The Brockovich Report

May 29, 2007

How many times are we going to turn on the news and have to listen to the Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton train wreck stories? Hollywood and our media have a lot more important things to say and do and tell than to cover such paparazzi-pandering voyeurism.

Being a parent of three children I am very aware that teenagers run into drug and alcohol problems. I have had to put my foot down with all three of my kids who had to experience outdoor programs, boarding schools and inpatient programs so that they could learn how to be strong in themselves and not follow the pack or the so called “crowd.” It was my job, (and a not so popular campaign in my home) to yank on the kid’s strings when they started making poor choices.

Is it any wonder why it is really difficult for this generation to make good choices when their role models are the likes of the two mentioned above? We sit back and do nothing while the media publicizes and idolizes bad behavior. All of the other kids in America are expected to play by the rules and make good choices in life. But you tell me where is the media coverage on the kids who stand out because of their admirable accomplishments?

Lindsay, Paris or anyone else who thinks they are above the law because they are famous or because their parents are rich should not get any favors. I hope they do the time, get the help that they need and start making better choices!

The media needs to take a good look at some of the stories they are covering and consider why so much attention is paid to them.

The issues that surround us are critical to the future of our country. Our educational system is terrible. Forget no child left behind. They are all getting left behind. Our health care system is laughable. Our environment has gone to the toilet. Jobs are in short supply. There is an epidemic drug problem in this country.

And what are we going to do about the WAR?

All of these issues affect the health and safety of all Americans.

This is important. Not the minutia of Paris and Lindsey's foolish life choices.

If the media showed us just how bad things are and did not sugar coat it, then people– parents, students and government–could focusing on how to change these things. It's certainly a better use of time than watching what the hell Lindsay and Paris are doing. Then maybe we could affect some change.

I congratulate media when they step up to the plate and tell the unpopular stories.

For example, CBS2 news in Sayreville, New Jersey just ran a story about a site that we have been looking at regarding the air pollution and the numerous cancers and issues in this community living close to a DuPont and Hercules chemical plant. Because of this story, the community has become aware and is now banning together, talking and wanting to do something about the problem.

And it's a big problem. For the past fourteen years, this community has had over THREE MILLION pounds of carcinogenic chemicals released into the air of which over 500,000 LBS. are actual fugitive emissions.

How many of these types of facilities are there throughout the US? What if only a few have same problem? What if there are thousands of these businesses–large and small–spewing out various degrees of fugitive emissions under the radar?

You do the math.

Tell me you don’t believe in Global Warming.
Tell me why we see so many cancers.

What is bothersome is that these statistics were taken from the US EPA website. The figures from these facilities are not available for 2006 and 2007 Industry is two years behind in reporting.

What is going on? Why do we set all the rules and regulations and then do nothing to enforce them? Is it because no one is talking about them? How about we start covering human issues and stories that AFFECT us.

If the tide doesn't turn, then we have to turn it ourselves.

Let’s get people involved again and not sweep things under the rug. Let's not pay so much attention to things that don’t really matter and certainly don’t help others. Let’s get back to the news, back to the people and back to America.

I'm not giving legal advice. I can't. I'm not a lawyer. All I can do is speak from the heart.

And sometimes what I say is heart-rending. There are no easy answers.

I frequently get mail from broken families. Sometimes the source of the mail is the mother; sometimes the father. This one is begging for equal rights, that one is begging for money, time, shared responsibility, or input. Each story is completely unique, and yet no matter how you interpret them, they are all the same.

In all of these stories, there are victims--and those victims are not the parents.

Mel went to court, and now he blames the court for holding him away from his daughter. I don't know the details--perhaps he didn't or couldn't pay the child support. Perhaps his wages were garnisheed. Now he blames the court for separating him from his daughter and writes me for help.

Michelle is raising her three children. Her rent is seven hundred dollars a month, the same amount her ex-husband is supposed to provide, only he hasn't sent anything for the past year. Maybe he was laid off, she doesn't know. Fortunately the utilities are included, and her mother has moved in with her to help defray the bills. Her secretarial job brings in $2000 a month, but there are medical bills to pay, clothes for her children, not to mention school expenses--she hasn't saved a penny for their college educations, living from paycheck to paycheck. Her youngest daughter--who does not even remember her father--has taken a job, but the cost of car insurance, gas and the extra car is far more than her daughter makes. Michelle can barely cover her own car insurance, and the cost of the gas to go back and forth to work has her serving ramen noodles for lunch and dinner several nights a week. She writes me for help.

Jeremy is the gay parent of an adopted child. Or he used to be. His deceased life-partner--the child's actual birth father--died of aplastic anemia after his bone marrow transplant failed. Already bereft from his loss, Jeremy also lost custody of his adopted son to his deceased partner's parents who are in their fifties and in the eyes of the court, will provide a better home for the child. Admittedly, Jeremy doesn't make that much money but he has been the child's parent for the last five years. But the grandparents have a big house in a settled neighborhood; they can afford private schools. And they are good people. But Jeremy loves his child, and wants more than the occasional visitation the court allows. He writes me for recourse--what can he do?

