Seeing through fuzzy lenses

Things look a little blurry?

This week, I’ve come across two articles on the ever-popular topic of sunscreen safety. The first presents some early research suggesting that zinc oxide may not be as safe as we thought. The second, citing the EWG, claims that nano zinc oxide based sunscreens have been given a green light for safety and effectiveness. How you respond to these articles probably has a good deal to do with your opinion of the safety of cosmetics to start with. If you believe most commercial cosmetics are unsafe, you are more likely to be alarmed by the first article and dismiss the second. If you believe that most commercial cosmetics are safe, you are likely to find the first unnecessarily alarmist and think the second reassuring.

(Where do I stand? I am a staunch supporter of staying out of the sun during peak intensity, wearing a hat and breathable clothes with good coverage, and if neither of those is possible, applying sunblock. And then not worrying about it. I defy any sunblock to cause measurable damage to my health in just ten or twenty applications per year.)

We all see the world through certain lenses of opinion, experience, background, and emotion. Objectivity doesn’t come naturally; maybe doesn’t come at all. But being able to identify your own fuzzy lenses is a helpful way to understand why you think and react the way you do. Let’s take one of my fuzzy lenses — one of the sillier ones — as an example. I like cats. I genuinely think they’re cooler than dogs.

The belief that cats are awesome influences my behavior in quite a lot of ways:

• I have a cat
• I volunteer at a cat rescue
• I follow cat organizations on Twitter and Facebook
• I read cat stories online
• I surround myself with fellow cat people
• I put more weight on articles that show cats to be superior lifeforms
• I am more likely to be skeptical of articles that show cats to be inferior to / invasive / less intelligent than dogs

So, by limiting my exposure to things I don’t agree with and increasing my exposure to things I do, I’m reinforcing what I want to believe while (maybe) thinking that I am making a rational assessment. In fact, it’s more or less just ideology. In Jennifer-land, cats are cool, and there’s not much you can do to persuade me otherwise.

In his article on PersonalCareTruth.com, cosmetic chemist Perry Romanowski brings up this point as an ideology litmus test: what evidence would you need to change your mind about an issue? If the answer is that nothing would change your mind, you’ve stumbled upon some ideology.

Frankly, the anti-science tendencies of the environmental movement scare the dickens out of me. I came across a comment earlier this week about how the sun doesn’t cause cancer, sunscreens do, and the breathtaking disregard for a large body of scientific knowledge and consensus as to the effects of UV radiation on skin appalled me. The Skeptical Environmentalist, perhaps rightly, sneers at our tendency to adopt binary beliefs (organic = good, GM = bad, for example) as a ‘litany.’ In surrounding ourselves with studies we want to believe and doubting the ones that don’t align with our beliefs, are we really that much better than climate change deniers?

It’s a sobering thought, and it prompted me to identify, if not completely clear off, some of my other fuzzy lenses:

• I want to believe that a vegetarian diet is healthier, kinder, and more environmentally friendly.
• I want to believe that organic farming is lower impact and more sustainable than high-efficiency conventional farming.
• I want to believe that all industrial scientists whose data goes against my beliefs are corrupt.
• I want to believe that natural is safer, more sustainable, and more effective.
• I want to believe that our planet and its remarkable biodiversity is inherently valuable.
• I want to believe that science is the most reliable way to understand our world.

I’m pretty sure there’s evidence that could affect my opinion for most of these, and I have already moved towards urging a more case-by-case consideration on farming practices and chemicals. I have been following the debate over Rothamsted’s GM wheat experiment with great interest and appreciate all the open conversation that is taking place between the scientists and the public.  But I don’t think you could budge me on the last two. I don’t think ideology is necessarily a bad thing, or an avoidable one, but it’s good to know where it is.

(By the way, the questions in this Baloney Detection guide, although aimed towards orthorexic vegans, are quite useful for evaluating information in general.)

What are your fuzzy lenses when it comes to all things green? What evidence would it take to change your mind?

Photo by Crunchy Footsteps

Redefining Progress

I’ve been trying to write this post for weeks, but it’s so big and hard to wrap my head around that I just don’t know where to begin. It has something to do with the shortsightedness of economic progress. And then it has something to do with my admittedly idealistic idea of progress, and its two necessary components: stillness and balance.

I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll start with the one image my head keeps going back to: a knob of clay, cupped beneath my hands on a turning wheel. Although the clay is spinning, it’s so centered that it offers the illusion of stillness both to the eye and to the hands that are resting very stilly on its surface. Only when it is perfectly centered can I gently begin to shape it.  Any sudden movements or excessive force will cause it to collapse or unbalance.

This is  my metaphor for what I think progress should look like. Balance first, then balanced, deliberate change. And throughout the process, enough stillness and deliberation to consider our actions fully before we take them. If not to the seventh generation, at least to the second or third.

Progress, as much of the rest of the world sees it, is economic and technological expansion. I don’t inherently have a problem with technological innovation and am as dependent upon my indoor plumbing and electricity as any first world citizen. (Though I’ve found cutting back to have some unexpected benefits.) But economic growth for its own sake is a road that ends in a concrete wall.  Even if we weren’t busy altering, destroying, and ultimately exhausting our natural resources, even though we fantasize about indefinite, unplanned economic growth, our finite resources will pose a real limit sooner or later. Economic growth may be our immediate concern, but we don’t even have a plan B option in case we really screw up the planet.

Essentially, I agree with the eminent speaker whose name and position I have totally forgotten on Planet Earth, who argued, “There’s been too much growth already. What we need now is a sustainable retreat.”  What this means, in some ways, is voluntarily returning to or adopting lifestyles and practices that were more in sync with the limitations of our resources. Reducing our birth rate, eating locally grown whole foods, relying less on animal products, using fewer petroleum-based products, getting away from brainless consumerism, returning to lower yield but more sustainable fishing and agriculture practices. All that stuff.

At the same time, I think technology can be a huge ally in this goal to live sustainably without giving up the genuine gains we’ve made in improving human existence. Renewable energy allows us to keep using electricity (albeit less of it); contraception has given us the ability to choose our family size;  the internet is an amazingly powerful tool to spread information, news, and consciousness. Without Twitter and the avid environmentalists I started following a year ago, I wouldn’t be writing this right now.

For me, progress is whatever improves our lives and our relationship with the natural world. It’s about balance, and about leading lives that offer us enough stillness, enough silence, and enough space to care about this relationship and act to protect it.

Sadly, getting the entire human population to act consciously, sustainably, and wisely is even less likely than finding a new planet when we’ve gutted this one.