Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Forever Chemicals Are Everywhere—How Do We Stay Safe? with EWG President Ken Cook

Transcript

Forever Chemicals Are Everywhere—How Do We Stay Safe? with EWG President Ken Cook · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:01
Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
0:04
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
0:10
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
0:15
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe and each week, my guests and I come
0:17
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
0:21
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask.
0:24
Speaker 2: What if, why not? And who says?
0:29
Speaker 3: So?
0:29
Speaker 2: Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation.
0:33
Speaker 1: It's time to question everything.
0:39
Speaker 3: Hello, I hope you're having a great day. I'm back
0:42
Speaker 3: in LA after a month of travels for Women's Month.
0:46
Speaker 3: I was in New York, Miami, took a little respit
0:51
Speaker 3: in Jamaica, and now I'm back in LA. And today's
0:55
Speaker 3: episode is one that is actually kind of personal to me.
1:00
Speaker 3: But if you are somebody who cares about your health
1:03
Speaker 3: or the health of the world and particularly the next generation,
1:08
Speaker 3: this episode will also be personal for you. I'm known
1:12
Speaker 3: about the Environmental Working Group, which is often talked about
1:16
Speaker 3: as the EWG for a long time because there's a
1:19
Speaker 3: woman named Karen Malkin who I basically consider my second mom.
1:24
Speaker 3: She's an integrative health coach and she created my favorite
1:28
Speaker 3: vegan protein powder which I'll link here in case you're interested.
1:32
Speaker 3: But way more than that, when I think about things
1:35
Speaker 3: and people that I'm grateful for, Karen is always one
1:37
Speaker 3: of the first people that comes to mind. She's one
1:40
Speaker 3: of those people that I think of when I don't
1:42
Speaker 3: know what to do. I think, you know, what would
1:44
Speaker 3: Karen do? Because she always comes from a place of love.
1:48
Speaker 3: There's probably about three people like that that I can
1:50
Speaker 3: think of in my life. And it was through Karen
1:53
Speaker 3: that I first discovered the EWG. She's worked with them
1:56
Speaker 3: for years, and then years later I had the privilege
2:01
Speaker 3: of working with them directly. But I think I was
2:04
Speaker 3: in college when Karen shared with me that some of
2:08
Speaker 3: the products that we use every single day, our laundry detergent,
2:13
Speaker 3: our laundry detergent, our makeup, even baby shampoo, which is
2:17
Speaker 3: really upsetting, can be filled with toxic chemicals. Chemicals that
2:21
Speaker 3: have been linked to hormone disruption, cancer, asthma, ezema, thyroid dysfunction, infertility,
2:27
Speaker 3: reproductive harm, immune suppression, hormone imbalances like early puberty, and really, sadly,
2:34
Speaker 3: even neuro developmental disorders in children. And you know a
2:38
Speaker 3: lot of people say, well, everything kills us, and they
2:40
Speaker 3: kind of brush it off, and I get that because
2:43
Speaker 3: this can be a topic that is hard to tackle.
2:46
Speaker 3: But I've always been of the mind of wanting to
2:49
Speaker 3: do what I can do where I can do it,
2:52
Speaker 3: and so trying to use as many clean products as
2:56
Speaker 3: possible has been probably a five to six year long
3:00
Speaker 3: journey for me. Karen and the EWG are why I
3:03
Speaker 3: don't wear fragrances. It's because all those fragrances can really
3:07
Speaker 3: be endocrine disruptors which affect your hormones, and it's hard
3:14
Speaker 3: to do everything all at once. And so the first
3:17
Speaker 3: thing I did was I tackled my cleaning products. Then
3:21
Speaker 3: I started looking through my makeup, which I have to
3:23
Speaker 3: be honest, is a pain point for me because I've
3:26
Speaker 3: found that clean makeup just oftentimes is not as good
3:30
Speaker 3: as the one with the chemicals. But makeup is probably
3:33
Speaker 3: one of the It's one of the worst categories because
3:37
Speaker 3: you know, like, why are we putting talc on our face?
3:39
Speaker 3: It's awful. But I try, and I try and switch
3:42
Speaker 3: over what I can. I mean, I don't even just
3:44
Speaker 3: do it for me. The environment has like these products
3:48
Speaker 3: have a huge impact on the environment. People talk about
3:50
Speaker 3: mes scera as one of the worst products for the environment.
3:54
Speaker 3: It's super wasteful. So my goal today when talking to
3:57
Speaker 3: our guest can cook is not to overwhelm you in
4:00
Speaker 3: any way. And that's why I love Ken. He has
4:02
Speaker 3: a real way of making it all feel just not overwhelming,
4:07
Speaker 3: but to just give all of us more information. And
4:11
Speaker 3: this is a side note, but the EWG helped produce
4:15
Speaker 3: a documentary called The Devil We Know and it blew
4:18
Speaker 3: me away. It tells this story of how DuPont, which
4:21
Speaker 3: is a company and the company behind Teflon, you know,
4:24
Speaker 3: like all the pans we use, knowingly contaminated communities with
4:28
Speaker 3: forever chemicals for decades. And now these chemicals are found
4:31
Speaker 3: in the blood of ninety eight percent of Americans. And
4:35
Speaker 3: the thing that's even worse is that the Environmental Protection Agency,
4:39
Speaker 3: the EPA, the very organization that's supposed to protect us,
4:43
Speaker 3: did not act in time with DuPont, and so sometimes
4:46
Speaker 3: because of slow bureaucracy and sometimes because of lobbying, the
4:50
Speaker 3: same result happens in our products, in our everyday cleaning products,
4:54
Speaker 3: in our makeup. We were exposed to things without our
4:58
Speaker 3: knowledge or without our consent. And that's basically why the
5:02
Speaker 3: EWG was born. They asked the question, what if the
5:05
Speaker 3: people had access to the same data the government and
5:08
Speaker 3: corporations do. They took science and they made it public.
5:12
Speaker 3: They really empower consumers and they make choosing safer easier,
5:17
Speaker 3: and in doing so, they really change the landscape of
5:20
Speaker 3: consumer health forever. Today's guest has been called an environmental
5:28
Speaker 3: superhero and one of the most powerful foodies in the world.
5:32
Speaker 3: His name is Ken Cook, and I feel lucky to
5:35
Speaker 3: call him a friend at this point. But if you
5:37
Speaker 3: don't know him yet, you definitely know his work, even
5:40
Speaker 3: if you don't know it's his. He's the force behind
5:43
Speaker 3: the Environmental Working Group and the watchdog that told us
5:47
Speaker 3: what's actually in our tap water, in our makeup, in
5:50
Speaker 3: our food, in our cleaning products.
5:53
Speaker 2: We legalize a lot of things that aren't safe. Just
5:57
Speaker 2: because it's legal doesn't mean and it's safe.
6:01
Speaker 3: Ken has spent decades fighting big agriculture, exposing government loopholes,
6:05
Speaker 3: and pushing for transparency on everything from pesticides to pfast
6:10
Speaker 3: chemicals aka the toxic stuff showing up in everything from
6:14
Speaker 3: your MASc era to your morning oatmeal. And Ken says
6:18
Speaker 3: that we the consumers have become the regulators.
6:21
Speaker 2: Most of these are chronic exposure issues long term, just
6:25
Speaker 2: finish that container or that makeup item and start buying
6:31
Speaker 2: safer things afterward. Don't waste your money. No one's perfect here.
6:35
Speaker 2: You can't avoid all these exposures. You can avoid a
6:39
Speaker 2: lot of them over time, and give yourself a little
6:41
Speaker 2: credit for doing it right.
