Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment

Imagine your life at twenty years old. Now imagine it with cancer. This was the bewildering situation Sandra Steingraber faced as a college student. But instead of allowing the diagnosis to devastate her, she went about gathering as many answers as she could as to why she—and other members of her adoptive family—developed cancer in the first place, and what needs to change so that fewer people face what she had to.

 

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In this updated second edition of Living Downstream, Steingraber uses her experience as a cancer survivor, biologist, and mother to argue in favor of cancer prevention through environmental change. She addresses the scientific findings that have emerged in the dozen or so years since the book's original publication—including the role of endocrine disruption, chemical mixtures, prenatal exposures, and epigenetics. She also shows how developments in green energy will benefit not only the environment but human health. Woven throughout her presentation of the evidence is a personal story about a hometown, a river valley, and a beloved family farm. In Steingraber's words, In the end, the environment is not just something else to worry about. It is connected to all the things we already worry about—and love with all our hearts.

Overall, Living Downstream presents a passionate, hopeful view, asserting that it's a good thing that the environment has such great influence over cancer because we can do something about it. It helps us focus on the impact our daily decisions have made—and the changes we have the power to make for future generations.

 

An internationally recognized authority on environmental links to cancer and reproductive health, Sandra Steingraber, PhD, is also the author of Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood and a columnist for Orion magazine. In 2001, she received the Rachel Carson Leadership Award for her outstanding contributions to the conservation and environmental movement. She has lectured before the parliament of the European Union, at various medical conferences, and on numerous college campuses, and is a scholar in residence at New York's Ithaca College.

Please visit her website: www.steingraber.com.

 

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