What can any of us do? We're the adults here. We can cope. Children are the victims.

Don't always blame the court first. The court didn't bring you to this situation, or break up your marriage. We all have a degree of personal responsibility.

All I can say to every parent out there is please...consider the welfare of your child first.

Consider it before you consider yourself. Make your adult choices with the welfare of your child being the foremost thing in your personal agenda. The choices are difficult if not impossible to decide. Do you take the better job so you can be the better provider or do you take the lesser job which provides you quality time at home? Do you suck in your anger at your former spouse, and respect your child's innate need for the other half of the parenting team? Do you go to the trouble of working out supervised visits so that your child can enjoy the legal right to their other parent--without being exposed to the alcoholism (or irresponsibility or manic depression or ________fill in the blank with your family's own personal horrorscape.) Do you go the extra mile to do the right thing, and not simply the thing you want to do?

Just remember that children are not weapons to be used in vicious court battles as one parent tries to destroy another.

Just minutes ago this press release came across the newswire: The Department of Environmental Protection is planning May and June meetings in conjunction with the Citizens Advisory Council and the Mining and Reclamation Advisory Board. State and locally elected officials, environmental and watershed groups, businesses, foundations and economic development organizations are encouraged to attend.

What are these meetings going to be about?

". . . on the recent reauthorization of the Federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which provides Pennsylvania with increased funding for
abandoned mine reclamation."

The law includes a 14-year extension to grant states the authority to collect taxes to support the federal Abandoned Mine Lands Trust Fund. The taxes are going to decline by 20 percent in two stages over the next six years, but the US Treasury is going to take up the slack. The law also offers the gov't the opportunity to set aside up to 30% of its allocation for abatement and treatment of abandoned mine drainage.

Town hall meetings are a good thing--especially if the environmental and watershed groups actually get together with the businesses and affect positive change. Let's hope that business and environmentalists don't line up on opposite sides of the hall, and shoot spitballs at each other.

The issue at hand here is abandoned mines. I recall a few years ago driving past a mining site. It was like an alien landscape, harshly graded, and the creeks running down the grade were stark orange wounds against a gray sky. I have since learned that that color orange water coming from a mine has a name: AMD. AMD is caused by the oxidation of materials surrounding the coal, forming a mild acid similar to vinegar. Metals, such as iron, aluminum and manganese, are leached from these materials killing most aquatic life. That is the orange of death.

So I wonder what these town meetings will mean to Pennsylvania, and what will come of them. Is it possible that this is big business actually beginning to clean up after itself? Or is something else going on? It is too soon to tell. I hope some of you who are involved in the Orange Water Network will take this opportunity to voice your opinions of what this means.

See Erin's Commencement Speech at Loyola.


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President Lawton, Vice Presidents, Deans, Professors, Parents, invited guest and the Graduating Class of 2007. It is with great pride, true happiness, deep gratitude and sincere humility that I accept your invitation to be here today.

You honor me by having me here. By acknowledging what I have accomplished. The measure of my own struggles to make the world that I inherited a better place to live. My hope, my wish, my legacy to you is the achievement of my experiences. The measure of my own success was the reflection of what was my ability to learn, to apply, to grow and eventually even to succeed.

It is a joy for me to share in your moment of achievement – your commencement. Although it marks the end of your student years at Loyola Marymount, a period of time that you will look back on with fond memories, it is really the beginning. You have now been certified at the starting line to the rest of your life. You are the citizens of the 21st century. You will now represent the future. I would point out that commencement means looking ahead, to begin, to begin the greatest journey you will ever take; the journey of life.

Today, you enter a world that welcomes you just as you welcome it. A world that will change you as you will change it. The result of those changes will mark the days of your life and in the end will serve as your legacy.

This world is all at once beautiful, wondrous, mysterious and inspiring. It is also troubled, damaged, factionalized and yes, it is in danger.

Your mission class of 2007, should you choose to accept it and I hope that you do, is to take the gift of this great planet and become its new caretakers, to bring us to a better place on our surface, in our hearts and through our shared spirits so that one day when your children are standing where you are now, your legacy to them will truly be a great one. You will have created a better world for all human kind and that is quite an accomplishment.

Your commencement marks your arrival at that starting line. This is your graduation day. Graduation: Literally it means the “marks of measurement.” The level of graduated growth and development.

