George Armstrong Lecture 2000.

I am honored to accept the Ambulatory Pediatric Association’s (APA’s) George Armstrong Lecture Award 2000 on behalf of Greenpeace. We greatly appreciate your recognition of Greenpeace’s global efforts to protect the earth and its children. Because of my campaign’s work on toxic pollution, and the effects of chemicals on the health of children everywhere, Greenpeace asked me to accept this award and address you today. Greenpeace was founded almost 30 years ago when on September 15, 1971, a group of 12 Canadians and US citizens sailed the Phyllis Cormack, an 80-foot sailboat, to Amchitka, Alaska, to protest the testing of US nuclear weapons.1 That protest by a small group of people in the face of serious physical and legal threats set in motion 3 decades of activism, best known for people putting their lives on the line for what they believe. I have been arrested and jailed for protest against toxic waste incineration, but I didn’t spend as many days in jail as my colleague here today, Niaz Dorry, who was named one of Time Magazine’s 50 “heroes of the planet” (October 5, 1998) for her work in Gloucester, Massachusetts, to preserve our fisheries from overfishing by factory trawlers. Sometimes it is called “bearing witness” other times “speaking truth to power.” But it is always about nonviolent direct action in the tradition of Gandhi, King, and Chavez. Greenpeace uses creative means to expose conditions that threaten the earth like the potential extinction of whales or the threatened exploitation of Antarctica. Although Antarctica is now protected by an international treaty, countries such as Norway and Japan are attempting to resume the slaughter of whales. Continued vigilance is essential. Whatever the issue, no matter the odds, Greenpeace has pledged to defend the planet from the multitude of attacks on its well-being that are uncovered each day. Greenpeace has millions of supporters and active programs in approximately 30 countries around the world. In the United States we have 5 major campaigns: Toxics, Global Warming, Genetic Engineering, Marine Mammals, Fisheries, and Forests and Nuclear Weapons. In the area of industrial pollution, a lot has happened since the 1950s when smoke stacks blackened the skies of Pittsburgh and rivers caught fire or wreaked of untreated sewage. However, today’s challenge regarding these threats is more serious and insidious because most of the threats we face today are invisible. You cannot see acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, the incremental increase in global temperatures or the super toxins in parts per trillion that contaminate our food from smoke stacks 2000 miles away. It is these global poisons, called persistent organic pollutants or POPs that I work on. When you think about these substances, I urge you to keep 4 facts in mind: