Spring 1999

"Healthy Children, Happy Families"

From the editor by Rev. Stan LeQuire
Discovering and Sharing a Celtic Way Home by Tom Sine
Stewardship and Children's Health by Philip J. Landrigan, M.D.
Family Time by Marty Cook
Practical Tips on Protecting Kids
From the Boiler Room by Andrew Rudin
Public Policy Update

From the editor

Rev. Stan LeQuire

I have great hopes for my daughters, Rachel and Caitlin. By dint of their own amazing creativity, their future brims with brilliant possibilities. However, my bright hopes are clouded by sincere concerns.

I wonder if their future is being sabotaged, even stolen. Could it be that our sinful assault on creation is silently, slowly robbing them of a healthy future? A growing chorus of doctors and scientists believe this to be true. It is for these reasons that we have devoted this issue of Creation Care to children's environmental health. As you read, please consider the possibility that our sin is altering the tunes that healthy children might otherwise sing. We must ask ourselves what inheritance we are leaving our children (Proverbs 13:22a). Certainly, they need old growth redwoods to enjoy, but they also deserve the health and wholeness that a vigorous creation can provide. We must do all we can to assure that our children are as healthy as possible. Nothing less is acceptable.

Nonetheless, working on this issue of the magazine has left me ill at ease. While we consider whether or not spraying ants in the kitchen hurts our children, parents in Bangladesh covet a cup of clean water for their children. While we debate what indoor air pollution does to the environment of our young, we must recall with greater horror that the most dangerous environment for children in the United States is the womb.

Some parents prefer their own personal convenience to the unborn life they have created. I believe that clean water and the right to life are also issues of creation's care which surpass the important issues of pesticides and pollutants. I pray that as we consider children's environmental health we would hold before us the fact that caring for creation and for children takes on a whole new meaning when considering all of life and the needs of all God's children.

Let us commit ourselves to care for creation. In so doing, the Creator will be glorified, our children will inherit improved health, and poor children will have choices beyond a humble existence shadowed by an early death.

Discovering and Sharing a Celtic Way Home

Tom Sine

Since I was first converted to Christian faith as a 16 year old I have been trying to find my way home to a spirituality that touches every part of life. As a young Christian I was nurtured in a very individualistic pietism. But from the beginning I sensed that was never home. It tended to focus very narrowly on one small spiritual part of life. Like many, I too was touched by the charismatic renewal. I found it vitalizing but not sustaining. It seemed to lack depth and breadth.

It was in discovering Richard Foster's first book, Celebration of Discipline, that I began my journey home. It was like a breath of the fresh air blowing full gale into a closed musty room. Through a providential encounter, Richard Foster became my first spiritual director. Richard candidly told me that I had the worst case of "brain fever" he had ever seen. I quickly learned that I was a long way from home. I learned that dragging my problems into the place of prayer, chasing them around for a while and dragging them back out again wasn't really prayer. It was worrying in the presence of God. My prayer life had become terribly focused upon myself instead of on my God and the world God loves.

As I read about the rich traditions of spirituality of our ancient Christian past in Celebration of Discipline, I began my long arduous journey home. Slowly, I learned to focus on scripture and my God instead of my problems. We have a rich legacy in the life of prayer bequeathed to us by the desert fathers, Celtic Christians, Benedictines, Franciscans and Quakers. I began discovering the spiritual depth and breadth I had hungered for.

By far one of my best experiences on my journey home was participating in an extended version of the Ignatian 30-day retreat process. I loved the combination of scripture meditation, imagination, contemplation and listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit. It was the richest concentrated spiritual process I had ever experienced. But I really didn't sense it was my tradition.

In 1984, as I made my first trip to Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, I was introduced to Celtic Christian faith. As soon as I stepped off the ferry, I felt I had finally come home ... for the first time. I sensed Iona was indeed one of God's holy places. The island is just over 3 miles long. It is very flat except for a huge rock outcropping over 200 feet high. The first thing I did after arriving was to scale that mountain and look down on the site where, centuries before, Columba had planted a monastery. From this monastery, Irish and Scottish monks had gone out two-by-two to plant churches, care for the poor and share the good news of a God who cared and loved. Remarkably, they were credited with evangelizing Scotland, England and much of Europe.

One of the reasons it seemed like a home for an evangelical Protestant is that early Celtic Christian faith really is a part of the believers' tradition. In fact, I am convinced that the believers' movement didn't have its origins in the Reformation. I think a careful examination of history shows that the primitive plantings of the Christian faith in Ireland in the 5th century were the real beginning of the believers movement.