Think of that wall chart your parents kept when you were a child. Remember those marks somewhere on your parent’s kitchen wall? My children’s marks are still on the wall and every day I look at them, I smile. Even though their marks are now taller than mine, it reminds me and them just how far we have come. Each time you grew an inch or so, it was noted by that mark. A mark that showed you how much you had grown. A graduated measure of your success. Today, you graduate with a measure of how far your mind has come. How much you have learned. How much you understand. How far you have come up against that great wall of life, against which we are all constantly being measured.

As I look back at the great wall of life, what did I learn? Well, or one thing I learned that success doesn’t always mean winning and failure doesn’t always mean losing. Going up against the Goliaths of industry I learned that being David can be pretty sweet. I discovered when I took on industry that there was great value in being the little guy or gal as it were. If for no other reason, any victory I had would have to be enormous simply by the fact of its own unlikely happening. In fact, taking on the establishment USUALLY means losing.

However, it is the act itself, of taking them on, of standing up against the odds for what one believes is right guaranteed that I could not lose for winning. As it happened my education was taken in the great “University of Living.” I earned my degree in failing. I finally graduated the day that I realized the measure of my own accomplishment.

That was the day, as a human being I first saw that something was morally wrong in the world in which I was living and bringing up my very own children.

If you saw the movie Erin Brockovich, then you know that in the course of my ordinary everyday existence, working at a law firm, going through the materials of a case that I had no business looking at, my commonsense, my humanity made me begin to realize that something was wrong. People were dying, numbers weren’t adding up and nobody was doing anything about it. It wasn’t anything factually specific that I found it was just a feeling I had that something was wrong. No lightning bolts of self righteousness hit me but things just didn’t feel right and I needed to know what was wrong and why. That was the commencement of my real journey. Later on, taking on the industrial establishment and wanting to do something about it became my goal.

What I learned from the famous case that you might know about was that I had been working my whole life to find out who I really way, what life meant to me, what the value in a simple blade of grass was and that my purpose in life was to protect it, nourish it and let it live. Each day that blade of grass lived so did I and so did we all.

There is a blade of grass in each of us. It is in a metaphorical sense; the children that we must protect, the disenfranchised that we must help. It is the poor, the underprivileged, it is the nameless, it is the faceless and it is also the endless. It is God’s Garden, it is you and it is me.

That blade of grass, as simple a life form as it may have been, was no less profound a form of life than you and me. I cannot live without that blade of grass and that blade of grass needs us ALL to survive.

That’s all that the movie was about. That’s really all that the case was about and that’s really what I am about. The realization of the value of life all around us, which has a Universal God given right to thrive without artificial or manmade threat, was in fact a victory no matter what the outcome was. That became my next celebration of life.

The ceremony of celebration, yet another word we use here today, is the acknowledgement of accomplishment, both individually as students and together as the class of 2007. It is a glorious accomplishment on both levels. It is a measure of your desire and mine to share our time of achievement and arrival.

Think of it as a great choral litany, the harmony of our togetherness highlighted by the individual voice of ourselves.

Don’t try to live your life in a moral, social or cultural vacuum. We depend upon each other and that dependence in a very beautiful and unexpected way frees us to be ourselves.

One of the things that I hope you have learned in your classes is one that I have learned in my life: Don’t limit the opportunities of living in search of the opportunity of a life time. The horizon is endless. Let your vision lead you to be a visionary. Don’t let others limit you and more importantly, don’t limit yourself.

Had I listened when people said you can’t, I wouldn’t have. The only voice that truly sang for me was the voice within myself, URGING me to take the COURAGE to be myself! It was the loudest voice of all, and yours must be for YOU as it will become the chorus of life.

So class of 2007, you leave here today a group of accomplished and proud graduates. You will go out into the world to seek and mark your individual places in it. Throughout your life’s journey stop and occasionally sing out with these words and thoughts:

LIVE LIFE and I mean live it! WORK! Work until you break a sweat! SET goals, aim high and hit that mark. ENDURE! Suffer without yielding. Hold OUT for what is right! Give and give some more. Question everything and don’t be afraid of the answer. Find a solution. Be the solution! Enrich others and in turn you will have enriched yourself. Show compassion, teach compassion and live with passion. Tend to the elderly. Tend to the helpless. Help others who cannot help themselves. Feel! Experience pain and sorrow! Experience triumph and love! Laugh and then laugh some more. Cry! Cry hard, cry loud and then pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back out there. Embrace loss! Embrace winning! Remember, dissention is a true form of patriotism. DISCOVER the world in which you live! Delight in it, realize it, create it, recognize it and RESPECT it, BUT most of all walk with PRIDE through this world.

Let us commence and graduate together to make a better tomorrow that will become the yesterdays and the future for us all! LIVE ON CLASS of 2007 … LIVE ON!

I have been watching very closely the current movement of the "green" effect going on not only in America, but throughout the World.

I have spent the past fifteen years working on the environment, studying the impact that a wounded environment is having on health and safety.