6:44
Speaker 3: So today Ken is explaining how and why, as well
6:47
Speaker 3: as what to swap, what to skip, and what the
6:50
Speaker 3: government isn't telling us and what's in our home. But
6:54
Speaker 3: don't worry, I promise you this is not doom and gloom.
6:56
Speaker 3: It's really informative and empowering. Oh and I want to
6:59
Speaker 3: mention that Ken is hilarious and he has his own
7:02
Speaker 3: podcast called Ken Cook is having another episode. Isn't the
7:06
Speaker 3: name funny? So I'm going to link his show in
7:08
Speaker 3: the show notes. I really love his interviews with Aaron
7:11
Speaker 3: Brokovic and Mark Hyman if you want to start with
7:13
Speaker 3: one of those. So let's get into it. It's time
7:17
Speaker 3: to question everything with Ken Cook. You started with EWG
7:24
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety three, and I've had the good fortune
7:28
Speaker 3: of learning a lot about the organization over the last
7:31
Speaker 3: few years, and it seems like the mission has evolved
7:35
Speaker 3: since you first started.
7:37
Speaker 2: How so well, you know, we started off in the
7:40
Speaker 2: nineties based in DC as a kind of a classic
7:45
Speaker 2: environmental policy group like everyone else, right, and you might
7:49
Speaker 2: have wondered, and several people did, wonder, do we really
7:52
Speaker 2: need another one? But there I was, and we started it.
7:56
Speaker 2: We started off thinking that our business, our theory of
8:01
Speaker 2: change was you do original research, you get in the media,
8:05
Speaker 2: You go to Capitol Hill and to regulatory agencies with
8:09
Speaker 2: the stories you've generated, the attention you've drawn to a topic,
8:12
Speaker 2: could be pesticides in baby food, could be the need
8:16
Speaker 2: for making changes to our farm subsidy system so that
8:20
Speaker 2: we spend more on conservation and protecting water quality and
8:23
Speaker 2: wetlands and wildlife, whatever it might be. That was the idea,
8:29
Speaker 2: and we were very successful at it through the nineties,
8:31
Speaker 2: but also through the nineties that's when it became more
8:35
Speaker 2: and more difficult to make things happen in Washington on
8:39
Speaker 2: environmental matters. We really haven't passed an important environmental protection
8:44
Speaker 2: law in decades. Now. People don't realize that because they
8:47
Speaker 2: still see stories and still see the debates in Washington.
8:51
Speaker 2: We've passed some laws that advanced environmental protection, but we
8:54
Speaker 2: haven't passed like a Clean Air Act or a Clean
8:57
Speaker 2: Water Act, a Safe Drinking Water Act since the nineties.
9:00
Speaker 2: In the case of the Clean Air Act, the last
9:04
Speaker 2: amendments were nineteen ninety and Clean Water Act was even earlier.
9:09
Speaker 3: Can I ask a dumb question, Yeah, it sounds like
9:12
Speaker 3: those are much needed.
9:13
Speaker 2: They are much needed. And the assumption in the environmental community,
9:17
Speaker 2: it was my I was one of the people who
9:18
Speaker 2: assumed it was you know, over time, as science advanced
9:21
Speaker 2: and we knew more and more about these problems. What happened.
9:25
Speaker 2: Originally science coming to Washington, policymakers acting in bipartisan fashion,
9:31
Speaker 2: passing a law, companies complying with the regulations that were issued,
9:35
Speaker 2: and citizens and society consumers benefiting. That all broke and
9:41
Speaker 2: so you know, now we realized we didn't have that option.
9:45
Speaker 2: And I will say we kind of stumbled into it.
9:49
Speaker 2: I wasn't the fastest learner on the team. We kind
9:52
Speaker 2: of stumbled into this idea once the Internet came into force,
9:57
Speaker 2: that we could connect directly to people at a fairly
10:00
Speaker 2: reasonable cost, at least at the time, and so we
10:04
Speaker 2: started publishing information and consumers started coming to our website.
10:09
Speaker 2: Lo and behold. We were still getting in the newspaper
10:11
Speaker 2: on you know, on TV. But I don't have to
10:15
Speaker 2: tell you how much journalism has changed, and not for
10:18
Speaker 2: the better in terms of opportunity and audiences. Entire newsrooms gone,
10:25
Speaker 2: entire newspapers gone, and the audience diminished with them. We
10:31
Speaker 2: saw that starting to happen in the early two thousands.
10:35
Speaker 2: At the same time, we were speaking directly to consumers.
10:38
Speaker 2: Here's here's our Dirty dozen guide to pesticides in produce.
10:42
Speaker 2: Here the fruits and vegetables that are highest in pesticide.
10:47
Speaker 2: You know, try and buy those organic. Here the clean fifteen.
10:50
Speaker 2: On the other side, conventionally grown. Can't always find an
10:54
Speaker 2: afford organic. It's like private school for food. Still, Unfortunately,
10:59
Speaker 2: here's a convention option that's priced affordably. You should try that.
11:03
Speaker 2: We did the same thing with personal care products, big
11:05
Speaker 2: database showing how we ranked thousands of personal care products,
11:10
Speaker 2: and we did it with processed foods. Anyway, as that evolved,
11:15
Speaker 2: we began to realize that we were reaching consumers directly.
11:20
Speaker 2: They were coming to the website in droves. I think
11:23
Speaker 2: we had the last calendar year about thirty three million
11:28
Speaker 2: sessions on our website and another ten million on our app.
11:32
Speaker 3: How did you become the question source? Though, because from
11:35
Speaker 3: what I understand, when I first started getting involved with EWG,
11:39
Speaker 3: it was explained to me that EDWG was the only
11:43
Speaker 3: organization that was really checking the EPA, which is the
11:46
Speaker 3: Environmental Protection Agency. How did you guys become the place?
11:53
Speaker 2: Well, you know there are just to be clear, there
11:55
Speaker 2: are other wonderful important environmental organizations doing great work at EPA,
12:00
Speaker 2: FDA and other agencies. The way we made our way
12:04
Speaker 2: in the world was first we wanted to make sure
12:08
Speaker 2: our science was not just new and our analysis were
12:11
Speaker 2: not just new, but it was authentic and credible. We
12:14
Speaker 2: applied the test early on. You'll love this debt. I
12:18
Speaker 2: think you'll love this, Danielle. We've ever talked about this before.
12:21
Speaker 2: But you know, I had a freelance journalism background, a
12:24
Speaker 2: policy background, and I had a science degree, a master's
12:27
Speaker 2: degree in soil science. So I had these elements, and
12:30
Speaker 2: I was always frustrated that colleagues in the public interest
12:34
Speaker 2: movement didn't prepare their materials reports, for example, in a
12:40
Speaker 2: way that fit with the needs of journalists and fussy, cranky,
12:47
Speaker 2: discerning editors. Our view was the researcher shouldn't completely be
12:52
Speaker 2: in charge of what the report should be and how
12:55
Speaker 2: it should be written. We would never change our facts
13:00
Speaker 2: just to please a headline or secure a headline. But
13:04
Speaker 2: we did hold our journalists to a standard of you know,
13:08
Speaker 2: we're a public interest group. We want to do public education.
13:11
Speaker 2: We try and affect public policy. What's that common word.
13:15
Speaker 2: And it doesn't make sense to publish reports that people
13:19
Speaker 2: don't read or don't get in the newspapers.
13:22
Speaker 3: Right, So you made it buzzy.