Celtic Christian faith was a movement devoted to the life of prayer. And it wasn't a compartmentalized piety, but a spirituality permeating every part of life, from milking cows to banking fires. It was inextricably involved in love of God and of God's good creation. There is some evidence that Saint Francis' love of creation derived from a monastery that Irish monks had established near his home in Assisi.

The Celtic Christians were also credited with bringing a faith that identified more with the poor and the vulnerable than the rich and the powerful. I found myself suddenly at home in a believers' faith rooted in a spirituality that pervades all of life, a love of God's creation, and a faith that cares for the poor and was known for its robust celebration of life and generous hospitality. My wife, Christine, made her first trip to Iona in 1992 and she also discovered a new home.

Since then, Christine and I have read everything we can find on Celtic Christian faith, Celtic spirituality and its history. In the last five years, many British Christians have also found their way home to their Celtic Christian roots. A renewal is stirring in the U.K. We also find a growing interest in Celtic Christian spirituality in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

We are finding a number of American believers who are also trying to find their way home to a spirituality that has the potential to touch every aspect of life, contains a love of creation, compassion for those at margins, and is alive with jubilation. My wife and I want to share this treasure with others and help them find their way home too. More than that, we want to create a place where people can come to deepen their faith, develop their spiritual disciplines and discover their Christian calling for stewardship of all of their lives and caring for God's creation.

Our dream is to construct a Celtic Christian prayer retreat center. It will consist of a modest group of four residential dwellings on a 40-acre tract we own north of Seattle. We want to create a place that captures the spirit of a 6th century Celtic monastery. We want to construct three circular medium sized dwellings, one larger dwelling for common meetings, and a high tower, facing the Olympic and Cascade mountains, as a place of prayer.

In all that we do, we want to reflect a Celtic love of both the Creator and the creation. Therefore this will be a highly self-reliant community with its own well, garden, orchard and alternative energy system, modeling a form of creation care through designing a model of sustainable cooperative living. Most of the acreage would be preserved in woodlands of pine, fir, cedar, maple and alder with wild mushrooms and berries.

We envision this small community composed of three couples seeking to reflect something of the spirit of those early Celtic monasteries in their common life through living simple, celebrative lives and a vital spirituality. Perhaps they would do two offices a day, as well as serving as spiritual guides for those who would visit this community. We envision as many as 30 students living in shared household with these three couples for three to six months at a time.

We find there are virtually no resources for Protestant young people to explore a broad range of Christian spiritualities and design serious spiritual disciplines. Nor is there much to help them find their sense of Christian vocation and to live out their faith more intentionally in a very demanding world. These young people would have the opportunity to explore living in a semi-monastic community, in a beautiful natural setting and devoting most of their waking hours to the life of prayer and developing a strong set of spiritual disciplines.

On the weekends, the young people would help the spiritual directors conduct directed prayer retreats for older adults. Celtic spirituality many not turn out to be the home for others that it has become for us. But the Cascade Celtic Retreat Center will be designed to help seekers explore a broad range of spiritualities within an array of biblical Christian traditions. And it will seek to nurture them in whatever Christian spirituality to which they feel drawn.

Christian and I, our architect, David Vandervort, and a few associates are moving ahead on the design. But we need some more dreamers and resources to make the Cascade Celtic Retreat Center a reality. We are looking for a few good people who also share our love of the Celtic Christian faith to join us in the dreaming and the doing of this venture. Interested? You can reach us via email: TomandChrisSine@compuserve.com

Stewardship and Children's Health

Philip J. Landrigan, M.D.

Many of us in the United States have viewed the environment as something that is a long way removed from our daily lives. The environment has been a place that occasionally we have visited with our family on weekends or on a summer vacation. Or perhaps we have thought briefly about the environment when we read about spotted owls in the newspaper or see pictures of polar bears in National Geographic. But mostly we have not appreciated the fact that there are many, close connections between the environment, our health and the health of our families. We have not realized how much we depend upon the environment nor how powerfully it can shape our lives.

The medical profession has begun in recent years to understand that there are strong and vital connections between the health of the environment and human health. Dramatic events such as killer heat-waves and massive hurricanes are the most obvious manifestations of this relationship. But there are other linkages too, and these connections are beginning to be seen as medical researchers begin to look for them. For example:

In Russia and the Ukraine, there has been an epidemic of hundreds of cases of thyroid cancer among people who lived downwind of Chernobyl, and who were exposed to radioactive iodine released into the air when that nuclear reactor exploded.

In Japan and Taiwan, massive outbreaks of mental retardation and cerebral palsy have been diagnosed among the babies of women who during pregnancy inadvertently consumed vegetable oil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Across the United States, in the 1960s and 1970s hundreds of thousands of young children suffered mild degrees of brain injury as the result of exposure to lead emitted into the air by the combustion in cars of leaded gasoline.

