environment/nature

The presence of lead paint on toys made in China this year brought the threat of lead poisoning to the forefront of the American mind. Parents, pundits, and politicians called on the U.S. government to DO SOMETHING. But lead poisoning was a problem for low-income families long before the China toy scandal and there was little to no outcry in the popular press.

Lead poisoning in children can increase the risk of cognitive delay, hyperactivity, and antisocial behavior. Many older homes and apartments available for rental in low-income neighborhoods still have lead paint and ingesting paint dust and paint chips is the most common way to get lead poisoning. Blood tests show that children living in poverty show much higher exposure to lead than other children.

According to William Ryan, if you are a landlord, renting out a residence with lead paint without making tenants aware of it is a crime. But, instead of enforcing compliance among landlords, the most common response to the threat of lead poisoning has been to warn mothers. Here is a representative poster:

Ryan writes that, while lead poisoning is often described as a problem involving negligent or ignorant mothers, it:

…is more accurately analyzed as the result of a systematic program of lawbreaking by one interest group in the community [landlords], with the toleration and encouragement of the public authority charged with enforcing that law.

So as long as the threat of lead poisoning was more-or-less restricted to the poor in the U.S., it was considered the problem of individuals (mothers) and the state refrained from doing much more than promoting individual responsibility. But, as soon as the lead poisoning threat affected middle class children through the toys from China, state intervention seemed appropriate.

Ryan again:

To ignore these continued and repeated law violations [by landlords who rent residences with lead paint], to ignore the fact that the supposed law enforcer actually cooperates in lawbreaking [by ignoring landlord infractions], and then to load a burden of guilt on the mother of a dead or dangerously ill child is an egregious distortion of reality. And to do so under the guise of public-spirited and humanitarian service to the community is intolerable.

CITATION: Ryan, William. 1998. Blaming the Victim. In Race, Class, and Gender in the United States. See also his book.

Here is a video of the famous “crying Indian” anti-littering PSA from the early 1970s:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM[/youtube]

The actor, Iron Eyes Cody, was not actually Native American, he was Italian American. You can read more about him at snopes.com.

In case you didn’t know, the famous “Chief Seattle” speech about the need to honor the earth and care for the environment was written by a white guy, also in the early 1970s.

These could be interesting for discussions of environmentalism and American Indians. Why do environmental messages somehow have more authority if they supposedly come from an Indian? Would the “Chief Seattle” speech be less meaningful if we knew a white guy wrote it? Why?

They could also be used in discussions about the appropriation of Native American culture and the use of non-Indian actors to play Indian roles. It’s also interesting as an example of how American Indians are often depicted as historic throwbacks who are still living in the 1800s (and are all from plains tribes and wear big headdresses): even though it was 1971 and the guy was standing next to a highway full of cars, he was dressed in buckskin and feathers. Because, you know, that’s what Native Americans wear, all the time. Believe me, back in Oklahoma, that’s all you see.

NEW: Another fallacious Native American environmentalist was Grey Owl. Grey Owl was a Britain named Archibald Belaney who adopted an Indian identity and became famous in Canada for his conservationist stance. Here is his wikipedia entry.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

This “Onslaught” ad by Dove has garnered a lot of attention and positive press:

The idea, of course, is that we need to protect our daughters from the images that may harm their self-esteem or make them uncomfortable about their bodies. A great message, no doubt.

However, corporate activism usually has limits and contradictions (as do most things in life, really). Miguel sent us this ad spoof that points out that many of the images the Dove ad says we should be protecting our daughters from are actually used in Axe ads–and Axe is owned by Unilever, the same company that owns Dove.

So Unilever manages to target both markets–those who respond to sexualized images and those who find them harmful–through different brands. This is a common tactic–because large multinational companies own so many different brands, they can market to many different groups of consumers; when we reject one product because of its production process or advertising and buy another instead, there’s a very good chance we’re buying from the same corporate entity, just a different brand name.

