A Gift For My Grandson Charleston, On His First Earth Day
By Carlton Brown
Charleston,
Your great grandfather, my father, who like your father, died before you were born, was a chemistry professor who was schooled in all the sciences. For nearly 50 years he taught chemistry, physics and general science at an HBCU, Jackson State University. For many of those years he taught largely African American students who came from segregated and disinvested communities across the state of Mississippi and prepared them for a world which at best, was ambivalent about having them participate as co-equal partners. He taught them that while politics, and social sciences were deniable, the physical sciences were undeniable. Through empirical process they could be proven with no regard to class or race. He saw science as the great equalizer. In the process of growing up in the Brown household, though I did not become a scientist, I learned a lot about science.
Among the things that stand out, your great granddad taught me that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. He taught me that all of our actions have consequences. With science we try to calculate, predict, and shape the consequences, usually in a controlled environment, a laboratory. Yet there are often unintended consequences, for which science, at the time has not yet developed the capacity to predict. Ultimately, however, even those one-time unpredictable consequences become predictable via the scientific process.
From your great grandfather, I learned that the earth is over 4.5 Billion years old and that it took hundreds of millions of years to shape the natural environment which we now see is rapidly disappearing. What I always found amazing was that humans had only been on the earth for 100,000 years. Even more puzzling, your great-grandfather was a Sunday school teacher who, taught that humans were created by God and given dominion, stewardship responsibility for managing something that it had taken God 4.5 Billion years to make. When I asked your great granddad why God would do something that stupid, he told me because God had given us “free will” , the ability to think, and to make informed choices, and He trusted us to do His will.
Armed with these lessons from your great grandfather, I went off to college during the fall of 1969 and on the very first Earthday, in April of 1970, I was given a copy of Rachael Carson’s “Silent Spring”. Published in 1962 the book chronicled the use of pesticides, and the damage pesticides and other chemicals were doing to the environment. Silent Spring jump started the environmental movement by pointing out the unintended consequences of science and progress.
As an adult I recalled that in the early 1960’s when Jackson Public Works, came through our neighborhood spraying the cloud of “mosquito spray”, while other kids ran behind the truck, your great granddad made us come inside and close the doors and windows. I don’t know if he had read Silent Spring, or just understood chemistry and the unintended consequences. Though the DDT was effective at killing bugs, it was also causing genetic damage to birds like the bald eagle, the golden eagle and whooping cranes driving all of them and others to the edge of extinction. It was in the food chain, and no one was quite aware of what the unintended consequences were or would be for the current or future generations, meaning you Charleston.
Though Colon Cancer is an old man’s disease, your father, my son, a young man was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at the age of 32. Your father who, like your great grandfather, was schooled in science, wondered, and was perplexed about what caused his cancer. Before you were conceived, he, your mother, your grandmother and I went through genetic testing to see if there was a genetic, or inherited trait, that may have created a predisposition for his cancer at such a young age. The good news for him and for you was that there was no genetic predisposition. The bad news is that your father died at 34.
Charleston, on this your first Earth Day, I offer you more bad news, but in the end, a great opportunity. First when it comes to disease, most scientists believe there are simply two general options for cause, either genetics or environment, a fundamental concept, whose origin stems from an African scientist recorded in the Ebers Papyrus in 3,000 BC. In your father’s case, having eliminated genetics, it leaves us with nothing but the environment. Your father, my son died from undefined environmental factors which science is not yet able to isolate and precisely define. Though undefined, it is fair to assume that he died from unintended consequences of human activity intended to do something “good”. The precise combinations of human activity are, now, far to complex to isolate and test in a laboratory environment following the scientific method. Science can’t yet tell us precisely what the effect of minute samples of complex concoctions of chemicals and medicines are on humans when combined in water and food and ingested into the human body. Though this answer does not meet standards of scientific precision, on this your first Earth Day, I can tell you with authority, the chemical pollution of the earth for which we are stewards is not good.
Second, I am leaving you an environment with not only polluted air and water, but drought; advancing desertification; melting polar ice caps; melting glaciers; record high temperatures; sea level rise; record elevated carbon in the atmosphere; more severe storms than ever before recorded; loss of 200 to 400 species of plants, insects and animals daily. I leave you an environment that is causing cancer, asthma and other environmental born diseases that are devastating the human family, your family. Where my generation, in a mere 60 to 75 years failed in our obligation to God to be good stewards of the earth it took God 4.5 Billion years to make, your generation has a chance to fix what we broke and to pass on a healthy earth to future generations.
Charleston, you have an opportunity to fix what we broke, so that grandfathers are not required to share truths that fathers should be alive to share. All it takes is an exercise of human free will, a willingness to acknowledge that God and science meet around our stewardship for the environment. Where my generation has done things wrong for so long and with bad outcomes, your generation has the predictive capacity to understand that if you go on doing what we did, outcomes will only worsen. I offer you an opportunity to do things differently from the way my generation did things. Stop doing the things that are ruining our climate, ruining our environment, and depleting species in exchange for short term profits. I offer you the opportunity to use science and intellect in the service of the earth and humanity, to think long term. I offer you an opportunity to do what we did not do: think first of the earth as a trust for future generations not from us but from God. Charleston, on this your first Earth Day, I want you to remember that though the Earth is no doubt damaged by our actions, it is not endangered. It has a long memory and will be healed over the next 4.5 Billion year with or without us. On the contrary, it is the human species that is now endangered by our own actions. On this your first Earth Day my gift to you is the opportunity and responsibility to change.
