{"id":15225,"date":"2018-08-21T16:22:36","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T20:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=15225"},"modified":"2018-09-05T11:28:11","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T15:28:11","slug":"silent-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/silent-shore\/","title":{"rendered":"Silent Shore"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 2018 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

From the same Maine shores that inspired the groundbreaking\u00a0work of Rachel Carson, fellow female scientist Dr. Susan Shaw is battling at the frontline for our planet\u2019s future.<\/span><\/h3>\n

By Sarah Moore<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Sept18-Silent-Shore\"On a small granite boulder at the edge of the water in Southport, a bronze plaque recalls the spot where Rachel Carson\u2019s ashes were scattered in 1964, among ocean breezes and migrating Monarch butterflies. This quiet stretch of midcoast Maine had been a source of inspiration for the famed biologist and writer 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 industries and politicians in the wake of Silent Spring<\/em> (1962), her seismic, National 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\u2019s shores. A framed biography of Carson greets visitors at the entrance to the Shaw Institute in Blue Hill, formerly the Marine Environmental Research Institute, where it hangs opposite the seven-foot skeleton of a gray seal\u2014a neighbor Carson would surely have appreciated. From this former farmhouse on Main Street, a new generation of female scientists continues Carson\u2019s battle to protect the natural world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Swimming Upstream<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Born in Dallas, Dr. Susan Shaw got her MFA in film from Columbia before undertaking a doctorate in Public and Environmental Health. Tracking her 30-year career, the parallels between Shaw\u2019s work and Carson\u2019s groundbreaking expos\u00e9 are hard to ignore. \u201cI read\u00a0 <\/span>Silent Spring <\/em>while I was in college,\u201d Shaw says. \u201cIt prompted me to start thinking differently about things and ignited my interest in a doctorate in Public Health.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Shaw\u2019s work soon caught the eye of legendary photographer Ansel Adams, who commissioned her to produce Overexposure<\/em>, the first book of its kind to detail the dangers of darkroom chemicals. This was Shaw\u2019s first experience speaking out against the titans of the chemical industry. \u201cThere was so much anger toward me that I would dare suggest these wonderful photographic chemicals could be harmful to human health. I thought of Carson and the PBS interview she gave in 1962. The interviewer absolutely eviscerated her. But you can\u2019t deny the truth of what she wrote. She\u2019s been a beacon to me.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Both women have dedicated their careers to exposing the deadly threat of chemicals widely used across agriculture, industry, and aviation on environmental systems. Carson wrote eloquently of the rampage 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 furniture) have insidiously poisoned marine mammal and fish species. In 2010, she was asked to dive in the Gulf of Mexico to assess 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 human health, lest we believe it is only songbirds and sea stars at risk.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started all this,\u201d Dr. Susan D. Shaw says, \u201cI thought the plight of the harbor seal pups would be enough to pull people\u2019s heartstrings.\u201d She gives a wry smile at the memory of her naive optimism. After a summer spent in the late 1980s in Brooklin, where she still keeps a house, Shaw\u2019s environmental career began with a study to prove the agricultural and industrial chemicals that Silent Spring<\/em> had helped to ban were behind the mass die-off of harbor seals. Today, she knows she has bigger fish to fry\u2013nothing short of halting the growth of the global plastics industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Not Easy Being Green<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe began collecting plastic waste during field studies,\u201d Shaw says. \u201cIn 2012, I started looking at the breakdown of waste into microplastics\u2013the miniscule fragments of plastic that we found even in the so-called \u2018pristine\u2019 waters of the Blue Hill Peninsula.\u201d Tune into the zeitgeist and you\u2019d be hard-pressed to miss the global buzz around single-use plastic waste. Everyday eco-warriors avow the merits of reusable water flasks over your discardable bottle of Poland Spring. Requesting a plastic straw with your drink is now a cardinal sin. \u201cPeople are struck by the image of the shorebird filled with plastic toothbrushes and the littered beaches in India and Thailand\u2013and that\u2019s a truly worthy cause,\u201d Shaw says. \u201cBut I think\u2013no, I know\u2013they don\u2019t understand the dangers of microplastics. It\u2019s the plastics you don\u2019t see that are the real danger. The tiny fragments moving through the food chain\u2013moving through us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Shaw has since formed an international coalition with fellow scientists called Plastics and the Human Health Connection with the express purpose of measuring the threat of microplastics to human health. \u201cWe\u2019ve found a way of identifying 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\u2019re inside every person to a varying degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning the Tide?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Like Carson working in the postwar boom of industrial growth, Shaw faces an unfriendly political climate. \u201cPlastic is a multi-billion-dollar industry. I don\u2019t think people realize that the U.S. plans to pour $164 billion into increasing petroleum-based plastic production in the near future\u2013that\u2019s a 36-percent growth.\u201d However, she remains confident the coalition\u2019s research could turn the tide in the same way that biomarker science toppled the monopoly of the tobacco industry. Shaw doesn\u2019t believe people will turn away from deadly human health risks the way they once turned from dying seal pups.<\/span><\/p>\n

The native Texan finds Maine to be the ideal spot to conduct local studies with a global scope along with her female-dominated team of research scientists. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful place, but there\u2019s trouble in paradise. The Gulf of Maine is the second-fastest warming area in the world behind the polar caps. This means our food sources are moving northward, including lobster. Lobsters are the heartbeat of this area, and they\u2019re leaving. Over 40 percent of marine mammals are facing extinction. How far can this go on before life as we know it is interrupted? The planet will not be able to survive without functional, life-supporting oceans.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the chilling outlook of a warming world, Susan Shaw, like Rachel Carson, is a firm believer in the human capacity to change for the better. \u201cWe\u2019re at the end of the fossil fuel age, and sure, we\u2019re experiencing all the consequences of this Anthropocene period. But we\u2019re also on the brink of a new age of awareness. Solar energy is going to displace fossil fuel\u2014and soon. It\u2019s a cheaper and better alternative. The market will drive this change. I see a future that is very positive. The question is, can we get there?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 2018
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