Exposure, Women's Network on Health and the Environment, $40; (416) 928-0880
"Whether you're one-breasted, no-breasted, or two-breasted, this is a
two-fisted fight," Bella Abzug says in this stylish, fast-paced documentary exploring
the environmental links to breast cancer. Abzug lost her own battle with the disease a
year after the video was released.
Breast cancer strikes even the healthiest among us, including narrator Olivia
Newton-John. "I was the one [in eight]. Even though I ate well, exercised, and didn't
drink or smoke," she says. "What caused it? Was it from the pesticides sprayed
on the fruits and vegetables I ate? The polluted air I breathed when I went running? Or
was it in the water I drank?"
Such questions inevitably haunt women diagnosed with breast cancer. Getting beyond the
usual blame-the-victim factors like smoking, drinking, and poor diets, Exposure examines
how pollution may increase cancer risk. "All cancer is genetic," says surgeon
Susan Love. "Sometimes you inherit a screwed-up gene. More commonly, you inherit
normal genes and something comes along in the environment and screws up the genes."
Scientists in Exposure argue that radiation and toxic chemicals do just that. Images of
industrial wastelands, smokestacks billowing great clouds of brown smoke, and dark
forboding skies set the scene as we meet epidemiologist Rosalie Bertell. Since Chernobyl,
she says, radioactive residues can be found worldwide in milk, water, fruits, vegetables,
meat, and fish. And she warns, "There is no level of radiation that will not cause
cellular damage."
Bertell blames our "preoccupation with creating megadeath" as the major
source of pollution. Our society took its wartime herbicides, pesticides, and defoliants,
she says, "watered them down a little and then [said] they're good for your fields
and crops. What we're finding out is that these things that are designed to kill are
killing people."
We still don't have absolute proof that environmental poisons are playing a role in
rising breast cancer rates, epidemiologist Devra Lee Davis acknowledges. "But what do
you do while we scientists continue our research? Do you wait until you have enough dead
bodies before you take action?"
Scanning a hillside art installation of thousands of torso sculptures, the film reminds
us how many women weÕve lost. And it makes a compelling case that pollution prevention is
the first step toward saving lives. —Liza Gross
Power Play
Renewable Power: Earth's Clean Energy Destiny, The Video Project, $39.95; (800)
4-PLANET
What will it take to get a high-schooler who's seen The Phantom Menace three
times interested in the wonky world of renewable energy? With its 3-D computer graphics,
NASA images, and even a shiny BMW sedan thrown in, this educational video stands a good
chance.
Narrated by Peter Coyote, the video shows how we entered the Age of Oil and why we're
on the verge of leaving it barely 100 years later. Images of auto-infatuated suburbanites
in the 1950s give way to more modern scenes of traffic congestion and air pollution,
followed by a primer on the benefits of solar, wind, biomass, and hydroelectric power. The
shots of sleek wind turbines slicing the air above rolling farmland and a sea of
photovoltaic panels reflecting the afternoon sun are striking. It's hard to imagine being
as captivated by photos from an oil refinery.
The video will easily capture the attention of students (and their parents, if they
don't want to be left behind) when it moves on to discuss hydrogen fuel cells, the most
high-tech side of renewable energy. Slick computer animation shows how a fuel cell turns
hydrogen, the simplest and most abundant element in the universe, into electricity while
emitting only harmless water vapor. (For more information on fuel cells, see "Your
Next Car?" Sierra, July/August 1999.)
This 25-minute video, winner of a 1999 Gold Apple Award from the National Educational
Media Network, makes the provocative suggestion that developments in renewable energy will
be "as revolutionary as microchips." Who knows what future Thomas Edison or even
Henry Ford will be inspired by it. —Reed McManus
