it's
ubiqui- not going to go
tous SPF anywhere" stage
rating is of FDA policy.
based only on a prod- .--- Until the FDA
uct's UVB protection decides to do some-
This means that thing, the EWG
even the high- recommends that
SPF sunscreens little white boys
don't protect ( like me buy Keys
against UVA Soap Solar Rx
radiation, the dan- Therapeutic Sun-
gerous ultraviolet block, SPF 30, the
stepbrother of UVB that top-rated sunscreen on
penetrates deeper into your the market.
skin and causes aging and pos- But I haven't really seen that at
sibly skin cancer. If you were just Kroger.
scanning the sunscreen aisles, you
wouldn't know that either because Gary Graca is the summer
of the FDA's lax requirements. managing editor. He can be
For the FDA (the same FDA that reached at gmgraca@umich.edu.
This week, Michigan was
supposed to make a high-
profile contribution to the
greening of the _
American main-
stream, dream-
ing of a world .
were we all drive
hybrids, use x
separate bins for
our recycling '
and buy green RYAN
books instead of KARTJE
blue books.
That sounded
easy enough, but I had my doubts.
This plan forgot to take into account
that we live in America, the land of
the SUV..
So it's safe to say that I came into
the weekend at the Double JJ Ranch
in Rothbury, Michigan expecting
exactly what alot of pundits told me
to expect - Michigan's first Wood-
stock. In other words, hundreds of
thousands of dirty people running
around in the mud and costing the
government hundreds of thousands
of dollars in clean up.
In the face of such previous disas-
ters, I felt justified in my skepticism
about Rothbury's chances of legiti-
mately meeting its goal of being a
"zero-waste" event.
In the end, I was pleasantly sur-
prised. Volunteers manned almost
half of the dual compost and recy-
cling bins, making sure everything
was sorted correctly. I was also
pleasantly surprised to find out that
most of the materials used at Roth-
bury were compostable. Plates were
made of sugar cane and utensils
were made of a nifty material called
bioplastic that was 100 percent
compostable. of course, no one here
would give me a concrete answer on
how much more using cutting-edge
eco-materials cost comparatively,
but I would assume it was a nice
chunk of change.
And Rothbury, tactically speak-
ing, definitely had the right idea.
The best way to institute change is
through education, which the fes-
tival took every opportunity to do.
Booths to register to vote were set
up all throughout the festival, and
think tanks on everything from cli-
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mate change to demanding change
from our political leaders were
available between concerts. Sure,
the amount of people who attended
"Youth and the Energy Revolution"
was drastically smaller than the
20,000 at the Dave Matthews Band
set, but the festival still gets an "A"
for effort.
But the truth is you can't just
turn someone "green." Sure, this
was the crowd to try it on: hippies
organic from the hemp in their
hats to the hemp in their pipes. But
trusting Americans to change in a
weekend and start caring whole-
heartedly about the environment
is an unreasonable goal. It may be
tough for all you greenies to admit,
but lots of Americans have no idea
Four R's:
Reduce, recycle,
reuse, Rothbury.
what compost is. And most people
would rather toss their bioplastic
cups onto the ground than carry
them the hundred yards to the recy-
cling pit. That's just America.
But that's not to say the think
tanks and the recyclables and the
green revolution didn't get to some
of us. As I retreated from the Dave
Matthews set with the other Dave-
heads, I did spot a woman doing her
part, yelling, "Pick up your bottles!
You're killing the Earth!"
Maybe Rothbury didn't change
the world overnight. But it also
didn't demolish it like the Wood-
stocks of the past. And I have to
say, seeing volunteers pass out recy-
clable bags to campers - and those
campers actually then using them
- was a victory in itself.
So I tip my hemp hat to the people
of Rothbury fortrying to change the
world. Even if it is only one flower
child at a time.
Ryan Kartje can be reached
at rkartje@umich.edu.
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