After six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.
"After six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education," he notes, "The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a worldwide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health."
"Phthalates are the new bogeyman," he adds. "These chemicals make easy targets since they are hard to understand and difficult to pronounce. Commonly used phthalates, such as diisononyl phthalate (DINP), have been used in everyday products for decades with no evidence of human harm. DINP is the primary plasticizer used in toys. It has been tested by multiple government and independent evaluators, and found to be safe. None of the potential replacement chemicals have been tested and found safe to the degree that DINP has."
In addition, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recently cautioned, "If DINP is to be replaced in children's products…the potential risks of substitutes must be considered. Weaker or more brittle plastics might break and result in a choking hazard. Other plasticizers might not be as well studied as DINP."
"We all have a responsibility to be environmental stewards," Moore concludes, "but that stewardship requires that science, not political agendas, drive our public policy."
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