Home
Archive
Columnists
Video
Blogs
Discuss
About
Search
Donate
Advertise
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Register to Vote: Rock the Vote, powered by Working Assets Wireless
Advertisement
  • AlterNetYour turn

Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.


Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.

Following The Path of Service -- to Nature

By Traci Hukill, Common Ground. Posted December 5, 2005.


Michael Green used his studies in Buddhism to launch an organization that's taking on toxics one by one -- and making major strides.

Share and save this post:
Digg iconDelicious iconReddit iconFark iconYahoo! iconNewsvine! iconFacebook iconNewsTrust icon

More stories by Traci Hukill

Get AlterNet in
your mailbox!

 
Advertisement

On December 10, 1988, Michael Green took his camera and slipped out of the Tibetan hotel that he and other tourists had been warned not to leave. It was International Human Rights Day, and Tibetan separatists in Lhasa were gathering in the city square to demonstrate for independence from China. Chinese soldiers, trucked in en masse the day before, ringed the square. Chinese police scanned the crowd from balconies and second-floor windows. Green began surreptitiously photographing the scene.

"I had this very naive idea they wouldn't be hurt," Green says. "And then, a group of nuns opens the Tibetan flag. They're standing maybe 40 feet away from me, in a triangle with the soldiers. And the soldiers shot them. Right in front of me. And then they tear-gassed the square."

Green escaped unharmed but not unaffected. He was 26 at the time, a student of dharma who had arrived in Tibet two months earlier to experience the culture he had read about for years. What he got instead was a lesson in earthly suffering and injustice. He never saw his photographs printed -- they were lost when he tried to smuggle the film out of China -- but what he had witnessed stayed with him. Within months, he was in Calcutta at Mother Teresa's Home for Dying Destitutes, carrying terminally ill patients back and forth to the restroom. And doing lots of thinking.

"I realized two things," he says. "One, I could do anything; and two, I became immensely grateful for the affluence in this country."

He also realized the value of service: "The sisters at the Missionaries of Charity [Mother Teresa's order] dedicated their lives to service of the poor. And I had this very proud idea: 'Oh, I'm the guy who documented the struggle of the Tibetans.' And I saw that I didn't really do anything. And I still haven't."

The Path of Service

The service ethic began to influence Green's path. After returning to the United States, he got master's degrees in public policy and natural resources from the University of Michigan, building on his UC Berkeley bachelor's degree in conservation. He spent his last school year in Dharamsala in northern India, home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile, trying to solve the impoverished refugee community's overwhelming garbage problem -- "not sexy work."

After graduation came an idealistically driven but disappointing three years with the federal government in Washington doing environmental protection work. That led to Green's loading up his Honda Accord and lighting out for his old stomping grounds: the San Francisco Bay Area.

He had a plan. He wanted to start an organization that would work to make the environment safer for everyone, especially poor people, who tend to live in the most polluted areas. As he drove, he mulled some advice he had gotten while on a summer internship in The Hague. It came from Michael van Walt, longtime legal adviser to the Dalai Lama.

"Basically the message was: Just do it," Green says. "Don't worry about the money. Just do it and the money will show up."

That was 1996, the year the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) was born on the strength of a credit card and the sheer willpower of a guy from Cleveland with a spiritual bent.

Today CEH is a small but audacious nonprofit with an established record of David v. Goliath victories. In 1999, it sued Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and other makers of medicated baby powder over lead-contaminated zinc in their products. By 2003, the companies had agreed to reformulate their powders. In 2000, CEH sued the makers of Children's Kaopectate, Pepto-Bismol and other anti-diarrheals over lead exposure; the companies agreed to either reduce lead levels or place warning labels on their products. In 2001, CEH sued 30 manufacturers of playground equipment made with arsenic-treated wood. Two years later, the entire industry had stopped distributing arsenic-contaminated structures.

Lunchboxes and Lead Apples

Perhaps the most impressive victory came in July 2004, weeks after CEH, along with California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, filed suit against a slew of major retailers -- among them Macy's, Target and Claire's -- for selling lead-contaminated jewelry. Shortly thereafter, the Consumer Product Safety Commission ordered the recall of 150 million pieces of lead-tainted children's jewelry sold in vending machines. It was the largest product recall in the commission's history.

