Arlene Blum

Arlene Blum
Arlene Blum at a 1977 fundraiser in Berkeley, CA, for her 1978 climbing expedition
Born (1945-03-01) March 1, 1945 (age 79)
Davenport, Iowa, US
EducationReed College, BA
University of California, Berkeley, PhD
Occupation(s)Mountaineer, writer,
Environmental health scientist
Known forLeading first American and also all-woman ascent of Annapurna
Environmental health research
Notable workAnnapurna: A Woman's Place
Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life
Children1
Websitehttp://www.arleneblum.com

Arlene Blum (born March 1, 1945[1]) is an American mountaineer, writer, and environmental health scientist. She is best known for leading the first successful American ascent of Annapurna (I), a climb that was also an all-woman ascent. She led the first all-woman ascent of Denali ("Denali Damsels" expedition), and was the first American woman to attempt Mount Everest.[2] She is executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute,[3] an organization of scientists who develop and communicate peer-reviewed research to develop innovative solutions to reduce the use of toxic chemicals.[1]

Early life

Blum was born in Davenport, Iowa, and raised from the age of five on in Chicago by her Orthodox Jewish grandparents and mother.[1] In the early 1960s, she attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Her first climb was in Washington, where she failed to reach the summit of Mount Adams. However, she persevered, climbing throughout her college and graduate school days. She was rejected from an Afghanistan expedition in 1969, with its leader writing to her, "One woman and nine men would seem to me to be unpleasant high on the open ice, not only in excretory situations but in the easy masculine companionship which is so vital a part of the joy of an expedition."[4] However, she had been able to go climbing as part of her research for her senior thesis, which was on the topic of volcanic gases on Oregon's Mount Hood. In her thesis she predicted that one of the Pacific northwest volcanoes would soon erupt with devastating violence, and 14 years later Mt. St. Helens did have a violent eruption.[5] Blum graduated from Reed in 1966 and attended MIT and UC Berkeley, where she earned a PhD in biophysical chemistry in 1971. After graduate school, Blum embarked on what she called the "Endless Winter" – spending more than a year climbing peaks all over the world.[6]

Major climbs

In 1969, she applied to join an expedition to Denali in Alaska, and was told that women were welcome to come only as far as the base camp to "help with the cooking."[2] Blum then organized and co-led the first all-woman team to ascend Denali in 1970.[7] Blum participated in the second American effort to climb Mount Everest as part of the American Bicentennial Everest Expedition, but did not reach the summit. In 1978, she organized a team of eleven women to climb the tenth highest mountain in the world, Annapurna (I) in Nepal which, until then, had been climbed by only eight people (all men). It was called American Women's Himalayan Expeditions – Annapurna. They raised money for the trip in part by selling T-shirts with the slogan "A woman's place is on top". The first summit team, comprising Vera Komarkova and Irene Miller (now Beardsley) and Sherpas Mingma Tsering and Chewang Ringjing, reached the top at 3:30 p.m. on October 15, 1978. The second summit team, Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz and Vera Watson, died during their climb. After the event, Blum wrote a book about her experience on Annapurna, called Annapurna: A Woman's Place.[8]

She led the first expedition to climb Bhrigupanth in the Indian Himalayas, leading a team of Indian and American women. She then made what she called the "Great Himalayan Traverse", a two-thousand-mile journey adjacent to beautiful peaks of the Himalayas from Bhutan to India with treker Hugh Swift. She and her partner Rob Gomersall crossed the Alps from Yugoslavia to France, bearing their baby Annalise in a backpack.[9]

Early scientific work

As a graduate student at UC Berkeley, Blum predicted the correct three-dimensional structure for transfer RNA, an essential building block in all organisms, by stringing hippie beads for the nine known tRNA sequences in four colors to represent the four nucleic acid bases, pairing the bases, and folding them into a logical structure.[10]

While a post doc in the Stanford biochemistry department, she discovered the first physical evidence for intermediate states in the folding of protein molecules[11] doing "temperature jump NMR," a technique she imagined while watching water melting from a glacier in Central Asia. Her Stanford advisor, Robert Baldwin, stated in his oral history[12] that this work was a first step towards solving the problem of the mechanism of protein folding.

Blum's research with biochemist Bruce Ames at the UC Berkeley found that the flame retardant called Tris, used at high levels in most children's pajamas in the middle of the 1970s, was a mutagen and likely carcinogen. Three months after their 1977 paper in Science[13] was published, children's sleepwear containing Tris was banned in the United States.[14]

Science policy work

After a 26-year long hiatus, Blum returned to science and policy work in 2006—when her daughter started college—and her memoir Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life [15] was published. She discovered that the same Tris her research had helped remove from children's pajamas was back in American couches and baby products.[16]

As a result, Blum founded the Green Science Policy Institute (GSP)[17] in 2007 to bring scientific research results to decision makers in government and industry to protect human health and the environment from toxic chemicals.[3] Blum and her team collaborate with scientists on policy-relevant research projects and translate scientific information to educate decision makers, the press, and the public. The Institute's work has contributed to many policies and business practices that reduce the use of toxic chemicals, particularly halogenated chemicals such as flame retardants, antimicrobials, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).[18][19]

Writing

Her first book, Annapurna: A Woman's Place was included in Fortune Magazine's 2005 list of "The 75 Smartest Business Books We Know" and chosen by National Geographic Adventure Magazine as one of the 100 top adventure books of all time. Her award-winning memoir, Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life tells the story of how Blum realized improbable dreams among the world's highest mountains, in the chemistry laboratory, and in public policy.[20][21]

Blum has published articles about science policy in The New York Times, Science magazine,[22] Los Angeles Times,[23] and The Huffington Post.

Awards and other activities

For her mountaineering accomplishments, Blum was the winner of the Sierra Club's Francis P. Farquhar Mountaineering Award for 1982. She holds a Gold Medal from the Society of Woman Geographers,[24] an honor previously given to only eight other women including Amelia Earhart, Margaret Mead, and Mary Leakey. The American Alpine Club inducted Blum into its Hall of Mountaineering Excellence[25] in 2012.

For her science and policy work, Blum won the Purpose Prize in 2008, an award for those over 60 who are solving society's greatest problems. In 2010, the National Women's History Project selected her as one of "100 Women Taking the Lead to Save Our Planet."[26] In 2014 she was inducted into the Alameda County Women's Hall of Fame for Science, Engineering and Technology and received the Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal as the city of Berkeley's "most useful citizen."[4] In 2015, her alma mater Reed College awarded her the Thomas Lamb Eliot Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2018 Blum was inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2022, she was granted an honorary doctorate by the University of San Francisco. 2024 Blum was recognized as one of 50 Forbes Sustainability Leaders.

Arlene Blum is the founder of the annual Berkeley Himalayan Fair and the Burma Village Assistance Project. She serves on the board of the Plastic Pollution Coalition.[27]

Quotes

  • "With a global and virtual expedition team, we are attempting challenging and important mountains and reaching for the summit of a healthier world to benefit us all."[28]
  • "The health and environmental problem from such chemicals could be as threatening as climate change, but I believe it is a problem that can be solved relatively easily. It's a matter of informing the public – and political will."[28]
  • "My new adventure in science and policy work is the most challenging and important of my life and I feel lucky to look out at the horizon and see endless rows of mountains to climb."[2]
  • "In America, foods, drugs and pesticides are regulated, you may say they are not well enough regulated, but you really have to provide information because those are the things that go into our mouths. Other chemicals like flame retardants are not regulated, there are not really health requirements but they go into our bodies the same way."[29]

Personal life

Blum lives and works in Berkeley, California. She has a daughter, Annalise Blum, a 2010 graduate of Stanford University in environmental engineering. In 2017 Annalise earned a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at Tufts University.[30] In March, 2023, Annalise was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science in the U.S. Department of the Interior.[31]