As one blogger nicely put it:

It’s a parent’s responsibility to make sure the damaging messages they themselves produce don’t reach your kids.

That is, Dove is telling parents to protect their kids, as if Dove CARES, but Dove’s parent company is producing those very same messages. (It’s kind of like a single corporation owning a beer company and running Alcoholics Anonymous. How very convenient for both.)

A commenter pointed out that Greenpeace made an ad based on Dove’s “Onslaught” commercial that brings up the effects of palm oil production in the destruction of forests in Indonesia:

Thanks, Dangger!

NEW: There is a terrific post at Moment of Choice about one woman’s experience auditioning for a Dove Real Woman commercial. From the post:

Under the guise of looking for women who felt truly comfortable in their own skin, no matter what they looked like, they asked us to bare all or most of it, to prove just how comfortable we really were…A young peppy assistant demonstrated how they wanted us to shake our hands in the air like we just didn’t care and do a full 360 for the camera and male judging panel.

It’s a fascinating inside look at a process most of us never take part in, and reinforces the fact that corporate activism often covers an awful lot of business-as-usual behind the scenes.

Andrea G. in Switzerland snapped these pictures of an ad campaign for TerraSuisse natural agriculture. Their tagline translates as “TerraSuisse guarantees natural Swiss agriculture.” They might be useful for a discussion of doing gender (West and colleagues) or gender as performativity (Butler). As Andrea S. noted, it’s obvious instantly that the bird is supposed to be female and the chipmunk male by their pose alone.

Posed like a chick:

Posed like a dude:

They might, also, be a nice contrast to this one for which a gender is not immediately apparent (to me…but who knows in Switzerland):

Thanks Andrea!

Worldmapper offers maps in which the actual land area is morphed to represent various disproportionalities across the globe. The website has over 300 maps! Thanks 73man for the tip!

I borrowed a few examples and pasted them in below. The first map is an actual land area map for reference.

Territory size shows the proportion of worldwide net exports of toys (in US$) that come from there. Net exports are exports minus imports. When imports are larger than exports the territory is not shown.

Territory size shows the proportion of worldwide net imports of toys (in US$) that are received there. Net imports are imports minus exports. When exports are larger than imports the territory is not shown.

Territory size shows the proportion of carbon dioxide emissions in 1980 that were directly from there.

Territory size shows the proportion of all territory level decreases in carbon dioxide emissions between 1980 and 2000, that occurred there.

Territory size shows the proportion of state military spending worldwide that was spent by that territory in 2002.

Territory size shows the proportion of species worldwide that became extinct between 1500 current era and 2004, that became extinct there.

Territory size shows the proportion of all people over 15 in the world living with diabetes who live there.

Territory size shows the proportion of all people aged 15-49 with HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) worldwide, living there.

See more alternative maps here.

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This graphic from the New York Times illustrates the different environmental costs of meat and vegetable production (click on image to enlarge):

The coining of the term “frankenfood” to refer to genetically-modified (GM)  food is an excellent example of the way in which words matter. As of today, a search for the word in google returns about 57,000 hits. It’s been quite an effective frame for the anti-GM food activists. Here are some examples of their work:

In her dissertation, Abby Kinchy discussed the way in which anti-GM food activists invented and used these frames to build support for their movement.  In reality, though, (1) we’ve been genetically modifying food by other means for centuries (through cultivation) and (2) there is little evidence (yet) that such foods are all that dangerous.

Sources, in order, Green Acres Farm, Monsterzine, and Democratic Underground.

Click here for a “world clock” (by http://www.poodwaddle.com/) that constantly updates the total number of, well, lots of stuff: births, abortions, deaths of different types, prisoners, marriages, divorces, extinct species, gallons of oil pumped, and computers, cars, and bicycles built. You can choose to display it by how much has happened in the last year, month, day, or even from a moment, like right… now.

Thanks, Mom!