While at the Fund, Rick created high-profile and successful public efforts to end Ontario's spring bear hunt, won a groundbreaking Supreme Court of Canada ruling striking down the patenting of higher life forms and spurred the adoption of Canada's first federal Species At Risk Act.Īs Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada, Rick has established a reputation as one of the country's leading environmental campaigners with efforts such as the high-profile Toxic Nation campaign, which has tested prominent Canadians for measurable levels of pollutants in their blood. From 1997 to 2002 Rick was Executive Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare's Canadian office and acting Director of the Fund's UK office for a year.

Rick Smith is a prominent Canadian author and environmentalist and Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada (since 2003).Ī biologist by training, Rick completed his doctoral research on an endangered subspecies of freshwater harbour seal in arctic Quebec with a nearby community of Cree hunters. Ultimately hopeful, the book empowers readers with some simple ideas for protecting themselves and their families, and changing things for the better.

The chemicals that build up in our body when carpets and upholstery off-gas.

Toxins in our urine caused by leaching from plastics and run-of-the-mill shampoos, toothpastes and deodorant.

Flame-retardant chemicals from electronics and household dust polluting our blood.

Key concerns raised in Slow Death by Rubber Duck :

Parents and concerned citizens will have to read this book. For this book, over the period of a week - the kind of week that would be familiar to most people - the authors use their own bodies as the reference point and tell the story of pollution in our modern world, the miscreant corporate giants who manufacture the toxins, the weak-kneed government officials who let it happen, and the effects on people and families across the globe. This book exposes the extent to which we are poisoned every day of our lives. Smith and Lourie ingested and inhaled a host of things that surround all of us all the time. The most dangerous pollution has always come from commonplace items in our homes and workplaces. Pollution is no longer just about belching smokestacks and ugly sewer pipes - now, it's personal.

Funny, thought-provoking, and incredibly disturbing, Slow Death by Rubber Duck reveals that just the living of daily life creates a chemical soup inside each of us.

Slow Death by Rubber Duck by Rick Smith