Since then, CEH has sent warnings to makers of lead-contaminated Mexican candy, filed suit against the Walt Disney Co. over lead-contaminated children's jewelry and sued the makers of soft vinyl lunchboxes over their high lead content.

Not bad for an organization with eight full-time employees. Nine years on, a fit and energetic Green presides over a youthful staff that still looks flushed with the discovery of its political success. The group makes all decisions -- including the recent hire of an associate director -- by consensus. It's a management model Green strove to attain for years but only recently figured out. "It's really simple," he says. "All it means is that you're honest about how you feel and you're nice to everybody."


Digg!

Traci Hukill is a freelance journalist based in Monterey, Calif. This piece originally appeared in Common Ground.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »


Advertisement

 

Comments Turn comments off sitewide Give us feedback »
Comments closed.
The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.
View:
Model for big thinkers?
Posted by: John Rice on Dec 5, 2005 8:03 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
One model is "an ambitious, gigantic regulatory regime" making its arduous way through the European Union approval system. Guth has made up a version that would apply in the U.S. and is sending it around to other big thinkers as a starting point.

As one generally appreciative of models, I'd like to see both Guth's and the European versions, even though I might not qualify as a big thinker.

Any links as to where they might be found?

Regards,,,John
(john_rice@neitherparty.org)

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Model for big thinkers? Posted by: bigedca
Be Apart, or Be A Part? We Need Both"
Posted by: monkeywrench on Dec 5, 2005 8:52 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm glad that there are people like Michael Green in the world who are willing to get down and dirty in the trenches, but I'm sorry to read that he didn't think he helped by documenting Tibetans' struggle for freedom. The world needs many more like Michael getting their hands dirty to clean up our planet, but it also needs those who are willing to shine the clensing light of day on crimes carried out in the shadows. The Chinese were right about one thing: "a picture is worth a thousand words"; and pictures can change the minds of millions. The fact is, we need both.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

This Is Called Inevitability
Posted by: davidt on Dec 5, 2005 12:56 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Think about these items for a bit:

1. Cancer is on the rise and NOT on the wane. There are many "cluster" cancer areas in this country and these sites are usually pollution or hazmat sites which are sole-employers of a community. So if the company is reported for violations, surprise, surprise--the company pulls out leaving a toxic mess for the taxpayers to take care of. Or, the whistleblowers are harassed, threathened, put on the company "shitlist" or assaulted.

2. Remember when 300-lb athletes used to a freak occurrence? Well now they are coming into COLLEGE at 300 lbs. Ask yourself how this is happening? Could chemicals have anything to do with it?

3. Last year Bill Moyers, an American hero, did a 2-hr PBS broadcast on the chemical industry examining just how "safe" those wonder-chemicals are that abound in our environment. He was personally tested for chemical content in his own body. Bill had 73 "contaminants" in his blood that he knew nothing about.

4. The Amercian Chemical Council, the lobby arm of industry sent out articles condemning the Moyers broadcast as anti-business and one-sided because Bill did not allow a representative of the industry to be on the discussion panel of the show. This letter was sent out PRIOR to the broadcast.
Moyers said he extended an invitation to the head honcho of the ACC but he DECLINED to appear. Who do you believe? An easy one for sure!

5. There are hundreds of new chemicals that are added to our air, food, water and ground every year--5%, that's 5% have been EVALUATED for hazardous effects. The rest are a crapshoot. Why? Same old shit--it is too EXPENSIVE to test them all. (Sounds like our cattle/foreign container inspection rate doesn't it?)

So,,,why in blue blazes do we have to have these chemicals in the first place?

Simple. The two MOST profitable industries on Wall Street for the last 30 years are--chemicals & energy. Competition among chemical companies dictates that a steady stream of new chemicals keeps flowing, ad nauseum. Keeps the shareholders checks coming in, and everbody is happy. Piss on the consumers.

Thank you CEH for what you are attempting to do!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

A breath of fresh air
Posted by: Unbowed on Dec 27, 2005 10:30 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
That such wins against the empire of Polluters are possible fills my heart with joy. Your efforts make me feel hopeful. You go Mr. Green! God bless you, and your great group for going after the giant with your sling shots and taking such dead aim. Thank you so much.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Da African
Posted by: Da African on Mar 6, 2006 8:46 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Now we need to get a grassroots movement against the genetically modified monopolist poisoners Monsanto and others.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]