In Woburn, Mass., an outbreak of leukemia occurred among children who drank chemically-contaminated well water down-stream from a hazardous waste disposal site. This episode formed the basis for the recent movie, A Civil Action.

The Changing Chemical Environment. In the fifty years since World War II, a fundamental change has occurred in the environment in this country and around the world. More than 75,000 new synthetic chemicals have been developed and have been dispersed into air and water. Of greatest concern are the 10,000-15,000 chemicals that are produced in highest volume. These are the materials to which we and our children are most likely to be exposed.

Chemicals have, of course, improved our lives in many ways. Where would we be without plastic refrigerator dishes or chemical laundry detergents? Fuel additives help us to get safely and economically to and from work and school. Pesticides have enhanced the growth of crops and thus have indirectly contributed to the improvement of human health.

But we have not been wise stewards of the chemical revolution. Fewer than half of the 15,000 high-volume chemicals have ever been tested to determine whether they pose threats to human health. Fewer than 20 per cent have been tested to determine whether they pose danger to the developing fetus. A result of this widespread failure to test is that our children are exposed every day to synthetic chemical substances whose possible health hazards are simply not known. This is not wise.

Changing Patterns of Disease in Children. Is There an Environmental Connection? Patterns of disease have changed dramatically in American children over the past 50 years. The classic infectious diseases have largely been conquered. Smallpox is eradicated, polio is nearly gone, measles is under control, diphtheria and tetanus are rarities, and cholera has virtually disappeared. While AIDS and tuberculosis continue to pose terrible threats, the overall impact in the United States of infectious diseases is but a fraction of what it was a century ago. As the result, the expected life span of a baby born today is more than two decades longer than that of a child born at the beginning of the 20th century.

Today the major causes of illness and death in American children are chronic diseases, such as asthma, cancer, birth defects and developmental disabilities. The causes of these diseases are not yet well understood. A major unanswered question is whether changes in the environment have contributed to the emergence of these chronic diseases.

Asthma. Rates of asthma have more than doubled among American children in the past decade. Approximately 600 children die each year from asthma and 150,000 are hospitalized. Asthma is the leading cause of admission of children to hospital.

What are the causes of asthma? Clearly, there is a genetic component. Children of parents with asthma are more likely than other children to have asthmatic attacks. But inheritance is only a part of the story. Doctors now believe that an asthma attack is typically the result of exposure of an allergic child to something in the environment that triggers the attack. The critical issue is the combination of an allergic child with a contaminated environment. So what are the factors in the environment that may be accounting for the rapid increase in asthma?

An increasing level of indoor air pollution is certainly one factor. Buildings today are built more tightly than buildings of 10 years ago. To conserve energy, less fresh air is brought into heating systems and more stale air is recirculated. As a result, pollutants are recirculated throughout the day. These toxins include cigarette smoke, cooking fumes, vapors from new carpets and synthetic furniture, molds, mites, and insect droppings.

Outdoor air pollution is also a factor and appears to be contributing to the upsurge in asthma. Although gross black pollution has declined in the last two decades as the result of new air standards, levels of ozone, oxides of nitrogen and fine particulates appear to be increasing. These pollutants come mostly from automotive emissions, and levels have been rising as Americans drive more and more miles. Visits of children to emergency rooms, medical clinics and hospitals all increase on days when the air is bad.

Childhood Cancer. The rate of new cases of childhood cancer has increased substantially in the United States over the past two decades. Cancer is now the second leading cause of death among American children after injuries.

The good news in childhood cancer is that death rates are down. This decline is due to spectacular advances in cancer treatment. But the increase in cancer incidence threatens to undo all the good that has been accomplished through better treatment of this dread disease.

Over the past 25 years incidence rates for leukemia, brain cancer, and Wilm's tumor (a cancer of the kidneys) have all increased. In young men 15-30 years of age, there has been a 68 per cent increase in incidence of testicular cancer.

The causes of these increases are not known. Better diagnosis may have contributed, but is not likely a major factor. Increasingly, environmental factors are suspected to be responsible for at least some part of the increase in childhood cancer. This is a question that needs urgently to be researched.

Lead Poisoning. The good news on lead poisoning is that there has been a 94 per cent reduction in blood lead levels in all Americans over the past 20 years. This spectacular decline is the result of the removal of lead from gasoline. However, 940,000 young children in the United States still suffer from elevated blood lead levels. These children are at risk of brain damage, learning disabilities and behavioral disorders. Children with elevated lead levels are at risk of diminished intelligence, school failure and possibly criminality. Lead remains an environmental health problem of massive dimensions in the United States.

Developmental Disorders. Pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), autism and attention deficit disorder are widespread in American children. Information from some sources suggests that the occurrence of these diseases is increasing. Their causes are largely unknown, but exposures to lead, mercury, PCBs and other environmental toxins are suspected to contribute. Research to systematically investigate the connections between environmental toxins and developmental disorders in children is just beginning.

The diseases of tobacco. The diseases of tobacco are ubiquitous in America. More than 70 per cent of high school students have tried cigarettes, and 17 per cent are regular smokers. In younger children, exposures to second-hand smoke increase risk of asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, upper respiratory infection and otitis media. Infants of smoking parents are at increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Endocrine disruption. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals in the environment that have the capacity to interfere with the body's hormonal signaling system. Evidence is accumulating that a variety of chemicals, particularly chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds as well as certain pesticides and plasticizers have the capacity to disrupt endocrine function. DDT is a well-known example. DDT was banned, in part, because it interfered with estrogen metabolism in pelagic birds, resulting in thin-shelled, unhatchable eggs.

The embryo, the fetus and young children appear to be at particularly high risk following early exposure to endocrine disruptors. Early exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds can undermine reproductive development and interfere with immune function. The developing nervous system appears to be highly vulnerable, and early exposure to PCBs has been linked to persistent neurobehavioral dysfunction. And lastly, in utero exposure of baby girls to estrogens may increase risk in adult life of breast cancer.

Why are Children so vulnerable to toxins in the environment?

Children have greater exposures to environmental toxins than adults. Pound for pound of body weight, children drink more water, eat more food, and breathe more air than adults. For example, infants in the first 6 months of life drink seven times as much water per pound as does the average adult. Children ages 1 through 5 years eat three to four times more food per pound than the average adult. The air intake of a resting infant is twice that of an adult. The implication for health is that children have substantially heavier exposures pound for pound than adults to any toxins that are present in water, food, or air.

Two additional characteristics of children further magnify their exposures: 1) their hand-to-mouth behavior, which increases their ingestion of any toxins in dust or soil, and 2) their play close to the ground, which increases their exposure to toxins in dust, soil, and carpets as well as to any toxins that form low-lying layers in the air, such as certain pesticide vapors.

Children's metabolic pathways, especially in the first months after birth, are immature compared with those of adults. As a consequence of this immaturity, children's ability to detoxify and excrete certain toxins is different from that of adults. In some instances, children are actually better able than adults to deal with environmental toxins. More commonly, however, they are less able than adults to deal with toxic chemicals and thus they are more vulnerable to them.

Children are undergoing rapid growth and development, and their delicate developmental processes are easily disrupted. Many organ systems in young children--the nervous system, the reproductive organs, the immune system--undergo very rapid change in the first months and years of life. During this period, structures are developed and vital connections are established. Indeed, development of the nervous system continues all through childhood, as is evidenced by the fact that children continue to acquire new skills progressively as they grow and develop--crawling, walking, talking, reading, and writing. The nervous system is not well able to repair any structural damage that is caused by environmental toxins. Thus, if cells in the developing brain are destroyed by chemicals such as lead, mercury, or solvents, or if vital connections between nerve cells fail to form, there is high risk that the resulting dysfunction will be permanent and irreversible. The consequences can be loss of intelligence and alteration of behavior.

Because children have more years of life ahead of them than do most adults, they have more time to develop any chronic diseases that may be triggered by early environmental exposures.

Conclusions

The protection of children against toxins in the environment is a major challenge to our society. Increasingly, we recognize that children in our society are exposed to environmental toxins, that they are very vulnerable to them, and that these toxins may be contributing to changing patterns of childhood disease.

To protect children against chemical toxins in the environment, we need to begin to make changes. We in the medical profession need to do more research to discover exactly how environmental toxins are affecting the health of children. Government and industry need to design policies to better test chemicals before they are released into the environment and need also to take active measures to better control these releases. Our entire society needs to take measures that will specifically protect children against environmental toxins, means that will allow children to grow, develop and reach maturity without suffering impairment to their nervous systems, immune systems, or developing cancer.

To protect children against hazards in the environment, our society needs to recognize the vital connections that exist between the environment and the health of children. We need to consider carefully which chemicals are necessary for our health and well-being and which are not.

As we move toward the 21st century, the issue of environmental exposure and degradation looms large not only in this country but globally. We need increasingly to recognize that we are not isolated from the environment. We, our children and our children's children and the environment around us are all connected and all part of one creation. We have the duty to be good stewards.

Better safe than sorry ...

Family Time

Marty Cook

My three children saw it there, in living color, on the front page of our morning paper: a ship run aground on the Oregon coast, less than a day's drive from here. Oiled birds, the beginnings of a spreading slick, the threat of thousands of gallons of more oil spilled into the ocean and onto the beaches. My children grilled me about the situation, their concern sincere and their questions bearing down on the real thought in their young minds: "Why doesn't somebody DO something?!"

Children need no coaching to perceive our society's environmental crisis. When we teach them in Sunday school that God made the world and considers it all very good, they take us at our word. Then, when they witness some human misuse of God's creation, they react faithfully and without hesitation. Air pollution is bad for the health of God's people, so it needs to be cleaned up. Clear-cutting ruins the home for animals God created, so we need to find a better way to get lumber. The problem is that, as they well know, children don't rule the world. As a result, kids can feel helpless, like unwilling victims doomed to inherit a world damaged beyond repair. Despite their tender age, they are vulnerable to despair. A child can be lead to wonder whether there's really any hope.

How can we raise our children's environmental awareness while filling them with real Christian hope? From my work with children, I'm convinced that part of the answer is in helping them to "do something". For one thing, this lets them know that even the youngest can make a difference. And they really can: they can change their own habits and maybe those of their parents, they can make a dent in waste and pollution, and they can even restore a little corner of creation. The following are highlights of some projects that I have already tried, along with a few concepts from the drawing board. They center on the home, the store and other places where kids spend much of their time. These projects also zoom in on the little things, the details of everyday life. Children are far more observant and practical than we may realize, and turning them loose on these "trivial" things can yield significant rewards.

Children are intimately familiar with garbage, and it offers a rich opportunity for hands-on projects and educational awareness. It's probably best to start with the basics: a field trip to the dump! Make arrangements with your local landfill, pack up the Sunday or vacation bible school class, and learn what happens when we "throw things away". They'll be amazed at the amount and variety of stuff that ends up at the landfill. What kinds of garbage do they see (or smell)? Do they see anything that might still be reused or recycled? Perhaps the workers at the landfill can explain how they try to keep really nasty stuff from seeping out of the trash and into the soil and waters. Be sure to then make the "hope" connection, from the problem (waste and pollution) to a solution (recycling) that God is providing. Take the kids to a place that actually recycles things, taking used consumer materials and making something new out of them. If possible, find a place that recycles something with which the kids can identify: perhaps milk jugs being made into plastic items, or glass being broken and melted and remolded into new bottles or newspaper being chopped up and mixed and made into new paper. Then, go back to church and have a "sorting relay". To make the necessary connection to our lives at home, have the kids compete in a race that challenges them to recognize and sort different classes of recyclables. Urge them to apply their new skills at home.

To convince children that recycling is really feasible, give them some hands-on experience. Making paper is a particularly fun craft project. You'll need a blender, a dishpan, an old embroidery hoop (that will fit inside the pan) with lightweight cotton fabric stretched between the hoops, and a sponge. Take used paper (newspaper, writing paper, old mail, old school papers etc.) tear it into small pieces and place it into the blender with hot water. Let it sit until it is soft. This can take awhile, depending on the type of paper used. Then blend the paper and water in the blender, adding water if the mixture is too thick. Pour the pulp into the dishpan. Stir the pulp and dip the hoop into the dishpan making sure the pulp settles on top of it. Lift it out and sponge the paper gently, squeezing off the excess water. Remove the fabric from the hoop and let dry for several days and you've made recycled paper.

To learn about reuse, make envelopes out of old magazine pages or maps. First, take a store-bought envelope apart and trace its pattern on the magazine page or map of your choice. Cut out the pattern, fold it as an envelope and glue it together. To provide a clear space for an address, stick a blank mailing label on the front. To make a "lickable" adhesive for the flap of the envelope, mix one packet unflavored gelatin, 1/4 cup boiling water and one tablespoon of sugar until dissolved. You can even add a couple of drops of peppermint oil for extra taste! Paint it on the envelope flap for sealing later. (Old topographical maps are particularly good for making stationery, because they have printing on only one side. Just cut them to size and use the unprinted side for writing.)

Whether we like it or not, fast food is a part of children's lives these days. Here's an experiment I tried with a class of third-graders: buy "kiddie meals" from several different fast food restaurants and bring them back to the classroom. Spread out the boxes, wrappers, straws and other things they came in (sorted according to restaurant). How much of it could have been recycled? Reused? Composted? How much is not recyclable and has to be thrown away? Of the things that couldn't be recycled, were they necessary in the first place? When we tried this, we found that although each of the children had consumed umpteen kiddie meals in their young lives, none had ever recycled or reused anything from the meals (except perhaps straws). We also realized that some restaurants were far more wasteful than others: more stuff to throw away, less that could be recycled. For example, we found that even some cup lids that were marked as recyclable (with the little triangle symbol and number) simply could not be recycled in our community. Other restaurants, however, used recycled materials where possible (in napkins or bags, for example). This exercise opens a child's eyes to the environmental side of a consumer choice very near and dear to their hearts and bellies. It can even lead to a discussion about how often one should patronize fast food restaurants or about how such restaurants could reduce their impact on God's world.

When addressing land-related environmental concerns with children, it's probably best to start close to home. The point to make is that God has put us each right where He wants us, and that what we do in our neighborhoods makes a difference for God's creation. It just so happens that the entire Portland, OR, metropolitan area, where I live, is in the process of being designated as important habitat for endangered runs of wild salmon. To save these fish, we have to literally clean up our own backyards. Through our church, St. Andrew's Presbyterian, we've involved kids in the gritty work of cleaning up the watershed where we live. Twice we worked on Fanno Creek with a local watershed group. Several other times we've worked on the church grounds, restoring the riparian area along a tiny gully that eventually feeds water to Fanno. Kids were a key part of these work parties, and they loved the muck, the excitement and the visible progress we made. They pulled junk out of the channel: tires, a shopping cart, the hood of an old truck, a record, bags of someone's garbage. They yanked out the exotic "invasive" vegetation (Himalayan blackberries, English ivy, weeds) that were strangling the native plants. It has been an eye opener for young and old, a continuing effort that has shown the children how important they are to making restoration a success over the long haul. Whether rural, suburban or urban, every community has restoration work that needs the energy and enthusiasm of children.

Another good local project for children involves a walk through the neighborhood. Point out storm drains and ask them where they think things end up when they go down the drain. Encourage children to think before they or their parents put anything nasty in the street or down the storm drain, and remind them that storm drains and gutters aren't for garbage or chemicals. Connect water quality to activities they help their parents with: washing a car, walking a dog, cleaning a driveway. Offer better ways of doing things: keeping the detergent suds from going down the storm drain when washing the car. Picking up dog droppings and putting them in the garbage. Sweeping the driveway rather than hosing oils and other chemicals down the drain. Challenge them to find "greener" ways of getting their chores done.

Speaking of chores, why not start children on non-toxic, non-polluting cleaning? It's safe for kids and better for the air and water around us. You can help children make cleaning kits that are earth friendly, simple and (because they use non-toxic ingredients) are useable by relatively young children. The basic kit includes baking soda, olive oil, vinegar, a soft cotton rag, old newspapers, a sponge and two spray bottles. The first spray bottle contains a window-washing mixture of two tablespoons vinegar and two cups water (wipe the window with the old newspapers). The olive oil and soft rag are used for dusting and polishing furniture. Use the baking soda and sponge for cleaning the sinks in the house. (It's also pretty good for cleaning toilets, but most children won't try that!) Older children can make an all-purpose cleaner for use on counter tops, floors and walls. Begin with three cups of water in a spray bottle. Mix in one teaspoon liquid castile soap, one teaspoon borax, and one teaspoon vinegar. Kids know that we need to keep our houses tidy; they also understand how important it is to protect our health and to keep our water clean.

With prayer and patience, you can help a child "do something" for God, for God's people, and for God's creation.

Marty Cook lives with her husband and three children in Lake Oswego, OR. She has been a frequent Sunday School teacher and Vacation Bible School teacher and director.

Practical Tips on Protecting Kids

The debate concerning the effects of a degraded environment on the health of our children will continue for some time. Much research needs to be done and many attitudes need to be changed. Consider the fact that only recently did the Centers for Disease Control change their name to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, indicating their intention to do more than just track the sources of ill health. Consider too that thousands of chemicals currently in use have never been tested for their health risks. Those that have been tested are generally scrutinized regarding their ability to produce cancer only and not any other possible health risk.

In the meantime, can we take any practical steps to protect our children? As we wait for more research to be done, perhaps there are a few things we can do to be safe rather than sorry.

Obviously we need to make sure that our environmental laws are implemented and enforced on a national level. However, many of the environmental hazards are not located at a great distance. Many threats to our children occur in our own homes and yards. This means that parents and care givers can do a lot to reduce the risks of environmental threats. This article will provide you with a few ideas. In addition, you may want to call your local health department for help with specific concerns. The U.S. Environmental Agency's Children's Protection toll-free helpline at 1-877-590-KIDS can provide a wealth of information. The EPA publishes a wide selection of brochures and booklets on environmental health. These are available through the EPA or the US Government Printing Office. Of particular interest is their compendium, Child Health Champion Resource Guide. In addition, many states have an agency which parallels the EPA.