13:24
Speaker 2: That was the discipline, and it was also we insisted
13:29
Speaker 2: that it be an enduring buzz buzziness, Like we wouldn't
13:34
Speaker 2: sacrifice our long term reputation just to get a headline,
13:39
Speaker 2: so we would hold back. But we you know, we
13:42
Speaker 2: had database programmers before anyone else. They were digging into
13:45
Speaker 2: government files and finding all kinds of stuff that got
13:48
Speaker 2: into the newspaper. Our very first report, pesticides in children's food,
13:54
Speaker 2: made the front page of papers across the country. So
13:58
Speaker 2: we stayed with that disciplined Danielle and so our media
14:03
Speaker 2: people are a little uncomfortable with how nerdy the material
14:07
Speaker 2: is and our nerds are a little uncomfortable with how
14:11
Speaker 2: accessible our information is.
14:13
Speaker 3: Right, it's a great place to be sandwiched in the middle, right, yes,
14:18
Speaker 3: super small. I didn't know that. So. I think many
14:21
Speaker 3: people have the belief that when they buy something at
14:24
Speaker 3: the grocery store, or even a cosmetic product at any store,
14:28
Speaker 3: that that product has been vetted, that the ingredients have
14:32
Speaker 3: been approved by a governmental agency and it's safe. But
14:36
Speaker 3: that's unfortunately really not the case anymore.
14:40
Speaker 2: Why is that it was never really the case because
14:43
Speaker 2: as we began to work broadly in the public interest
14:48
Speaker 2: movement to try and get these agencies to hold industries
14:52
Speaker 2: to account, there was enough pushback in important sectors that
14:56
Speaker 2: it never really happened. Food additives, for example, food companies
15:00
Speaker 2: can still self approve whatever they put into their products,
15:05
Speaker 2: very little oversight from the FDA until after the fact,
15:09
Speaker 2: and even then sometimes it takes decades. A lot of
15:12
Speaker 2: personal care product ingredients, the companies pretty much self certify
15:16
Speaker 2: the safety of those, so only when something really important
15:20
Speaker 2: and serious and public happens, like someone loses their hair
15:25
Speaker 2: because of using a defective shampoo product or what have you,
15:29
Speaker 2: it just sort of cruises along. It's really it's the
15:31
Speaker 2: same with even air pollution of water pollution. We legalize
15:36
Speaker 2: a lot of things that aren't safe, so we tell
15:40
Speaker 2: people just because it's legal doesn't mean it's safe. And
15:45
Speaker 2: most environmental laws operate in sort of two broad steps,
15:50
Speaker 2: and this is a big accomplishment of the environmental movement
15:53
Speaker 2: over the seventies and eighties and straight through to today.
15:57
Speaker 2: That first step is gathering a lot of information and
16:00
Speaker 2: reaching scientific conclusions that were impossible to reach or information
16:06
Speaker 2: impossible to evaluate because it didn't exist. You know, at
16:10
Speaker 2: the beginning of the environmental movement, basic information about how
16:13
Speaker 2: much pesticide is in produce, what chemicals are in your
16:18
Speaker 2: tap water, what ingredients are in personal care products before
16:22
Speaker 2: they were required to be on the label. That information
16:26
Speaker 2: gathering step often leads to a process where the scientists
16:31
Speaker 2: are asked what's the safe level, and they will oftentimes
16:35
Speaker 2: come up with a judgment for drinking water at the
16:38
Speaker 2: federal level, and here in California, there's a scientific process
16:42
Speaker 2: that sets the level where drinking water won't hurt you
16:47
Speaker 2: if it has a certain level of contamination, right, which
16:51
Speaker 2: is the least water should do. It should not hurt you, Yes,
16:55
Speaker 2: but then the second step, and this is true of
16:57
Speaker 2: many environmental laws too. They rate somewhat differently, they're written
17:02
Speaker 2: a little differently, but basically the second step is the same,
17:05
Speaker 2: which is what's feasible economically, what's politically possible, what's technologically available,
17:14
Speaker 2: And that's where the gap comes in.
17:17
Speaker 3: There's so many negotiations here, and it's I think it's
17:20
Speaker 3: making people a feel like they can't trust the government,
17:25
Speaker 3: which is setting. And then also you know in the
17:29
Speaker 3: news in the last year, we've heard of young people
17:34
Speaker 3: having higher reports of cancer, all types of cancer than
17:37
Speaker 3: ever before. Yeah, is there any research to suggest that
17:42
Speaker 3: some of that is environmental or because of the toxins
17:46
Speaker 3: in our products, in our food.
17:48
Speaker 2: Well, there are really only three possibilities. One is that
17:52
Speaker 2: young children are suddenly evolving differently, that the laws of
17:57
Speaker 2: evolution have changed. Not really likely in some cases, people argue,
18:03
Speaker 2: often sometimes impartial experts, sometimes industry folks. Well, it's just
18:07
Speaker 2: a matter of diagnosis. We're diagnosing problems that we're always
18:12
Speaker 2: in the population of children, but we're finding them now
18:15
Speaker 2: because we're taking a closer look. That's also a little
18:19
Speaker 2: hard to explain, As many pediatricians have told me over
18:23
Speaker 2: the years, if a kid, except for some rare cancers,
18:27
Speaker 2: if a kid had brain cancer, had a tumor, you
18:32
Speaker 2: knew it that was not you know, that might be
18:35
Speaker 2: a delay of several weeks to see if it was
18:37
Speaker 2: something else, but you didn't miss that diagnosis. Same with
18:41
Speaker 2: many other cancers now, that including ones where we like
18:44
Speaker 2: childhood leukemia, where we've have a much better treatment regimen
18:49
Speaker 2: than we had decades ago, but it's not missed. So
18:52
Speaker 2: it's really not diagnosis either. So what's it come down to, Well,
18:56
Speaker 2: then it's the environment. Now we don't always know which
18:59
Speaker 2: element of environment or lifestyle might be contributing the most,
19:05
Speaker 2: but it's pretty clear that toxic chemicals and pollution, those
19:09
Speaker 2: levels which in many cases have been going up or
19:12
Speaker 2: we're finally measuring them and we're probably high for years,
19:17
Speaker 2: those are contributing. And there's a growing literature that relates
19:20
Speaker 2: early childhood exposure, including in the womb, with early onset
19:26
Speaker 2: childhood chronic diseases like cancer. We know that we didn't
19:31
Speaker 2: pay much attention to it until the mid nineties. We
19:35
Speaker 2: have chemicals that affect our hormones that is almost certainly
19:40
Speaker 2: a factor in why young girls are menstruating earlier, They're
19:45
Speaker 2: developing rests earlier than they did before, they're reaching puberty
19:49
Speaker 2: earlier than they did before. Not likely. Evolution. Is diet
19:53
Speaker 2: a factor, BMI is that a factor could be, but
19:58
Speaker 2: also the elements that are in the foods that they're
20:01
Speaker 2: eating and the exposures they have. So I always tell
20:04
Speaker 2: everyone if you have questions about where medical professionals think
20:10
Speaker 2: the science is on the environment, the first place to
20:14
Speaker 2: go is the websites of those professional associations. And I
20:19
Speaker 2: have a lecture I give. I have a whole series
20:22
Speaker 2: of slides. Let me just tick off a few. If
20:24
Speaker 2: you're worried about children being exposed to chemicals that might
20:29
Speaker 2: be causing these early diseases or maybe lead to disease
20:34
Speaker 2: later in life, chemical exposures contaminants, go to the Academy
20:38
Speaker 2: of Pediatrics and see what they have to say about
20:41
Speaker 2: pesticides and toxic chemicals, and you'll see that they're very concerned.