I am grateful for the celebrities who use their fame to make statements, who start and support movements on behalf of cleaner air, cleaner water, and a healthier world for us all. It is admirable for celebrities who lend their images to the screen and grace the covers of magazines to try to get the public more involved in creating a cleaner and better environment.

However, I have to make an observation.

Celebrities are the Glitterati.

I know that's not really a word, but I hope you will know what I mean by it. The real word is "Literati" which dates back to 1621, and is derived from Latin. It means men and women of letters; the learned class as a whole.

So who are the Glitterati?

This is a play on words. You know glitter--the stuff that shines. Well that's what stars and celebrities are, and this is what they do--they shine. They cast their ornamental light, and our celebrity conscious world looks up and follows that light. It is admirable for the Glitterati to make efforts to put their fame to good use, and I can only applaud their efforts, because not all celebrities make an effort to do public good.

So the observation I am about to make reflects well on our well-meaning stars who do such good work: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who thinks that the Environmental Movement should be sexy; Matt Damon host of Journey to Planet Earth; Ben Stiller, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Will Farrell, and Jack Black who will be in two upcoming Laurie David global warming tv specials, Dan Aykroyd and Woody Harrelson who have long been involved environmentalists, Leonardo Di Caprio who's eco-site discusses such green topics as global warming, fresh water, biodiversity, the oceans and sustainability, among other topics; and Brad Pitt who is calling for entries in New Orleans Sustainable design competition....the list goes on.

The truth is that the Glitterati's only power is their popularity. Who has the real power?

Industry. And that is where we truly need to shine our spotlight.

I am concerned that in our quest for a cleaner, healthier world, we are missing one big link. The one link that people think I am after all the time.

Industry!

Yes, I said it. Corporate America.

Corporate America has the power. And what are they doing with their power, their vast resources of manpower, and science?

They are making money.

Now, I have no objection to commerce. Commerce makes the world go round. I am just suggesting a tiny change in priorities.

Let us speculate–and I sincerely doubt that anyone would argue with me about that top priority–that Corporate America's top priority is making money. Let us be charitable and suggest that their second priority is keeping the world clean and green.

What would happen if they switched those two priorities? What if keeping the world clean and green was the TOP priority and making money was the SECOND item on the list?

What if all the vast resources, the manpower, the professional think tanks of big business all focused on getting the world clean and green?

What if I didn't have to nag corporations about burning more efficient fuels, relying less and less on oil dependency in other countries, not using plastic bags, solar power, etc.?

What if the source actually stepped up to the plate?

What if I didn't have to knock on Boeing's doors about more efficient burning of fuels and evaluating how much is deposited into the air upon take off?

What if I didn't have to beg the powers that be to address the over 1,600 toxic dumpsites in America that continue to destroy the environment, our water and our air and ultimately our health?

Our Politics are failing us.

The EPA is being dismantled.

Industry isn't being held to even the low standard, much less a standard of environmental excellence.

Industry has chosen to be the villain. But if Industry changed its vision of its own priorities, it could choose to be THE HERO!! Yes, the HERO!

We advocates talk a lot but what is industry really doing?

Is Boeing addressing the fuel dumps as they take off?

Is PG&E addressing more efficient ways to have power and cleaning up all those dirty sites?

Is anyone at all cleaning up after all the dumps left behind by businesses which no longer exist?

Think of it. America is a superpower. Industry has more power in its little finger than Spiderman, Batman, Superman and the X Men combined.

Industry has the person power, the funds, and the technology to take charge of and lead us into a green America! A safer America ! The America we want our children to inherit!

The America where humans from all walks of life, from every corner of the globe, want to live!

Just image–if Exxon, Chevron, Shell, Boeing, Phillip Morris, Kraft, ConAgra, Chrysler, Ford, PG&E, Sempra Energy, Starbucks, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, and all the others– Just image if they created a "committee of one" through all their resources and their trillions of combined dollars to fund the cleanup.

What if they themselves put into place all the new technology and monitoring of fossil fuels and coal burning facilities and mining companies all of which enjoy the benefits that the planet has to offer?

What if Industry took itself to give back to the very source of where all of our pleasures come from?

Think of it.
All of what we take from the planet for food, heat, clothing, shelter–
Everything we depend on–
Everything we enjoy–
If we all–led by Industry–give back by replenishing–
We would have in fact, a green world.

Just think if each one of these Corporate Giants donated 5% of their profits into one pot, think about where we would be!

Corporate America–what if your number one priority were to keep the world green, and your second priority was to make a profit? Think of the world your children would inherit.

Corporate America–we are missing our greatest allies and we need to call upon you. We, the little people, are looking for heroes.

Corporate America–join as one and each fund a little, apply new technology a little, and each get involved a little.

Think of what you could do if you made a clean world YOUR top priority?

After all, it's your world too.