[Editor’s note: Yesterday JK and THK held another book discussion for This Moment on Earth in Boston area yesterday. JK blogging community member Kerstin was there and here are her notes on what happened.]
It was a warm and sunny day yesterday here in Boston, more of a yard work and barbeque day than a book signing event – yet, here we were, in First Parrish Church in Cambridge, awaiting Senator John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, to hear them speak about their newly released book ‘This Moment on Earth’.
At about five minutes past their scheduled speaking time we received word that Teresa was, unfortunately, stuck in traffic but doing her best to arrive within the next five minutes.
Beating her specified time by about two minutes (what can I say; I checked my watch in anticipation a few times), Teresa and John Kerry stepped out onto the stage to a warm and welcoming applause.
The introductions were made by John De Villars, head of environmental affairs during Dukakis administration. He listed JK’s environmental accomplishments, such as helping clean up Boston Harbor; purifying Cape Cod water; and controlling acid rain through the Clean Air Act. During Teresa Heinz Kerry’s intro he mentioned that Nixon called THK an environmental communist, which was high praise indeed. The audience laughed and cheered approvingly. Apparently the moniker ‘The People’s Republic of Cambridge’ is not as misplaced as one might think!
The first words out of John Kerry’s mouth already caused the room to erupt into laughter – we were off to a good start.
‘I have to say that you are environmental masochists to sit indoors on such a beautiful day’
Not to be outdone even by himself he followed up with ‘’This Moment on Earth is a book of 254 pages – all recycled paper, but not like the recycled Gonzales e-mails’. Again the audience cheered.
Then, on a more serious note, Senator Kerry introduced Silent Spring Institute’s chairperson Ellen Parker and executive director Dr. Julia Brody whose research into environmental causes of breast cancer is documented in TMOE. Both women were in the audience as special guests.
As an example of environmental causes for illness, the Senator stated that 80,000 chemicals were present in our daily environment of which only 10,000 have been tested by the FDA.
He segued into the issue of Global Climate Change by asking the audience if anybody had seen the debate between him and Newt Gingrich. He confessed his surprise at Gingrich’s sudden change of heart because only two years prior, Newt had denied that global warming was caused by human activities.
The Senator stressed that the impact of climate change has many aspects, some of which are harder to define than others, but that all are equally serious. Carbon emissions are the major cause of global warming.
As an example of the standstill and even worsening of fighting global warming he stated that if the Bush administration had left alone some laws it rolled back on carbon emissions, they might have remained at the same level, instead they increased fivefold.
Kerry proclaimed that the US missed the boat on the small car market niche. Back when he had been a student he used to drive a bug and still remembered how the US auto manufacturers would ridicule the vehicle and claim that there was no interest in something like that over here. I saw many in the audience smile at his mention of his owning a bug – no doubt there were images conjured up about a long and lanky frame squeezing into this rather compact vehicle.
Talking about better and more efficient cars brought a mention of his friend who drives a Prius and had installed a lithium battery which, incidentally, was made in Watertown Mass. This particular modified hybrid would get up to 150 mpg – in these times quite the money saver!
Senator Kerry ended by talking about the biological death of many of our lakes and rivers;
That in 44 states, recreational fishing is accompanied with a warning not to consume the fish because of high toxin levels. That every summer there are 5000 square miles of a so-called dead zone in Louisiana, where the Mississippi flows into the Gulf, because of pollution. Nothing is alive except masses of algae.
In closing, John Kerry reiterated that he and Teresa had spoken extensively about the environment in every state they visited during the 04 campaign, yet afterwards there came the complaints; ‘why didn’t you talk more about the environment?’
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His introduction of Teresa as a pioneer and pathfinder in the environmental movement were absolutely fitting and were met with obvious agreement by the audience, as evidenced by the very long applause.
Teresa Heinz Kerry, in a soft voice picking up where her husband left off, said of the 04 campaign; ‘The environment just wasn’t a sexy enough topic’, so it was largely ignored, even if the Kerrys spoke about it. With TMOE, Teresa intended to anger us for about ten minutes, and then inspire us with the wonderful examples of how just one person can make a difference.
‘We only have a ten year window in which to act to avert catastrophe, even if we have 80 years to cope with the changes’, she stressed, ‘and as John already mentioned, there are many facets in the impact of GCC’.
Dire and angering news indeed!
Teresa then moved on to speak of environmental toxins, such as phthalates, that can be found in many of our everyday household cleaners, cosmetics, and personal care products. Phthalates are highly dangerous estrogen mimics that cause not only breast cancer in women, but – as Teresa only recently found out – can also increase prostate cancer risk in men, especially if they had it before, or if there is a genetic predisposition.