Checklist

Help children breathe easier

Don't smoke or let others smoke near your kids
Keep your home and pets as clean as possible. Dust, mold, certain insects, and pet dander can trigger asthma attacks and allergies.
Limit outdoor activity when air pollution is bad such as ozone alert days

Protect children from lead poisoning

Wash children's hands before eating, and wash bottles, pacifiers and toys often
Wash walls and window sills to protect kids from dust and peeling paint contaminated with lead - especially in older homes
Run the cold water for 30 seconds to flush lead from pipes
Get kids tested for lead - check with your doctor

Protect children from carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning

Have fuelburning appliances, furnace flues and chimneys checked once a year
Never use gas ovens or burners for heat and never use barbeques indoors
Never sleep in rooms with unvented gas or kerosene space heaters
Don't idle cars or lawnmowers in the garage
Install a UL approved CO detector in sleeping areas

Keep pesticides and other toxic chemicals away from children

Put food and trash away in closed containers to keep pests from coming into your home
Don't use pesticides if you don't have to - look for alternatives
Read product labels and follow directions
Use bait & traps instead of bug sprays when you can and put where kids can't get them
Store where kids can't reach them and never put in other containers that kids can mistake for food or drink
Keep children, toys & pets away when using pesticides and don't let them play in fields, orchards and gardens after pesticides have been used
Wash fruits and vegetables under running water before eating

Protect children from too much sun

Have them wear hats, sunglasses, and protective clothing
Use sunscreen on kids over 6 months and keep infants out of the sun
Keep them out of the mid-day sun- the sun is most intense between the hours of 10 and 4

Safeguard them from high levels of radon

Test your home for radon with a home test kit
Call your state radon office if radon level is 4 pCi/L or higher

Web Sites

Organizations dealing with children's environmental health:

www.cehn.org

www.aanma.org

www.checnet.org

http://www.cleanwateraction.org

www.alaw.org

http://www.lungusa.org

www.cdc.gov

www.ewg.org

Trouble shooting:

The web page of the Environmental Defense Fund can be mined for information on pollutants and offenders. You can even enter you zip code for information on toxics in your area. Check out: www.scorecard.org

Web pages of the US Environmental Protection Agency:

www.epa.gov/pesticides/citizens/childsaf.htm

www.epa.gov/pesticides/citizens/insectrp.htm

http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/lead/index.html

www.epa.gov/sunwise/index.html

www.epa.gov/iaq/homes.html

www.epa.gov/iaq/schools/index.html

http://www.epa.gov/smokefree/index.html

www.epa.gov/iedweb00/pubs/coftsht.html

Other Resources

Chemical Sensitivities:

http://ciin.org/

Janet Dauble, the director of Share, Care and Prayer at PO Box 2080, Frazier Park, CA 93225 <janetfp@juno.com> and/or
Rev. Linda Kay Reinhardt, the director of the Jeremiah Project at HC 1 222 Soft Wind, Canyon Lake, TX 78133 <jeremiah@texanet.net>.

Books:

Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment by Sandra Steingraber, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1997.

Our Stolen Future by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, Dutton, 1996.

Healthy Living in a Toxic World by Cynthia E. Fincher, Pinon Press, 1996.

(The listing of these resources and contacts is provided for the information of the members of the Evangelical Environmental Network and does not imply endorsement).

From the Boiler Room

Andrew Rudin

In my profession of helping congregations reduce their energy bills, guiding questions seem to be, "How much is this going to cost us?" and "What future energy costs are we going to save with this investment?"

By dividing the estimated initial investment by the estimated annual savings of energy, we get what is called "simple payback." Investments in things to reduce energy costs are usually judged by simple payback.

I have three questions about payback:

First, for what other things in our lives do we use payback as a criteria?

Forget boilers and lamps for a minute. Do we judge our investment in the whole church building and its other contents according to payback? Most property people I know say that the main criteria are aesthetics and conformance to an overall financial plan -- a budget. A beautiful building is priceless. Either a congregation can afford it, or will it break the budget. Many congregations avoid borrowing money altogether, preferring to save for the inspiring building. What's the payback on that?

Second, how do we include things that have no financial cost or benefit in our payback formula? How does mission fit in, for example? Or how about our environmental impact on Creation? If we install a more efficient boiler, what is the payback of less neighborhood asthma? How does peace of mind count in the payback ratio?

Third, in addition to the purchase costs, how do we include the costs of ownership in into payback? What about maintenance costs and salvage value?

Take the example of solar energy.

As I tap these keys, the electricity to run my computer is being generated by sunlight. My wife and I installed a system of solar panels on our roof that converts sunlight into electricity. We generate about the same amount of electricity that we use in this home/office. What we don't use goes back into the electric utility system. We don't have any batteries.