20:45
Speaker 2: If you're worried or wondering if chemicals really are affecting
20:49
Speaker 2: our hormones, affecting our endocrine system, go to the place
20:56
Speaker 2: that would know at best, which is actual endochronology. Go
21:00
Speaker 2: to the Society of Endochronology, and about twenty thousand academics
21:07
Speaker 2: and medical practitioners belong to that association. Read what they
21:13
Speaker 2: have to say because it's eye opening about the reality
21:16
Speaker 2: of toxic chemicals messing with our hormones. American Lung Association,
21:21
Speaker 2: the American Neurological Association. Profession after profession in the medical
21:26
Speaker 2: field has come around very solidly, I would say, in
21:31
Speaker 2: the past fifteen years, certainly in the last ten to say,
21:35
Speaker 2: you know what, this environmental stuff is real. It's not
21:39
Speaker 2: just extreme acute exposures and poisonings. There's a relationship between
21:45
Speaker 2: the disease patterns we're seeing in the population, cancer, ADHD,
21:50
Speaker 2: all kinds of other disorders. There's a relationship between the
21:53
Speaker 2: rise of some of those asthma and exposure to pollution
21:58
Speaker 2: and contaminants.
22:00
Speaker 3: I want to talk about forever chemicals because the EPA
22:03
Speaker 3: recently designated these so called forever chemicals as hazardous substances.
22:09
Speaker 3: What does that new ruling mean.
22:11
Speaker 2: Well, there's been a flurry of decisions by this EPA
22:15
Speaker 2: to make up for the fact that for decades the
22:19
Speaker 2: government did nothing about this sprawling family of tens of
22:24
Speaker 2: thousands of forever chemicals. Here's what they are. They're chemicals
22:28
Speaker 2: that have a fluorine atom bound to a carbon chain.
22:33
Speaker 2: Very common chemistry that came into popularity in industrial chemistry
22:40
Speaker 2: in the fifties and sixties. The Teflons of the World,
22:44
Speaker 2: The three M.
22:45
Speaker 3: I watched the documentary about three M that blew my mind. Yeah,
22:51
Speaker 3: it's in every ocean, It's in every's everywhere.
22:55
Speaker 2: It's everywhere now, it's in ninety eight percent of the
22:58
Speaker 2: US population according to the CDC, and the studies that
23:02
Speaker 2: are being done around the world are showing a similar ubiquity.
23:06
Speaker 2: It's everywhere. So these chemicals really what broke open the story.
23:11
Speaker 2: And we've been working on them as you as you
23:13
Speaker 2: know for a quarter century half. I mean, ewg's been
23:17
Speaker 2: around thirty one years. For twenty five of those we've
23:19
Speaker 2: been working on these chemicals. And we were the first
23:22
Speaker 2: group to step in because we started reading stories about
23:27
Speaker 2: contamination near the Teflon plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. And
23:31
Speaker 2: the famous trial lawyer Rob Alot. We've honored him at
23:34
Speaker 2: EWG and worked with him for years. He was trying
23:39
Speaker 2: to find out what killed a bunch of cattle in Parkersburg,
23:42
Speaker 2: West Virginia, on a farm outside the town, and he
23:46
Speaker 2: discovered that it was the Teflon chemical that was being
23:51
Speaker 2: dumped there by DuPont from their nearby plant. And so
23:55
Speaker 2: what he did was he started releasing the documents that
23:58
Speaker 2: he was getting in discovery to EPA and that's where
24:02
Speaker 2: this whole story began to unfold. Dark Waters, the Hollywood
24:05
Speaker 2: film with Mark Ruffalo, recommend that that tells the story
24:09
Speaker 2: of Rob a Lot, this great lawyer. The Devil we
24:12
Speaker 2: Know is another is the documentary version of it.
24:14
Speaker 3: It's the one I watched.
24:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I think the forever chemicals were
24:20
Speaker 2: used in everything from teflon, gore tech, they're using electronics.
24:25
Speaker 2: They were used in firefighting foam. They still are because
24:28
Speaker 2: if you spray them on a liquid fire like jet
24:33
Speaker 2: fuel fire, they're very good at putting that out. So
24:37
Speaker 2: they were valued by the military and by firefighters at airports.
24:42
Speaker 3: And everyday products too, like they're on pouches and seats
24:47
Speaker 3: in ours and shower curtains and mattresses.
24:50
Speaker 2: And you know, dental floss and makeup and it's insane,
24:54
Speaker 2: right again, no regulation. The companies knew from really the
24:59
Speaker 2: set and in some cases the sixties, they knew it
25:04
Speaker 2: was highly toxic. They were doing animal studies, some of
25:07
Speaker 2: which were so eye opening. I mean, when you're dosing
25:11
Speaker 2: up a bunch of animals to see if they get
25:13
Speaker 2: cancer from a chemical, and the animals die during the study,
25:19
Speaker 2: you can't even wait till the sacrifice period and look
25:22
Speaker 2: for tumors. They're dead in the cage. You've got something
25:25
Speaker 2: to worry about. But they didn't tell the government. Neither
25:28
Speaker 2: three M nor DuPont was leveling with the government. They
25:32
Speaker 2: tried to use loopholes in the law to say they
25:34
Speaker 2: didn't have to report these things. Ultimately they did, and
25:38
Speaker 2: now there are multi billion dollar settlements being levied against
25:42
Speaker 2: these companies for polluting drinking water all over the country.
25:45
Speaker 2: Our pure reviewed study showed it's probably in the water
25:48
Speaker 2: of two hundred million Americans, maybe more. And now finally
25:52
Speaker 2: EPA is cracking down. And I give a lot of
25:54
Speaker 2: credit to this EPA. They did declare that these pfast
25:59
Speaker 2: chemical some of them are hazardous substances. That that means
26:04
Speaker 2: if they're found at an abandoned waste dump, that companies
26:08
Speaker 2: who are associated with that dump historically will have to
26:11
Speaker 2: pay to clean them up. They have also come out
26:14
Speaker 2: recently and I was proud to be to stand up
26:17
Speaker 2: with the EPA administrator because of the time we've put in,
26:20
Speaker 2: the efforts we've put in, we've developed that reputation. My
26:24
Speaker 2: colleagues have done, have done the great work. I got
26:27
Speaker 2: to I got to stand up. They they're regulating six
26:30
Speaker 2: different p fast chemicals in drinking water to the level
26:34
Speaker 2: of four parts per trillion, exquisitely small four parts per trillion.
26:40
Speaker 2: It's so low. Why is it so low? Because EPA
26:43
Speaker 2: is basically decided for these six p fast chemicals, it
26:47
Speaker 2: really isn't a safe level, no safe level like lead
26:51
Speaker 2: and already and then I'll let I'll let you get
26:54
Speaker 2: to the next question.
26:55
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about water. That was my question.
26:58
Speaker 2: Well, the chemical compmpanies that are responsible for the pollution
27:02
Speaker 2: and the water utilities who don't want to pay the
27:04
Speaker 2: cleanup costs. They've already sued EPA to stop this regulation.
27:09
Speaker 2: So you know, that's the kind of fight you get in.
27:12
Speaker 2: We'll be involved in it from you know, we've been
27:14
Speaker 2: in it from the start when no one would listen
27:16
Speaker 2: to us as we were trying to say you know,
27:18
Speaker 2: these weird chemicals you've never heard of before, completely unregulated,
27:22
Speaker 2: no environmental law touches them. We've gone from that to
27:25
Speaker 2: now it's a global crisis. Regulators all over the world,
27:29
Speaker 2: Danielle are trying to figure out how to turn off
27:32
Speaker 2: the tap, as we like to say, for the new
27:35
Speaker 2: p fast chemicals coming into commerce and into our lives.
