On this day when families throughout Western Pennsylvania gather to celebrate mothers and honor the nurturing power of women in our society, I can't think of a better occasion for recognizing the contributions that women of earlier generations in this region have made to better our environment -- cleaner air and water and healthier living conditions for children.

		Teresa Heinz is chair of the Howard Heinz Endowment and of the Heinz Family Philanthropies. This was adapted from her keynote address to an environmental health conference held here in Pittsburgh last month.Teresa Heinz is chair of the Howard Heinz Endowment and of the Heinz Family Philanthropies. This was adapted from her keynote address to an environmental health conference held in Pittsburgh last month.

Many younger residents don't know the story of how a group of mothers, trying to raise families in 1890s smoke-choked Pittsburgh, were so angered about rising rates of respiratory ailments in their children that they set out to organize the first smoke abatement campaign in the city.

These women were not allowed to represent themselves at public meetings and before government bodies. But that didn't stop them. They convinced men to represent their views.

The mothers we honor today -- those who work at home and those in the sciences, in business, government and academia -- are so much more empowered and better positioned to effect change. So, I wonder what force they might command if their voices were heard in unison in Washington and in reaction to media talk, where it has become fashionable to talk about -- even celebrate -- the death of environmentalism.

	Anita Dufalla, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger image.

Mothers of young children project all of these every day, but I wonder how much more difficult it must be at a time when hard-won environmental protection laws are threatened and national attention is being diverted from the ravaging health effects of chemicals accumulating in nature and in our bodies.

Pittsburgh women have been central to an environmental advocacy movement that has taken us from being known as "hell with the lid off" in the 1860s, to being cited, along with Portland and Chicago, as the country's "Green City" leaders in the upcoming issue of Urban Land Magazine.

Most of the women I know -- and the men, for that matter -- who care about environmental connections to health didn't get pulled in as part of a fad; they came to it personally, in their own ways and for their own reasons. I came to it by way of a childhood in Africa where the connections between wellness, death and the environment are inherent. For those of us with such personal experience, there isn't much to be gained from ranting about this or that environmental health warning. It's all about presenting opportunities for solutions, just as the Ladies Health Protection Association in Pittsburgh focused on reasonable steps that could be taken to make a difference.

Women were central to the success, a half-century later, of the iconic cleanup of Pittsburgh's air under Mayor David Lawrence and Richard King Mellon. It is time again for Western Pennsylvania women to take the lead in a new environmental health action plan that is based on coolly laying out the problems with the best scientific evidence available and then engaging in another one of those "isms" -- activism -- to enact practical solutions. Women's voices made a difference before, and they can again. The risks of doing anything less are too great.

Here is a non-ranting, but I believe hopeful, layout of some of the most serious problems we face -- hopeful in that we have the power to change direction: Just 50 years ago, one out of every 20 women contracted breast cancer. Today the rate is one in eight, including younger women and even men.

Today, more men than ever before are diagnosed with prostate cancer and at younger ages. Childhood leukemia rates have risen sharply, though mercifully, so has the survival rate, albeit by way of astronomical treatment costs. Brain cancers increased 30 percent through the last two decades before leveling off. Childhood learning and developmental disabilities are rising. In some industrialized countries, more people are experiencing infertility.

Clearly, something in our environment is playing a role in these frightening trends. And the rising rates of disease can't be explained away by better early-detection methods. Increasingly, scientific research is implicating chemicals.

In the last 50 years, more than 75,000 chemicals -- medications, pesticides and food additives among them -- have been developed and introduced into our environment. Only a fraction are regulated, and even fewer are adequately studied to determine how they affect our health. Yet, there they are in our food, in cosmetics and sun-block lotions, in the toys our children's teethe on and in the carpets on which they crawl.

In Pittsburgh, our air is clearer and cleaner, but still far from where it should be. Mercury emissions from old coal-fired plants convert into methyl mercury when deposited in water, accumulating in the fish and making them unsafe for consumption. Between 320,000 and 640,000 American babies are born each year with high mercury levels, the EPA reports, putting them at greater risk for developmental disabilities.

About one million children under age 5 are exposed every day to levels of neurotoxic pesticides on fruits and vegetables that exceed federal Environmental Protection Agency safety standards, according to study findings reported by the Environmental Working Group. The practical question to be asked is: Why do we allow this? The uncomfortable answer may be that it is done for progress, for convenience and even out of greed.

We do have the power to change. A powerful movement is being born, and I believe Western Pennsylvania women can be in the vanguard. But to prevail, we need science done here to deepen understanding of complicated environmental health dynamics. We need our scientists to be brave and willing to speak out. We need our internationally acclaimed health care systems committed as much to prevention as they are to treatment. We need research universities with the will to support sound environmental health studies in the face of industry pressure to suppress them.

And the country needs hospitals willing to use their market purchasing power to promote development of alternatives to dangerous chemicals and outdated waste systems. It is not enough for medical centers to be adept only at treating asthma, for example. We need those health care professionals to reduce pollutants that lead to respiratory ailments -- as Pittsburgh Children's Hospital and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have done with the environmentally sensitive design of the new building under construction in Lawrenceville.

That facility proves we have what it takes here in Pittsburgh. We have the credibility of a region that has dramatically turned the corner toward environmental health. We have a medical and research community second to none. We have women who are well positioned to lead and who have contributed to our history of successful remediation.

I'm not assuming that this will be easy. Scientists who warn of environmental dangers are routinely attacked by powerful interest groups that profit from unregulated industry and unfettered use of chemicals. Biologist Rachel Carson was ridiculed for alerting the world to the risk of pesticides in her book, "Silent Spring." Herbert Needleman, another Western Pennsylvania scientist, endured even worse abuse after warning us of the developmental risks of lead exposure.

Both stood firm and all of us have benefited from their resolve.

When the incidence of disease is spiraling upward and credible research suggests reasons why, any government that fails to act also fails the people it serves. Today, the belligerent indifference of our leaders in Washington toward environmental health issues may leave us feeling powerless. But we are not. We can start action right here at home.

The women who fought for Pittsburgh's first smoke abatement program a century ago didn't even have the right to vote. They were told smoke equals prosperity, just as we are told today that living in a chemical stew equals prosperity. They didn't buy it. They didn't give up. Neither should the women of today.