‘When I go to a store and see a cosmetic product that says “not tested on animals “I think, right, going to be tested on humans. How is that right? Why is it that in Europe, companies bear the burden of proof of the safety of a chemical whereas in the US the consumer bears the burden to prove the harmfulness?’, She asked the audience. Nods and murmurs.
Yes, why IS that, I wonder?
The Q&A segment followed, but was much too short. However – we did get a few wonderful gems out of it!
The first question was a good one, posed by a young man who had seen Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, and had apparently gotten an inspiration as to how one could present the environmental movement to voters and congress more successfully;
Q: In light of Al Gore calling environmentalism a moral issue, how can we successfully define it as such to the voters and congress?
Senator Kerry had an excellent and thoughtful reply;
A: While it is a moral issue, it would be a mistake to simply define it as such, because trust me, you will get a much better response in DC if you define it it terms of economics and national security, so the best avenue is to have it encompass al three.
The next question was of a more local nature, but Kerry’s answer again blew me away in its thoughtfulness;
Q: Rhode Island has approved two wind farms off shore. When will you come down in favor of those planned on Cape Cod?
A: Let the process take its course, the Mass. coastguard and the MMS are checking to see about viability and best placement versus the environmental impact on wildlife and ocean life. It is not a question of having an obstructed view of the ocean – I even proposed an area that is closer and more visible to where I have my home on the Cape.
The following question – and not surprisingly the well-informed answer!! – would have to be squarely placed in the ‘you learn something new every day’ category;
Q: Have you heard about the latest study about the danger of cell phones and cordless phones because of x-rays entering the brain.
A: Definitely. We’ve replaced all cordless phones in our home with corded, and try to avoid any prolonged use of cell phone. Doctors are now advising to not allow any child under 8 to have a cell phone. The rays penetrate skull up to two inches. Studies have been done on the blood layer over the brain. Where it usually is solid, prolonged exposure causes it to become pocked. (This is to the best of my recall abilities, so it is not word for word.)
Another question addressed nuclear energy, which JK considers a short term solution at best, and that the Commerce Committee needs to set standards and the president needs to commit to them.
The final question was my absolute favorite because – in my opinion – it put away once and for all any accusations about votes not being counted back in 04!!
Q: Why didn’t you wait to concede until all the votes were counted in Ohio?
A: JK: We didn’t concede until 48 hours after the election, when, after consulting with our 5000 lawyers on the ground – no, I’m not exaggerating! – we were told that the margin to overcome was just too large in light of statistics. There were now only 150,000 provisional ballots left to count from counties where, statistically, the 120,000 margin to victory was impossible to overcome.
The night before, incidentally, the talk was of there being over 270k ballots, which could have made a difference.
We asked to have some machines audited – remember we were involved in some lawsuits in Ohio – but were denied. Eventually, the provisional ballots were counted and did shrink our margin to a 59k deficit. Yes, there were over 200,000 votes that were never counted because voters were illegally purged or turned away at the ballot box, but those were cases we could not constitutionally fight, so our hands were tied.
THK; I was warned 1.5 years before the election, by a republican, that the voting machines were not safe and could be tampered with. At the time I didn’t understand it very well. Wally O’Dell, who was CEO of Diebold, one of the companies that made these machines, was an active fund raiser and Bush supporter, (as was his brother, who was CEO of ES&S) has now resigned.
Everyone who was involved is now gone in Ohio; SoS Blackwell, gone; Harris in FL, gone. So the last election cleaned up pretty well.
And there it was; that was the best answer to this ever-looming question that has plagued many since the election of 04.
At the end, when I was in line for the book signing and right before my turn, Ned Lamont came up to the table, said hello to JK and thanked him for all he did for him during 06. (Later we talked to Ned and he said that JK and Teddy Kennedy were the only ones who had actively supported him in CT, and he would not forget that.)
When I got to the table, I demanded that JK sign my book ‘to Kerstin, one of my favorite bloggers’. Who cares if it’s true. I got it in writing! THK was gracious and thanked us for all we do, to which I replied no, thank you for writing this timely book.
And I do, and it is.
Thank you very much, Kerstin, for this lively account.
Dr. Brody is justifiably proud of the website for the Institute, 
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“You come back impressed, once you’ve been up there, with how thin our little atmosphere is that supports all life here on Earth. So if we foul it up, there’s no coming back from something like that.”
It’s just about time for JK’s appearance on The Colbert Report. I’m told that Mr. Colbert has a thing about bears. I wonder what he thinks about polar bears … one of those species affected by climate change and global warming.
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