When the truckers delivered the solar panels and other pieces of equipment, they almost always asked, "How much is this going to cost?" I responded, "Less than an expensive car." They wanted to know the payback on my investment. But my solar system has no payback. It will never generate enough electricity to pay for itself.

Well, am I stupid or what? Spending almost $30,000 for a system that won't pay for itself? What are the benefits? Why would someone go to all this expense to install a solar system that has no payback?

Other than payback, here are my reasons:

If I want to use the internet, our toaster oven, microwave, dehumidifier, artificial lighting, fans, stereo, videotape player, and other appliances, I don't want others to pay for the resulting impact on creation. In the highest sense of walking gently on the earth, it seems to me that I should install this system to do what is right. There no payback to that criterion.

Our solar electric system is conspicuous consumption to the max. Some people buy a yacht or Ford Expedition to accomplish the same thing we do with ourphotovoltaic system. And I am as proud of it as some people are of theirsafari or their liposuction. There is no payback to any of these investments.

The reaction of people who see my electric meter spin backwards is priceless.

The symbolic meaning of the system as part of our neighborhood is impossible tocalculate in any payback formula.So, when your congregation is considering investing in lower energy use, there are many more important things to consider than payback. I think payback is a merely menial criterion in respect to Creation.

What does your congregation think?

Andrew Rudin helps congregations reduce their energy use and cost. For information and a price list of products from Philadelphia's InterfaithCoalition on Energy, write ICE, 7217 Oak Avenue, Melrose Park, PA 19027. Telephone (215) 635-1122. Fax (215) 635-1903. Email 754-0723@mcimail.com

Public Policy Update

From the beginning of time, innumerable problems have threatened the lives of our children. Many of these problems have been eliminated, but new ones have taken over in our world which is vastly different from that of only a few years. Smallpox is gone, but the incidence of some childhood cancers has increased by as much as 30 percent. Overall, cancer is now the second leading cause of death in children. Childhood tuberculosis has been significantly reduced, but asthma has increased by 40 percent since 1980 and has become the leading cause of hospital admission of urban children. And while all children are put at risk from toxic chemical hazards, children living in poverty and children in certain racial and ethnic communities face a disproportionately high risk

What can we do? For practical ideas on what you can do in your own home, see our article "Better Safe than Sorry" in this issue of Creation Care. Beyond this, we would encourage you to demand from your senators and representative that they make understanding and addressing environmental risks to children a priority in the Congress. Contact your congressional leaders and ask them to:

Support current legislation to require manufacturers to label children's products when they use a chemical that has been linked to cancer, neurological damage, or reproductive harm. On the Capitol Hill, this is known as "right-to-know" legislation. In California, where "right-to-know" legislation is the law, many manufacturers voluntarily eliminated these chemicals from their products after the law was passed. They considered that it was easier to do this than to disclose the presence of these dubious chemicals to the public! For more information on "right-to-know," visit http://www.rtk.net.
Support full funding for screening and testing hormone-disrupting chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency has developed a program that would test all chemicals for their ability to disrupt hormones, but Congress hasn't provided enough funding even to get the testing started;
Support funding for a National Report Card on Children's Environmental Health that would find out what chemical contaminants are in the bodies of the nation's children and what health effects these chemicals are having.

The President and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency also need to hear from you. Ask them to:

Strictly enforce the new pesticide law that requires acceptable pesticide levels be reduced to protect children. The law has not been strictly enforced due to pressure from chemical and pesticide manufacturers; and
Require that polluters report to the government their releases into the environment of chemicals that are particularly harmful to children such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and others. This is another aspect of "right-to-know" legislation that is very much needed.

This is a summary of a few of the things that can be done in our country. However important these issues must be, we must always keep before us the fact that many children struggle with other, more pressing issues of environmental health. For some, a simple cup of clean water is their greatest environmental concern. (See the editorial in this issue of the magazine). When you contact your senator, representative or other officials, please challenge them to keep in mind the needs of the poor as they craft and debate environmental legislation. In February 1997, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment led a delegation of religious leaders to Washington, D.C. to press these issues of life and death. In a press release, these leaders said, "Since God will champion the cause of the poor, the rights of the needy' (Psalm 140:12), opportunities to do God's will lie before us here." As you make your opinions known in the halls of Congress, you can help keep these vital issues before our leaders. Thank you for your advocacy on behalf of creation.

Addressing your letters For the names and local office numbers of your representatives, check out the blue pages of your telephone directory, or visit http://thomas.loc.gov. This web site is loaded with information to help you understand our national policy issues.

Join Us! If you would like to join our Public Policy Team, please contact us at the Evangelical Environmental Network, 10 E. Lancaster Avenue, Wynnewood, PA 19096-3495 or email us at een@creationcare.org.