27:38
Speaker 2: They're also trying to hold companies accountable for cleanup costs,
27:41
Speaker 2: whether it's water being dumped on land, sewage sludge being
27:45
Speaker 2: applied to agricultural land full of p fasts can ruin
27:49
Speaker 2: the land for the farmers, contaminate the food and the
27:52
Speaker 2: meat and the milk. So it's really sort of the
27:55
Speaker 2: DDT of our times.
27:58
Speaker 3: So these p fast chemicals, I read a recent study
28:01
Speaker 3: that said that they are in half of our nation's
28:04
Speaker 3: tap water, and they've been called ubiquitous. You use that
28:07
Speaker 3: word too, Yeah, it should. Like I have a filter,
28:12
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's the right one. I have
28:15
Speaker 3: a different one on my shower than I do on
28:17
Speaker 3: my sink. Yeah, and honestly, they were the ones that
28:20
Speaker 3: were affordable at the time that I bought them. Do
28:24
Speaker 3: we need a specific filter?
28:26
Speaker 2: Is there one that you recommend, Well, it depends on
28:29
Speaker 2: what pfast varieties are in your water.
28:32
Speaker 3: Right.
28:33
Speaker 2: For a number of the important and common ones that
28:36
Speaker 2: we've been very worried about for drinking water purposes, carbon
28:40
Speaker 2: filtration will knock them way down. So you can put
28:44
Speaker 2: a you know, a countertop filter or a picture filter
28:48
Speaker 2: with that activated carbon in there, that black stuff that
28:52
Speaker 2: filters out lead and lots of other things that will
28:55
Speaker 2: capture those. In some parts of the country back east,
28:59
Speaker 2: for example, in North Carolina, in Faantfield, North Carolina, they're
29:04
Speaker 2: you know, they're producing a type of pfast that isn't
29:06
Speaker 2: absorbed to this carbon. So for them, you know, it's
29:10
Speaker 2: the cost of reverse osmosis for you know, filtration maybe
29:14
Speaker 2: under the sink. Some people do whole house filtration. There's
29:18
Speaker 2: so many chemicals out there that are not regulated yet
29:21
Speaker 2: in drinking water, or not regulated adequately. Go to our website,
29:26
Speaker 2: go to EWG dot org, go to the tapwater database.
29:29
Speaker 2: In fact, you don't have to go to EWG dot org.
29:32
Speaker 2: Just type in National Tapwater Database and sad to say
29:37
Speaker 2: that that database is maintained by a small nonprofit. It
29:40
Speaker 2: should be maintained by the government, but it's not and
29:42
Speaker 2: you can type in your zip code find out what's
29:45
Speaker 2: in your water. We're updating it now. Some of the
29:47
Speaker 2: data in there now is you know, from twenty nineteen
29:50
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty. We're updating it and it'll be released
29:53
Speaker 2: next year. But look at the website see what's in there.
29:56
Speaker 2: And then we recommend filters for each contaminant, so you know,
30:01
Speaker 2: save your little research. If you find out you have
30:04
Speaker 2: pfast and your drinking water. If your utility tells you that,
30:08
Speaker 2: ask them what type. Don't let them tell you. It's
30:10
Speaker 2: nothing to worry about. You. You just use your own
30:14
Speaker 2: agency and find a filtration system that works.
30:18
Speaker 3: I actually went and typed mine in a few years ago,
30:21
Speaker 3: maybe two years ago, and luckily the water in my
30:25
Speaker 3: area was not so bad. But I live in an
30:28
Speaker 3: old apartment building built in the seventies and these old pipes,
30:33
Speaker 3: yes a bad. So it's like, no matter what you're
30:36
Speaker 3: dealing with, you need some sort of filtration system.
30:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, we recommend filtered tap water for people. Just generally.
30:43
Speaker 2: We have very clean water where I live in northern California,
30:46
Speaker 2: no major industrial sources near it, and we have a
30:50
Speaker 2: fairly fairly new plumbing in our house. But still, yeah,
30:54
Speaker 2: you're exactly right. I mean, look what happened, you know,
30:57
Speaker 2: to all the families that were left poisoned in Michigan
31:02
Speaker 2: as a result of that. They change the way they
31:05
Speaker 2: treat the water to kill microbial life. And when they
31:09
Speaker 2: did that, they changed the pH and when they did that,
31:14
Speaker 2: lead pipes started migrating lead out of the pipes and
31:19
Speaker 2: into the water.
31:19
Speaker 3: So I think there's this idea though that people have
31:23
Speaker 3: that it happens in disenfranchised neighborhoods and they're saying it's awful,
31:28
Speaker 3: but that's not me, but it very well could be.
31:32
Speaker 3: It could be just in disenfranchised neighborhoods.
31:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. We don't suggest for a minute
31:39
Speaker 2: that you can completely eliminate all these risks. Some of
31:44
Speaker 2: them are going to be there. But particularly if you
31:48
Speaker 2: have kids with lead, you want to be extra careful.
31:51
Speaker 2: I'm not saying you should be careful for yourself, but
31:54
Speaker 2: we know what happens with little kids who are exposed
31:57
Speaker 2: to lead. It It can affect them for life, can
32:00
Speaker 2: affect their mental functioning, their IQ and so forth. So
32:04
Speaker 2: I mean the same is true with older buildings that
32:06
Speaker 2: have lead based paint maybe on a windowsill. Right, So
32:10
Speaker 2: it's at our website. You can go through. There's a
32:13
Speaker 2: section where you can go through every room of your
32:15
Speaker 2: house and be scared. No, no, empowered. Did I say scared?
32:19
Speaker 2: You can go yeah, will scare the shit out of
32:22
Speaker 2: you one room after another.
32:24
Speaker 3: No.
32:24
Speaker 2: You go through the website and we tell you look,
32:27
Speaker 2: if you're you know, here are the things to think
32:29
Speaker 2: through the or the ways you maintain your home. If
32:31
Speaker 2: you're thinking about buying a new piece of furniture, take
32:35
Speaker 2: steps to avoid getting these chemical exposures. If you're refinishing
32:39
Speaker 2: a piece of furniture or refinishing a you know, a
32:43
Speaker 2: stair rail or whatever it might be. To improve your home,
32:47
Speaker 2: just be thoughtful about the paints and varnishes and strippers
32:50
Speaker 2: and all the rest you use, and then the things
32:53
Speaker 2: you bring into the home. There's lots of ways to
32:55
Speaker 2: avoid many of these exposures. And you don't have to
32:59
Speaker 2: move to a yert in a mountain meadow. You can
33:03
Speaker 2: still live in your apartment. Danielle, We can do.
33:05
Speaker 3: It step by step two. I started with my cleaning product.
33:08
Speaker 3: Then I moved to my makeup. Then I moved to
33:12
Speaker 3: my mattress like I didn't do it all at one time.
33:15
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that is key. I mean, give yourself some wins, right,
33:20
Speaker 2: Most of these are chronic exposure issues long term. Just
33:24
Speaker 2: finish that container or that makeup item and start buying
33:30
Speaker 2: safer things afterwards. Don't waste your money, don't throw it away,
33:35
Speaker 2: be smart about it. And again, no one's perfect here.
33:38
Speaker 2: You can't avoid all these exposures. You can avoid a
33:42
Speaker 2: lot of them over time, and give yourself a little
33:44
Speaker 2: credit for doing it right.
