insights 92 p o r t l a n d monthly maga ine since she built a cottage on the rocky shores of Southport in 1953. Later, the coast became a refuge from the fierce backlash from chemical indus- tries and politicians in the wake of Silent Spring (1962), her seismic, Na- tional Book Award-winning study on the destructive effect of synthetic pesticides on the environment. Over 9,000 acres of land have since been preserved in her name along Maine’s shores. A framed biography of Car- son greets visitors at the entrance to the Shaw Institute in Blue Hill, for- merly the Marine Environmental Re- search Institute, where it hangs oppo- site the seven-foot skeleton of a gray seal—a neighbor Carson would sure- ly have appreciated. From this for- mer farmhouse on Main Street, a new generation of female scientists con- tinues Carson’s battle to protect the natural world. s iMMing pstreaM orn in Dallas, Dr. Susan Shaw got her MFA in film from Columbia before un- dertaking a doctorate in Public and Environmental Health. Tracking her 30-year career, the parallels between Shaw’s work and Carson’s ground- breaking exposé are hard to ignore. “I read Silent Spring while I was in college,” Shaw says. “It prompted me to start thinking differently about things and ignited my interest in a doctorate in Public Health.” Shaw’s work soon caught the eye of legendary photographer Ansel Adams, who commissioned her to produce Over- exposure, the first book of its kind to detail the dangers of darkroom chemicals. This was Shaw’s first experience speaking out against the titans of the chemical industry. “There was so much anger toward me that I would dare suggest these wonderful photo- graphic chemicals could be harmful to hu- man health. I thought of Carson and the PBS interview she gave in 1962. The inter- viewer absolutely eviscerated her. But you can’t deny the truth of what she wrote. She’s been a beacon to me.” Both women have dedicated their ca- reers to exposing the deadly threat of chem- icals widely used across agriculture, indus- try, and aviation on environmental sys- tems. Carson wrote eloquently of the ram- page of DDT pesticide-spraying that could leave our green spaces empty and devoid of bird song. Meanwhile, Shaw has studied and shown how flame-retardant chemicals (used on our mattresses, plastics, and fur- niture) have insidiously poisoned marine mammal and fish species. In 2010, she was asked to dive in the Gulf of Mexico to as- sess the damage of oil-dispersant chemicals used in the wake of the BP oil spill. Carson and Shaw are both quick to emphasize the implied risk of chemical pollution to hu- man health, lest we believe it is only song- birds and sea stars at risk. “When I started all this,” Dr. Susan D. Shaw says, “I thought the plight of the har- bor seal pups would be enough to pull peo- ple’s heartstrings.” She gives a wry smile at the memory of her naive op- timism. After a summer spent in the late 1980s in Brooklin, where she still keeps a house, Shaw’s environmental career began with a study to prove the agricultural and industrial chemicals that Silent Spring had helped to ban were behind the mass die-off of harbor seals. Today, she knows she has bigger fish to fry–nothing short of halting the growth of the global plastics industry. not easy being green “We began collecting plastic waste during field studies,” Shaw says. “In 2012, I started looking at the break- down of waste into microplastics–the miniscule fragments of plastic that we found even in the so-called ‘pris- tine’ waters of the Blue Hill Peninsu- la.” Tune into the zeitgeist and you’d be hard-pressed to miss the global buzz around single-use plastic waste. Everyday eco-warriors avow the mer- its of reusable water flasks over your discardable bottle of Poland Spring. Requesting a plastic straw with your drink is now a cardinal sin. “People are struck by the image of the shorebird filled with plastic toothbrushes and the littered beaches in India and Thai- land–and that’s a truly worthy cause,” Shaw says. “But I think–no, I know– they don’t understand dangers of mi- croplastics. It’s the plastics you don’t see that are the real danger. The tiny fragments moving through the food chain–moving through us.” Shaw has since formed an internation- al coalition with fellow scientists called Plastics and the Human Health Connec- tion with the express purpose of mea- suring the threat of microplastics to hu- man health. “We’ve found a way of iden- tifying microplastics in the bloodstream. Now we ask, what is the impact on the human body? On the brain? Can it cross the blood-brain barrier and interfere with neural transmissions? My instinct? Yes, it can. And I think they’re inside every per- son to a varying degree.” t rning the tide Like Carson working in the postwar boom of industrial growth, Shaw faces an un- friendly political climate. “Plastic is a multi- We n no T e e ive e ie i er T our on n e re erv ion o e e r r c S en S r n 1962 sarah moore