References

  1. ^ a b Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life, page 344 Chapter 24
  2. ^ a b Blum, Arlene. Personal Interview. December 5, 2009.
  3. ^ "Our People - Green Science Policy Institute". greensciencepolicy.org. Retrieved October 8, 2024.
  4. ^ "Climb Every Mountain".
  5. ^ Porter, Roger (2011). Thinking Reed, Centennial Essays By Graduates of Reed College. Portland Oregon: Reed College. ISBN 978-0-9824240-6-3.
  6. ^ Blum, Arlene. "Endless Winter". Arlene Blum. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  7. ^ Osius, Alison (June 27, 2022). "Arlene Blum: What I've Learned". Climbing. Retrieved July 29, 2024.
  8. ^ Blum, Arlene, Annapurna: A Woman's Place (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1980) ISBN 0-87156-236-7
  9. ^ "Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life". Arlene Blum. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  10. ^ Blum, Arlene D.; Uhlenbeck, Olke C.; Tinoco, I. (August 1972). "Circular dichroism study of nine species of transfer ribonucleic acid". Biochemistry. 11 (17): 3248–3256. doi:10.1021/bi00767a019. ISSN 0006-2960. PMID 4558706.
  11. ^ Blum, Arlene D.; Smallcombe, Stephen H.; Baldwin, Robert L. (January 25, 1978). "Nuclear magnetic resonance evidence for a structural intermediate at an early stage in the refolding of ribonuclease A". Journal of Molecular Biology. 118 (3): 305–316. doi:10.1016/0022-2836(78)90230-9. ISSN 0022-2836. PMID 633362.
  12. ^ Baldwin, Robert Lesh; Marine-Street, Natalie J. (July 11, 2018). Robert Lesh Baldwin: An Oral History. Stanford University Historical Society Collections. pp. 63–66.
  13. ^ Blum, Arlene; Ames, Bruce N. (January 7, 1977). "Flame-Retardant Additives as Possible Cancer Hazards: The main flame retardant in children's pajamas is a mutagen and should not be used". Science. 195 (4273): 17–23. doi:10.1126/science.831254. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 831254.
  14. ^ CPSC Bans TRIS-Treated Children's Garments Archived March 20, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Blum, Arlene (October 4, 2005). Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life. Scribner. p. 336. ISBN 978-0743258463.
  16. ^ The New York Times: Chemical Suspected in Cancer Is in Baby Products
  17. ^ "Green Science Policy Institute". Green Science Policy Institute. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  18. ^ "Arlene Blum". Harvard School of Public Health: Hoffman Program on Chemicals and Health. July 13, 2015. Retrieved July 29, 2024.
  19. ^ Blum, Arlene (August 16, 2007). "Killer Couch Chemicals". HuffPost. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  20. ^ Blum, Arlene; foreword by Maurice Herzog (1998). Annapurna, a woman's place (20th anniversary ed.). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. ISBN 1-57805-022-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  21. ^ Cortén, Dick (June 17, 2007). "Out of the lab to the top of the world; Berkeley biophysicist relishes first ascents". Berkeley Graduate Division. Retrieved July 13, 2024.
  22. ^ Blum, Arlene (November 19, 2006). "Chemical Burns". The New York Times. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  23. ^ Blum, Arlene (October 17, 2008). "Midnight's legacy". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 27, 2024.
  24. ^ Society of Woman Geographers
  25. ^ "CONNECT: Lynn Hill, Madaleine Sorkin, Arlene Blum, and Sarah Hart talk Female First Ascents". American Alpine Club. July 28, 2022. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  26. ^ "Honorees: 2010 National Women's History Month". Women's History Month. National Women's History Project. 2010. Archived from the original on June 24, 2011. Retrieved November 14, 2011.
  27. ^ Blum, Arlene. "About Arlene Blum." Arlene Blum. December 8, 2010
  28. ^ a b "Winners and Fellows: Arlene Blum." Encore Careers: The Purpose Prize. December 8, 2010
  29. ^ Cole, Bryan Gunnar; Whelan, Jon J. (2015). Stink! (documentary). USA: Net Return Entertainment. 30:00 minutes in. Retrieved July 29, 2024.
  30. ^ "PDF | Characterizing streamflow variability: distributions, trends, and ecological impacts | ID: 7m01bz11n | Tufts Digital Library". dl.tufts.edu. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  31. ^ "Interior Department Welcomes New Biden-Harris Appointees". www.doi.gov. March 13, 2023. Retrieved July 3, 2023.

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