33:46
Speaker 3: Okay, So I want you to take me inside your
33:49
Speaker 3: life as a consumer. It's okay that we get such
33:52
Speaker 3: an expert on the show, and I want to know
33:54
Speaker 3: how you personally are keeping yourself safe. So what's on
33:58
Speaker 3: your list of no no chemicals that you never use?
34:03
Speaker 2: Well? I avoid a lot of chemical exposures by following
34:07
Speaker 2: the advice of my own organization.
34:09
Speaker 3: You know.
34:09
Speaker 2: I try and buy fruits and vegetables that are organic.
34:14
Speaker 2: I'm lucky I can afford it, and I live in
34:16
Speaker 2: northern California. There's a California generally there's much more availability
34:22
Speaker 2: of organic food, don't I don't eat much meat, hardly
34:26
Speaker 2: any in fact, and for years eight none and that
34:29
Speaker 2: helps you avoid a lot of toxic chemicals that end
34:32
Speaker 2: up in end up in chicken and beef and pork.
34:37
Speaker 2: I'm very careful about the personal care products I use.
34:40
Speaker 2: What happens is you've met my wife Deb, So she
34:43
Speaker 2: goes to EWG. She picks out all the cool girl stuff,
34:49
Speaker 2: you know, because the guys we get the shit we get,
34:51
Speaker 2: you know.
34:52
Speaker 3: It's like her favorite shampoo and yeah.
34:56
Speaker 2: And then then then I say bye too, right. I
34:59
Speaker 2: don't use the toxic laundry stuff anymore. We don't use,
35:02
Speaker 2: you know, fabric softener. We don't use fragrance around the house,
35:06
Speaker 2: haven't for years, starting when we had cal sixteen years ago.
35:10
Speaker 2: Hard to believe at sixteen, I know, but you know,
35:13
Speaker 2: we we just really doubled down when we knew we
35:16
Speaker 2: had someone coming into the world. But you don't have
35:19
Speaker 2: to wait for that. You should and everyone should be
35:22
Speaker 2: aware of this. So I do it area by area.
35:26
Speaker 2: We've made big investments. Recently. We bought an eat electric vehicle.
35:30
Speaker 2: We have solar panels on our roof. We're trying to
35:33
Speaker 2: you know, said eat oat products. I don't eat except
35:37
Speaker 2: unless they're organic, because a lot of them we have
35:40
Speaker 2: found have glyciseiate have round up on them because it's
35:44
Speaker 2: sprayed late in the season, still too much in Canada,
35:48
Speaker 2: and our scientists have have found it through laboratory studies
35:51
Speaker 2: we commission. Now we found a new chemical called klormaquat
35:55
Speaker 2: in oat products. It's all. We've also found it already
35:57
Speaker 2: in people in the US and they phased out round
36:01
Speaker 2: up or glyphys eate on oats. In Canada they started
36:04
Speaker 2: using this growth regulator and we're worried about that too.
36:08
Speaker 2: So I just organic solves a lot of problems. You know.
36:11
Speaker 2: It's you don't have to worry about playing whack a
36:14
Speaker 2: mole or chemical bad chemical of the week because none
36:17
Speaker 2: of them are allowed and organic they might incidentally contaminate,
36:21
Speaker 2: but it's very very rare, very low level. So food
36:25
Speaker 2: isn't easy. Is an easy one.
36:27
Speaker 3: But again even for meat, you're okay, you get organic.
36:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, organic is super expensive. I probably live in the
36:34
Speaker 2: most affordable part of the world for organic meat, at
36:39
Speaker 2: least Hamburger because of all the organic dairy we have here.
36:43
Speaker 2: And organic dairy cows live a great life and then
36:46
Speaker 2: have one bad day, as they say in the business,
36:49
Speaker 2: and they end up as Hamburger. So we have Hamburger here,
36:53
Speaker 2: but I you know, organic beef is really expensive. If
36:57
Speaker 2: we buy chicken. I cook chicken last night for the family.
37:01
Speaker 2: It was organic.
37:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I go to.
37:03
Speaker 2: That extra trouble and that extra expense.
37:05
Speaker 3: Is there anything else that we need to look for, though,
37:07
Speaker 3: because I've heard sometimes that it's not even enough.
37:12
Speaker 2: So yeah, organic has its limits. It's the best standard
37:15
Speaker 2: we have out there, and from our perspective, it mostly
37:19
Speaker 2: holds up. But you know the thing is, it's still expensive.
37:24
Speaker 2: And so a big factor for us at EWG is
37:28
Speaker 2: if we can't democratize these health benefits, these these consumer choices,
37:35
Speaker 2: if they're not affordable and available accessible to people, then
37:39
Speaker 2: we're still We're going to keep working on that because
37:42
Speaker 2: we can't have this be something that you know is
37:46
Speaker 2: for the coastal elites or however you define the rarefied
37:51
Speaker 2: mostly determined by income and wealth segment of the population
37:56
Speaker 2: that can get all the good, safe stuff. That's not
37:59
Speaker 2: our deal. We want to make sure that those real
38:01
Speaker 2: prices keep dropping, options keep coming into the market, and
38:05
Speaker 2: that is happening. We haven't gotten there yet, but there
38:08
Speaker 2: are more and more companies out there that are offering
38:11
Speaker 2: safer healthier and affordable options for any category you pick,
38:15
Speaker 2: whether it's cleaning products or food or personal care.
38:18
Speaker 3: I've heard time and again that Europe regulates consumer products
38:22
Speaker 3: differently than the US. What is it that they're doing differently.
38:27
Speaker 2: They're making an assumption that when information is not clear,
38:31
Speaker 2: when the science is not entirely clear to establish safety,
38:37
Speaker 2: that they'll assume that they should regulate those products. The
38:42
Speaker 2: burden of proof in the US in most categories is
38:47
Speaker 2: the product is innocent until proven guilty, and you have
38:51
Speaker 2: agencies that don't have the capability to prove it guilty.
38:57
Speaker 2: Maybe ever, but certainly not for years during that whole
39:00
Speaker 2: period of time we're exposed.
39:03
Speaker 3: So I'm very lucky. In LA they have an East
39:06
Speaker 3: West Medical program. It's one of the only in the country.
39:09
Speaker 3: And so I think about six or seven years ago,
39:12
Speaker 3: when I first started swapping out all my products, I
39:15
Speaker 3: went to my yearly checkup. She asked about lifestyle. That's
39:20
Speaker 3: the Eastern medicine.
39:21
Speaker 2: That's plus. That's a plus most of them don't, right, Yes, No.
39:25
Speaker 3: That's why I go. It's huge. I love it. And
39:27
Speaker 3: I was telling her about all the swaps I was making,
39:30
Speaker 3: and she was like, these are all awesome, but the
39:33
Speaker 3: most important one I heard you say was your deodorant.
39:37
Speaker 3: And she said it goes right into your lymph nodes.
39:40
Speaker 3: For her, that was the most important. Okay, everybody has
39:43
Speaker 3: different ideas of what's important to them. How do you
39:47
Speaker 3: feel if someone were to leave this podcast episode and
39:51
Speaker 3: make three swaps? What swaps would you suggest?
39:55
Speaker 2: I would look at the personal care products you use
39:57
Speaker 2: most often, and I would go to our website. Look
40:00
Speaker 2: them up on our website. Skin deep is the name
40:03
Speaker 2: of it, ewg dot org skin deep. See how we
40:06
Speaker 2: rate your product. It should be in there. We don't
40:08
Speaker 2: have everything, but we have I think one hundred thousand
40:11
Speaker 2: personal care products and many thousands of ingredients we've rated.
