Here, in front of me, are the latest graphs about climate change, ocean acidity, loss of wildlife and human impact. They’re all trends marked out to 2050. I’m considering this data for a presentation next week. I suddenly realise that I’m considering a future world when I am, statistically speaking, likely to be dead. Something zings inside of me and I look way beyond the ink marks on the paper.

Is this what US biologist and author Rachel Carson felt in 1960? That year she had radical surgery for breast cancer. Two years later, she published Silent Spring, a book in sharp contrast with her previous works about the wonders of the nature. This book documented the destruction of nature due to indiscriminate pesticide use.

Carson explained ‘biomagnfication’. This is the process by which a poison such as DDT and mercury moves through food webs. At each step, inside the tissues of animals, the substance gets more concentrated. As a result, birds of prey, such as bald eagles and falcons, lay eggs with shells so thin that they break open as the parents begin to incubate them. Due to the same process, people eating certain fish suffer mercury poisoning and even death.
Facing ridicule

In spite of her worsening health, Carson went on tour, speaking to crowds, television audiences and the US Senate. The chemical industries tried to discredit her work using ‘FUD’: fear, uncertainty and doubt about her research. They also ridiculed her personally, labelling her as ‘less than a woman’ as she never married. 

I wonder about time and work. Was Theo Colborn wondering too? When she was 51, she started her Masters in ecology and followed that with a PhD in zoology. At 69, she co-authored a book called Our Stolen Future. A large part of the book was based on her doctorate.

Colborn studied the results of the major clean-up of the Great Lakes and the Everglades. She found that water looked cleaner, as laws against phosphates in detergents put an end to mounds of suds frothing in the waterways.

But Colborn identified an invisible toxic burden, made of dissolved pesticides, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and plastics. This cocktail affects the reproductive ability of wildlife. It also affects our own hormone systems. Since 2000, every human tested, including newborns, carries more or less of this toxic burden. 
Colborn also published a consensus statement signed by 91 independent researchers about the role of hormone disrupters in the environment.

Controversy still rages. The public want action. New laws are debated to limit or ban these substances. Colburn says, ‘In my business, you measure your respect by the enemies you make.’

These days, I read a lot by and about Judith Wright. Was she feeling what I am feeling? She was 50 when she helped found the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland. A few years later, she left Queensland in protest of the policies of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, then premier of Queensland. She was up front with others fighting to prevent oil drilling and mining of the Great Barrier Reef.

Carson’s legacy

Carson’s work sparked the modern environmental movement. It also prompted the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency. For many years the EPA set the standards for air and water quality, significantly cutting back agricultural and industrial pollution. Colborn and her team raised public awareness, prompting new research and legislation. In 1975, Wright and her colleagues saw the Great Barrier Reef protected as a National Marine Park.
Water. Women. Science. Writing. Activism. There are so many more stories, so many issues demanding attention.

All this is on my mind as I go to meet Libby Caskey, a bright 20-year-old. We’re to talk on community radio.

She’s part of a team with Issy Neville, Melissa Garcia and Annie Cummerford. They think sustainability is important but feel they and their friends don’t know a lot about it. So they’ve taken the initiative. They’re organising a ‘sustainability event that speaks to young people’. 

Local event

The event is at Threeworlds, 7 Marvel Street, Byron Bay. It starts at 3pm on Wednesday November 24, just as Schoolies begins. (Rain date December 1.) Entry by donation. There’s a recycled fashion bazaar and children’s activities. Local groups will be on hand with information: Australian Seabird Rescue, Sea Shepherd, Starseeds and Mullumbimby Gardens. There will be a demo about composting and worm farming.

From 6pm, there will be $5 meals from Organic Kitchen, Chameleon, Soul Bowl and Chai Temple. Live music by Tim Stokes and the Grains. Fire twirling. More music. News from the Sea Shepherd crew. I’ll be talking about sex and sustainability as well as handing out eco-passports. Then there’s a screening of Yann-Arthrus Bertrand’s eco documentary Home.

The event is part of Libby’s action research project. On the night, she and her volunteers will be asking two short questions. What issue most concerns you? What do you personally want to do about it? The following day, she takes these answers with her to a youth leadership program with ministers of government in Canberra. As we come off air, Mel the young radio host says to Libby that it’s great to talk about something meaningful, more than hairstyles or fads. I say I’ll write something for the paper. Time rushes us on.

So to all the young women and the grown ones too – environmental activism is also women’s business. Upskill yourself. Speak out. Take it through to 2050 and beyond.

See more of Mary Gardner’s work at www.tangleoflife.org.