Not on My Watch

Here's Club President Robin Mann's Power to Change blog post on how becoming a grandmother has changed how she looks at the world.

Not on My Watch

I just became a grandmother.

Elsie Ford Mann arrived early Sunday morning, weighing in at 7 pounds and 11 ounces. What a thrill to pay a quick visit to meet her and to see that all is well with her and her parents.

They are very much on my mind.  And suddenly the world looks different to me. 

The other day, before Elsie arrived, I had my temperature taken for a routine check-up. The nurse slid a sensor across my forehead. It made me think of the "more invasive" way they took your temperature when I was a baby, and how much our mid-20th century medical methods and instruments have changed. Elsie will be spared considerable discomfort and risks from having her temperature taken. There have been all kinds of advances that help Elsie's and other parents provide a safer environment for children born today.

But what about her exposure to toxins? I look at the biggest sources of mercury and other toxins that threaten my granddaughter — coal-fired power plants — and they are frozen in time. Today, there are plants spewing mercury and other airborne toxins just as they were when I was born, almost 60 years ago. There are ways to modify those plants to limit their pollution — improvements that could and should have been installed years ago — but the industry has managed to get them delayed. 

Better yet, there are new, cheaper cleaner energy sources that befit a modern society and won't poison the air and cause other serious environmental and health problems. To all you grandparents out there — and parents, too — I know we can do better. And I know that we need to band together to demand better from our public officials, because right now they are feeling a crush of pressure from a coal industry that wants to thwart the EPA and avoid pollution controls and buy time to maximize their profits. 

All together now: "Not on my watch!"

You can find out more about the dangers of mercury and how you can be tested (a lock of your hair is all it takes) in the Club's Stop Polluters campaign at sierraclub.org/stoppolluters.

Robin Mann
Sierra Club president, a.k.a. Elsie’s grandmother

(To comment, please go to Power to Change.)

P.S. I want to let you know about two upcoming Monday evening conference calls —

• March 28 (Monday) — Clubhouse Guided Tour
• April 4 (Monday) — Intro to Activist Network
• April 11 (Monday) — Guided Tour of New Features in Activist Network
  
  5 pm Pacific / 6 pm Mountain / 7 pm Central / 8 pm Eastern
  866-501-6174 — 1892-005#

P.P.S. Club members, you should have received your ballot for the board election. Please read the candidate statements and vote.

Comments

[Jeff Markus]

Round 2 having lost the first (more eloquent) when I attempted to correct some spelling...that won't happen again...I may look like I'm not smarter than a 5th grader but editing is out of the question.
Congratulations Robin the hope of a new generation can spin a new outlook, but as you noted we must shade the future in the dirty glasses of our recent past.
Just as 19th century London wallowed in the effluent of the coal used to heat, cook and power its new industrial technology so are we still covered in the ash and toxics from coal powered plants.
And worse some of the slow crawl into newer technology has been more potentially dangerous and now even threatens our very existance in the nuclear threat.
So strive we must to continue the search for each step up the ladder of cleaner, safer power (for there will always be another step) and the struggle to achieve more with less expended energy which will ease the pressures as we develope a better tomorrow.
Psst Robin you don't look old enuf to be a Grandmother...)
Jeff
The Chicagoan