40:15
Speaker 2: Take a look and see how it rates, and decide if,
40:19
Speaker 2: on the basis of that, use the rest of your
40:22
Speaker 2: shampoo or your deodorant, and then start swapping something else.
40:26
Speaker 2: There's many, especially in the deodorant category. There are a
40:30
Speaker 2: lot of healthier options out there now. The second thing
40:34
Speaker 2: I would do is I would pick up the dirty
40:37
Speaker 2: dozen in Clean fifteen to eliminate lots of pesticide exposures,
40:42
Speaker 2: dietary exposures, and I would look for the fruits and
40:46
Speaker 2: vegetables that we say, you know, I tend to have
40:49
Speaker 2: a lot of pest sides changes a little bit from
40:51
Speaker 2: year to year based on USDA data. That's what we
40:53
Speaker 2: use to develop the list. But basically it's things like,
40:56
Speaker 2: you know, strawberries and apples and a few other things.
40:59
Speaker 2: Look for them. I'm organic. Now, it's not a perfect standard,
41:02
Speaker 2: but over the years, and I think we've had something
41:06
Speaker 2: to do with it by you know, pointing this out
41:09
Speaker 2: for fifteen twenty years. Now, if the Dirty Dozen you
41:12
Speaker 2: can find organic apples and organic potatoes and organic carrots,
41:16
Speaker 2: and increasingly organic strawberries when they're in season. That would
41:20
Speaker 2: be my second thing. And I think the third thing
41:23
Speaker 2: I would do is I would think about ventilating my home.
41:27
Speaker 2: I would be thoughtful about opening windows to not live
41:32
Speaker 2: hermetically sealed. I know it can be difficult, you know,
41:35
Speaker 2: you and I live in California. We can have our
41:38
Speaker 2: hot days, even here north of San Francisco. With climate change,
41:42
Speaker 2: there are days I don't want the window open, but
41:44
Speaker 2: I can open it at night and get rid of
41:47
Speaker 2: whatever might be in the air during that period. Closing
41:49
Speaker 2: during the day and likewise take your shoes off before
41:53
Speaker 2: you come in the house. Don't track you know, dust
41:57
Speaker 2: and so forth. We find a lot of toxic chemicals
42:00
Speaker 2: adhering to dust particles in the home. So you know,
42:04
Speaker 2: get that back out or get a you know, get
42:07
Speaker 2: a robot vack and that basic maintenance. It doesn't cost much.
42:12
Speaker 2: You don't have to do it suddenly, you don't have
42:14
Speaker 2: to do it all at once. You made the very
42:16
Speaker 2: good point, don't let the perfect be the enemy of
42:20
Speaker 2: the good or the agent of insanity. Just be careful
42:24
Speaker 2: and thoughtful about it. Those would be three I would.
42:26
Speaker 3: Recommend for anybody who doesn't know what the clean fifteen
42:30
Speaker 3: and the dirty does and are. Will you explain those?
42:32
Speaker 2: Yes, this is a report we do every year. We
42:36
Speaker 2: look at tens of thousands of data points that come
42:41
Speaker 2: out of USDA's produce testing program. They test fruits and vegetables,
42:47
Speaker 2: they rotate them. They don't test all fruits and vegetables
42:50
Speaker 2: every year, but they test them. And it started as
42:53
Speaker 2: a survey to see what pesticides were in fruits and
42:57
Speaker 2: vegetables that little kids ate. Lot of Well, that list
43:01
Speaker 2: comes out every year. We download the data and we
43:06
Speaker 2: conduct an analysis and say okay, which fruits and vegetables
43:09
Speaker 2: have the most pesticides on them, the most number, the
43:13
Speaker 2: greatest number different pesticides, you know, the most consistent positive results.
43:21
Speaker 2: You know what percentage of the apples have, how many
43:24
Speaker 2: pesticide residues on them. Then we rank them, and the
43:27
Speaker 2: dirty dozen is the top twelve for pesticide exposure and
43:32
Speaker 2: contamination that we say, try and by organic if you can,
43:38
Speaker 2: or shop on the other side the Clean fifteen. You
43:41
Speaker 2: can get the same nutritional benefits if you're careful about
43:44
Speaker 2: it by buying conventionally grown things like bananas that the
43:50
Speaker 2: pest side residues are not in the flesh of the banana,
43:53
Speaker 2: they're on the peel, so you can enjoy bananas and
43:57
Speaker 2: not have a pesticide load. It's it's simple stuff like that.
44:00
Speaker 2: And as you know, as we've been talking, we really
44:03
Speaker 2: do try and give people actionable, practical advice. You know,
44:09
Speaker 2: we're we're not in the business of promoting high cost lifestyles,
44:16
Speaker 2: and so it's really important to us to try and
44:19
Speaker 2: find answers like the Clean fifteen because there are a
44:22
Speaker 2: lot of parts of the country where organic is pretty
44:26
Speaker 2: darn hard to find. And when you do find it,
44:29
Speaker 2: there is a big price differential. So for those folks,
44:33
Speaker 2: the Clean fifteen is for you.
44:36
Speaker 3: Ken, what's something that we can all feel hopeful about
44:39
Speaker 3: in this.
44:39
Speaker 2: Realm Oh, you know, I think there's a lot. I've
44:42
Speaker 2: been telling people for the past few years. We haven't
44:46
Speaker 2: made a lot of progress in a lot of areas
44:47
Speaker 2: in Washington. We've done better with laws and regulations in
44:52
Speaker 2: a lot of the states. And you might think, well,
44:55
Speaker 2: that that's a setback if you're an environmentalist. If you
44:58
Speaker 2: can't pass major federal environmental laws to protect all of us.
45:02
Speaker 2: We're still trying to regulate greenhouse gases, we're still trying
45:06
Speaker 2: to regulate climate change using the old nineteen ninety Clean
45:10
Speaker 2: Air Act. That's not great. But I keep telling people,
45:13
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think there's ever been a better
45:15
Speaker 2: time to be an environmentalist. And I'll tell you why.
45:19
Speaker 2: The agency that people now have to protect themselves, to
45:22
Speaker 2: make investments, to make kitchen table decisions about their lives
45:27
Speaker 2: that protect the environment, protect their health have never been
45:32
Speaker 2: more bountiful. You have lots of choices out there if
45:35
Speaker 2: you spend a little time to think about it, whether
45:38
Speaker 2: it's the car you drive, how you heat your home,
45:41
Speaker 2: how you maintain your you know your kitchen, what's in
45:45
Speaker 2: your refrigerator, you name it. And so the Agency of
45:49
Speaker 2: Environmentalism is shift kind of shifted away from the Environmental
45:52
Speaker 2: Protection Agency to your agency. As you know, a regular person,
45:57
Speaker 2: I'm under no delusion, no neo liberal fantasy that markets
46:01
Speaker 2: solve all these problems.
46:03
Speaker 1: Not.
46:03
Speaker 2: Look, we spend our limit every year lobbying at EWG.
46:07
Speaker 2: We are there in regulatory agencies. We're on Capitol Hill.
46:11
Speaker 2: We're right up to the hills as much as we
46:13
Speaker 2: can possibly possibly do with our organization. But we have
46:18
Speaker 2: options now that are scarier to some of these regulated
46:23
Speaker 2: industries and polluters than regulation ever was. Give you a
46:26
Speaker 2: good example, solar power on rooftops. Residential rooftop solar has
46:32
Speaker 2: scared electric utilities around the country to death. They're fighting
46:37
Speaker 2: very hard to clamp down on rooftop solar. They spent
46:41
Speaker 2: years building coal fired power plants and gas fired power
46:45
Speaker 2: plants and nuclear power plants, and now they're telling us
46:49
Speaker 2: that the enemy of affordable clean power is what people
46:55
Speaker 2: put on their roofs with their own money and expect
46:58
Speaker 2: to get a little bit of money back from the utilities.
