A friend sent me Nicholas Kristof’s recent thoughts on how common kitchen plastics may be adversely affecting our health.  (Nicholas Kristof further elaborates, on his blog)

Kristof reminds us that since WWII, research labs have patented some 80,000 new chemicals.  Although this statistic pales in comparison to the number of naturally occurring chemicals, in nature, it still brings on a visceral reaction, because the unstated implication is that these chemicals – sought after in order to make our lives easier – are now omnipresent in our food, furniture, electronics, and anything else we are even mildly fond of.    Meanwhile, past experiences with radon gas, asbestos, lead paint, and even cigarettes (just to name a few) have taught us that each advancement (whether or not cigarettes are a societal advancement is debatable, but they are, irrefutably, a technological advancement in ‘the field’ of  nicotine delivery) is possibly accompanied by hidden dangers.  Understanding why those chemicals react the way they do, or going online to get a better understanding of the chemicals that are used in products is a difficult proposition for most. Moreover, some of that information is scarcely available, or little understood (even by the companies and individuals that make them). So, it is easier to believe that some combination of interest groups, dastardly scientists, and pocketed law makers are doing their darndest to keep the dangerous side of the equation away from us.

As a result, it is easier for some people to live with a measure of self imposed ignorance about the composition of the new age materials and technologies that define existence, in developed societies.  Some figure that the same forces that created the chemicals, will figure out a way to make them safer (I mean, what else would they be spending their time on…right?).  Others of us cope by turning to hearsay, or, increasingly, turning naturalistic.  Why take the factory produced aspirin when I can scrape some willow bark into my hot pot instead? All of these are far easier options than actually getting informed and taking responsibility.  It’s like people who fully understand how drunk pictures of themselves on Facebook can create problems down the road, but choose to post them anyway.

A large part of it has to do with being overwhelmed. On some level, we are all aware of the lurking dangers in our modern lives – we have learned to worry about what we’re actually breathing in when we sense that ‘new car smell’ or when we bring the dry cleaning back to the apartment in those convenient plastic cover sheets.  But, if we had to accept the responsibility that comes with having convenience, how many new responsibilities would that add to our checklist? So, we are loath to accept the responsibility of actually airing out the new car before driving it, or taking the plastic off the dry cleaning before bringing it home.  I’m as bad as anyone. I cringe at the thought of cleaning my automatic coffee maker, even though it saves me hours each month, by making it unnecessary to go to Starbucks.  There are simply too many plastic bags, bubble wrap sheets, acrylic finishes, and synthetic threads to think about.  After all, if you are going to take the bags off the dry cleaning, then it does you no good if you stand around and do nothing about the thousand other potentially dangerous, chemically laced plastic and acrylic finish products scattered throughout your house.

Nevertheless, we really want to be good and healthy. We just need someone to make the task simpler. Once in a while a call for action comes along, like those recycling commercials in the late 80s and early 90s, or Ralph Nader in the 70s, and we rally around that call by demanding our politicians to regulate this, or to ban that.

In that tradition, Nicholas Kristof, known primarily as a human rights crusader and womens’ equality advocate, makes a crossover into consumer activism and proclaims a call to arms against number 3,5, and 7 plastics. It does not matter that Kristof has told us that many of the plastics we use are unsafe; a plastic dish that always appeared partly fused with our TV dinners told us that years ago. What matters is that he has a pulpit that reaches the ears of many decision makers, and, more importantly, the people who the decision makers represent.  Kristof is appealing to the higher authorities, and we love him for it.  That is why the article has remained the New York Times most emailed article for three days.

When someone removes a part of our burden, we reward him, because we don’t have to do the burden moving ourselves.  I suspect that Mr. Kristof understands this human inclination to pay forward the responsibility, and I am convinced, with some eight years of fruitless Darfur activism under his belt, that he fully comprehends the difficulty of kindling communal action to solve a problem.  Having attended his book talk at Duke University, I also know that he is regarded as somewhat of a savior by socially inclined college students.  So, I have a feeling, that even though he implores us to get rid of all the 3,5, and 7 plastics in our house, that he is really writing in a noble doublespeak dialect.  He is aware that if too many people pay the responsibility forward, no one will actually do anything.  The fact that he devotes most of the article to nebulous references about chemical dangers, and indulges in bits of wild speculation (like the part on rates of breast cancer in Asian women going up in the US due to plastics), tells me that he is trying to fire up more than just the casual New York Times Reader, and appeal to the motivated young activist.

I don’t know how much good his veiled appeal to action will ultimately do.  I’ll tell you one thing though – by the end of the week, my number 3,5, and 7 plastics will all be gone, but my dry cleaning will likely stay wrapped, in my closet.