With Love Granddad
By Carlton Brown
Charleston,
Your great grandfather, my father, who like your father, died before you were born, was a chemistry professor who was schooled in all the sciences. For nearly 50 years he taught chemistry, physics and general science at an HBCU, Jackson State University. For many of those years he taught largely African American students who came from segregated and disinvested communities across the state of Mississippi and prepared them for a world which at best, was ambivalent about having them participate as co-equal partners. He taught them that while politics, and social sciences were deniable, the physical sciences were undeniable. Through empirical process they could be proven with no regard to class or race. He saw science as the great equalizer. In the process of growing up in the Brown household, though I did not become a scientist, I learned a lot about science.
Among the things that stand out, your great granddad taught me that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. He taught me that all of our actions have consequences. With science we try to calculate, predict, and shape the consequences, usually in a controlled environment, a laboratory. Yet there are often unintended consequences, for which science, at the time has not yet developed the capacity to predict. Ultimately, however, even those one-time unpredictable consequences become predictable via the scientific process.
From your great grandfather, I learned that the earth is over 4.5 Billion years old and that it took hundreds of millions of years to shape the natural environment which we now see is rapidly disappearing. What I always found amazing was that humans had only been on the earth for 100,000 years. Even more puzzling, your great-grandfather was a Sunday school teacher who, taught that humans were created by God and given dominion, stewardship responsibility for managing something that it had taken God 4.5 Billion years to make. When I asked your great granddad why God would do something that stupid, he told me because God had given us “free will” , the ability to think, and to make informed choices, and He trusted us to do His will.
Armed with these lessons from your great grandfather, I went off to college during the fall of 1969 and on the very first Earthday, in April of 1970, I was given a copy of Rachael Carson’s “Silent Spring”. Published in 1962 the book chronicled the use of pesticides, and the damage pesticides and other chemicals were doing to the environment. Silent Spring jump started the environmental movement by pointing out the unintended consequences of science and progress.
As an adult I recalled that in the early 1960’s when Jackson Public Works, came through our neighborhood spraying the cloud of “mosquito spray”, while other kids ran behind the truck, your great granddad made us come inside and close the doors and windows. I don’t know if he had read Silent Spring, or just understood chemistry and the unintended consequences. Though the DDT was effective at killing bugs, it was also causing genetic damage to birds like the bald eagle, the golden eagle and whooping cranes driving all of them and others to the edge of extinction. It was in the food chain, and no one was quite aware of what the unintended consequences were or would be for the current or future generations, meaning you Charleston.
Though Colon Cancer is an old man’s disease, your father, my son, a young man was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at the age of 32. Your father who, like your great grandfather, was schooled in science, wondered, and was perplexed about what caused his cancer. Before you were conceived, he, your mother, your grandmother and I went through genetic testing to see if there was a genetic, or inherited trait, that may have created a predisposition for his cancer at such a young age. The good news for him and for you was that there was no genetic predisposition. The bad news is that your father died at 34.
Charleston, on this your first Earth Day, I offer you more bad news, but in the end, a great opportunity. First when it comes to disease, most scientists believe there are simply two general options for cause, either genetics or environment, a fundamental concept, whose origin stems from an African scientist recorded in the Ebers Papyrus in 3,000 BC. In your father’s case, having eliminated genetics, it leaves us with nothing but the environment. Your father, my son died from undefined environmental factors which science is not yet able to isolate and precisely define. Though undefined, it is fair to assume that he died from unintended consequences of human activity intended to do something “good”. The precise combinations of human activity are, now, far to complex to isolate and test in a laboratory environment following the scientific method. Science can’t yet tell us precisely what the effect of minute samples of complex concoctions of chemicals and medicines are on humans when combined in water and food and ingested into the human body. Though this answer does not meet standards of scientific precision, on this your first Earth Day, I can tell you with authority, the chemical pollution of the earth for which we are stewards is not good.
Second, I am leaving you an environment with not only polluted air and water, but drought; advancing desertification; melting polar ice caps; melting glaciers; record high temperatures; sea level rise; record elevated carbon in the atmosphere; more severe storms than ever before recorded; loss of 200 to 400 species of plants, insects and animals daily. I leave you an environment that is causing cancer, asthma and other environmental born diseases that are devastating the human family, your family. Where my generation, in a mere 60 to 75 years failed in our obligation to God to be good stewards of the earth it took God 4.5 Billion years to make, your generation has a chance to fix what we broke and to pass on a healthy earth to future generations.
Charleston, you have an opportunity to fix what we broke, so that grandfathers are not required to share truths that fathers should be alive to share. All it takes is an exercise of human free will, a willingness to acknowledge that God and science meet around our stewardship for the environment. Where my generation has done things wrong for so long and with bad outcomes, your generation has the predictive capacity to understand that if you go on doing what we did, outcomes will only worsen. I offer you an opportunity to do things differently from the way my generation did things. Stop doing the things that are ruining our climate, ruining our environment, and depleting species in exchange for short term profits. I offer you the opportunity to use science and intellect in the service of the earth and humanity, to think long term. I offer you an opportunity to do what we did not do: think first of the earth as a trust for future generations not from us but from God. Charleston, on this your first Earth Day, I want you to remember that though the Earth is no doubt damaged by our actions, it is not endangered. It has a long memory and will be healed over the next 4.5 Billion year with or without us. On the contrary, it is the human species that is now endangered by our own actions. On this your first Earth Day my gift to you is the opportunity and responsibility to change.
With Love Granddad
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