47:02
Speaker 2: That's an example where technologies come along. I give Elon
47:06
Speaker 2: Musk a lot of credit and other pioneers in the
47:09
Speaker 2: solar industry. They have figured out a way to power
47:13
Speaker 2: our country with distributed energy and battery power that is
47:18
Speaker 2: very threatening to the powers that be. That's good news.
47:22
Speaker 2: The same with organic food now a seventy or so
47:25
Speaker 2: billion dollar industry, very threatening to a lot of folks
47:29
Speaker 2: in the conventional food industry. Safer products, clean beauty products,
47:34
Speaker 2: very threatening to the legacy brands that wanted to make
47:38
Speaker 2: the most profit margins by putting cheap ingredients into their cosmetics.
47:44
Speaker 2: These are very hopeful developments to me, Danielle. They often
47:48
Speaker 2: don't have to do with a lot of government regulation.
47:51
Speaker 2: But it's basically you're saying, look, maybe we don't need
47:55
Speaker 2: to worry so much about regulating personal care products. We'll
47:59
Speaker 2: just do without your brand. Or maybe we don't have
48:02
Speaker 2: to worry so much about coal fired power plants because
48:05
Speaker 2: we don't need them anymore. We don't have to regulate them.
48:08
Speaker 2: They'll just go away because we don't need them. We've
48:10
Speaker 2: got other cleaner power sources. I'm exaggerating a little bit.
48:14
Speaker 2: Of course, we need these regulatory efforts but the fact
48:17
Speaker 2: of the matter is that individuals now and communities have
48:21
Speaker 2: a lot of power to make a big difference, and
48:23
Speaker 2: more and more of them are waking up to that opportunity.
48:27
Speaker 2: And they save money too.
48:29
Speaker 3: I see that in so many different facets of our
48:34
Speaker 3: life or world now. I think one of the benefits
48:36
Speaker 3: of social media is its democratized information, and so consumers
48:40
Speaker 3: expect more, they demand more, and they have more power
48:43
Speaker 3: because of it.
48:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I.
48:45
Speaker 3: Want to do a rapid fire with you. Ken. If
48:47
Speaker 3: you weren't working at EWG, what do you think you'd
48:50
Speaker 3: be doing for a living, I'd be a reporter. What's
48:54
Speaker 3: the best meal that you've ever had?
48:56
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I would say a long dinner at an
49:02
Speaker 2: Italian restaurant in Rome with my wife Deb. We had
49:08
Speaker 2: such an evening that was a big evening for our
49:12
Speaker 2: relationship too. So there it is. I don't remember what
49:16
Speaker 2: we ate. I just remember being dazzled by her.
49:20
Speaker 3: So a book that you've read that changed your life,
49:23
Speaker 3: something you think everybody should read.
49:25
Speaker 2: Oh boy, there's so many of those, and they're constant,
49:29
Speaker 2: you know. I'll name maybe a bit of an odd one.
49:33
Speaker 2: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. Are
49:37
Speaker 2: you won the Pulitzer Prize for it?
49:39
Speaker 3: Okay, tell me when to stop stop? Ooh, this is
49:43
Speaker 3: a good one for you. What's the one song that,
49:45
Speaker 3: without fail gets you dancing?
49:47
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, there's so many. And someone who works in
49:51
Speaker 2: our social media department, Mora Walsh, is terrified that I'm
49:56
Speaker 2: going to start dancing on social media podcast. Yeah. So
50:03
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get people to tell her. Oh my god,
50:06
Speaker 2: have you seen Ken dance? Is amazing? Just to see
50:09
Speaker 2: her get flushed. Oh, dancing in the streets. I think
50:15
Speaker 2: a lot of Motown gets me dance, and I'm from
50:18
Speaker 2: that era. Definitely Motown gets me. Bruno Mars, I mean,
50:23
Speaker 2: you know, moving forward decades. Love love that guy's vibe. Oh,
50:29
Speaker 2: but so many others.
50:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love your podcast. It's called Ken Cook is
50:33
Speaker 3: having another episode?
50:35
Speaker 2: It is, Yes, I have them regularly.
50:38
Speaker 3: Lover and hilarious. If you guys can't tell, Ken is
50:41
Speaker 3: absolutely hilarious. So if people were to start with one episode,
50:46
Speaker 3: where would you send them?
50:48
Speaker 2: Well, the first episode was pretty great and I reached
50:51
Speaker 2: my full quota of F bombs for the whole season.
50:56
Speaker 2: And that was my buddy from decades now, Aaron Brockovich. Yeah,
51:02
Speaker 2: that's a good one. I mean, I love all the
51:04
Speaker 2: people I've talked to so far. I just I just
51:08
Speaker 2: did an interview today with my co founder of VWG,
51:11
Speaker 2: Richard Wiles. It isn't out yet, and an attorney by
51:14
Speaker 2: the name of Missy Simms who's a devout Catholic and
51:17
Speaker 2: she has been moved by her faith and her upbringing,
51:23
Speaker 2: her moral compass, and her incredible legal skills to sue
51:28
Speaker 2: oil companies and she is suing them on behalf of
51:31
Speaker 2: dozens of municipalities in Puerto Rico for causing climate change.
51:37
Speaker 2: It's a it's a racketeering case in federal court, and
51:40
Speaker 2: she's I think she's going to win. So, you know,
51:44
Speaker 2: just there are these people out there doing these creative
51:48
Speaker 2: things to take on these big problems that you know,
51:52
Speaker 2: no one else thought of. And she here, she is,
51:55
Speaker 2: so watch that one. You know. I teased her, you know,
51:59
Speaker 2: about her faith because I'm elapsed Catholic. Although if a
52:03
Speaker 2: bunch of trial lawyers, Catholic trial lawyers start suing oil companies,
52:09
Speaker 2: I may go back into the flock. That might be
52:12
Speaker 2: enough to bring me back. When I teased her, I said,
52:13
Speaker 2: you know, praise the Lord and pass the depositions. Let's
52:17
Speaker 2: go after them. If that's what Catholicism is now, I'm
52:22
Speaker 2: back in.
52:23
Speaker 3: I love it. Okay. My last question for you is
52:26
Speaker 3: what is the smartest decision you've ever made?
52:29
Speaker 2: You know, I think it's a decision I made jointly
52:33
Speaker 2: with Deb that we were going to work very hard
52:37
Speaker 2: to have our son. It involves some science that we're
52:41
Speaker 2: very proud of. That science that's now weirdly controversial IVF.
52:46
Speaker 2: But you know, we committed to that. I say we.
52:49
Speaker 2: My lift was pretty light compared to Debs, but by
52:53
Speaker 2: far the best decision ever.
52:55
Speaker 3: I'm going to go on record and say that when
52:58
Speaker 3: I met your son, I thought he was one of
53:01
Speaker 3: the coolest kids I had ever met. And I shudder
53:04
Speaker 3: using the word kid because he feels like he's thirteen
53:09
Speaker 3: going on forty, like he's sixteen going on Like he's
53:14
Speaker 3: just so wise and ahead of his time. I can't
53:17
Speaker 3: wait to see what he does in the world. Ken,
53:19
Speaker 3: Thank you.
53:20
Speaker 2: So much, Oh, thank you.
53:26
Speaker 3: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good
53:29
Speaker 3: day to have a good day. I'll see you next week.