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- LETTERS Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Please include the writer's name, college and class standing or other Univer- sity affiliation. Send letters to: tothedoily@umich.edu. 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. BLOGS Q Read more up-to-date opinion at michigandoily. com/thepodium