“What’s in the Air” is a column by Dominique Browning, Moms Clean Air Force Co-Founder and Director, in which she explores life today through the lens of air quality and public health.
These days, I’m thinking a lot about decency. Common decency. A friend sent me an interview with a novelist beloved by many, Marilynne Robinson. Among her most popular novels are Housekeeping and Gilead; Robinson has a nonfiction work coming soon called Reading Genesis about the first book of the Bible. (And yes, I’ve pre-ordered.)
In the interview, Robinson notes that she is “surprised, shocked, disillusioned perhaps by the turn that things have taken in this country… The vulgarity and mercilessness that have entered public conversation, and a kind of meagerness and unwillingness to be a source of benefit to the people…”
That line, and that sentiment, really connected with me, as I was thinking about events of this past weekend.
A couple of members of Moms Clean Air Force were honored to be invited to meet President Biden when he went to East Palestine to mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the Norfolk Southern train derailment—and the consequent detonation of several cars filled with vinyl chloride. This toxic chemical was en route to New Jersey, where it would be used to make PVC—about 99% of vinyl chloride goes into the stuff we use in siding for our homes, to make our floors, in plumbing pipes; stuff like the freezable teething rings our babies gum, or toys like plastic dolls, including—yes—Barbie dolls.
Vinyl chloride is a carcinogen. It causes cancer. When it burns, it creates horrifying dioxins—and it is firefighters and first responders who inhale it when they come to rescue us and our homes. We don’t need vinyl chloride in our stuff.
A year after the disaster in East Palestine, the U.S. government, at Biden’s direction, has spent millions of dollars on both cleanup and health studies. More must be done. The rail company should pay—rather than U.S. taxpayers. But the damage done in East Palestine can’t be measured in dollars. And furthermore, the damage isn’t contained to East Palestine and surrounding towns. Damage is being done by the petrochemical industry from the coasts of Texas and Louisiana on up to the Ohio River Valley and beyond.
Moms Clean Air Force is a nonpartisan organization. We like to say we are Mompartisan. That isn’t an easy place to be, in a day when Republicans are disinclined to utter the words “climate change,” much less “climate disruption.” When the Republican candidate for president vows during campaign speeches to strip environmental protections and gut the agency, EPA, whose mission it is to protect human health.
Nevertheless, we try.
I can’t think of a more beautiful example of being Mompartisan than Misti Allison. She’s a Republican mom living in East Palestine. She and her family have been upended by the disaster. During President Biden’s visit some people waved flags—actually, in a photo that has haunted me all weekend, a child waved a flag, with an expletive, basically saying F… Biden and everyone who supports him.
In contrast to that, here’s what Misti described as her experience. She was able to talk to the President one-on-one for a couple of minutes—something Joe Biden loves to do. I know, I’ve seen it. He is warm, compassionate, and he listens. Misti writes:
“President Biden said something that I keep thinking about. He said when he was a child he would go to his grandfather’s farm in Scranton, PA. When he was discouraged, his grandfather would say, ‘Joey, keep the faith.’ And he would tell his grandfather, ‘I don’t want to keep the faith, I want to spread the faith.’
“I thought that was really beautiful and resonated with me because that’s how I try to live my life. While we have faced a lot this past year, I do have faith that we can recover and thrive and have this [chemical explosion] be a catalyst for change. And that it is my duty to spread the faith for others to believe that too, and to work together.”
Amen. That’s all I can say. Or, Selah. Prayerful? Raising our voices in praise? Indeed. We need more Mompartisanship.
Or to put it another way: More common decency.