Keith:
The environmental problem is exactly as you describe, however it is a subset of
the profit Vs health picture and is compounded by globalization.
There are significant geographic alternatives for most manufacturers/
polluters. Cumulative pollution levels are not constrained by Geopolitical
boundaries.
Perversely manufacturers/ polluters could significantly increase their harmful
contributions to global pollution by moving to a country with a more favorable
regulatory environment and/or cheaper labour (growth Vs health/ human life).
Reductions in either of these two input costs could result in increased
productive output (with more pollution), under a competitive advantage
justification (numbers).
We see by numerous examples typified by todays coal miners, that a workforce
educated to the health risks of a hazardous environment, can always be found.
Rather than risk localized regional or super-regional economic decay, they will
stay close to home and die early.
Keeping polluters in this country allows a weak measure of control until the
issue is raised again tomorrow. It ultimately results in more (Vs yesterday)
toxins released on a daily basis, but less than an offshore move to a place
where people cut the grass with hand shears and death is a great reward for
having lived.
Our lawmakers believe they are judges, knowing nothing until they are told. It
allows them to claim impartiality. The profit side has successfully painted
the green groups as environmental saboteurs (General Subutai: 1248). The
environmentalists have ham-handled the overall reponse with ridiculous
complexity that removes the common man (support) from the equation. It has
allowed corporations to fight the fight in labs using bad science and it has
confused and deafened the voting public.
It is too late for idealistic solutions. If we dont show the lawmakers (old
age vote buyers) how the Profit side can make money while they pass laws to
protect the environment, (before they die of butter and scotch poisoning),
well get nothing but formaldehyde in our bread.
Rad
-- Original Message --
From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 21:06:19 +0900
http://rachel.org/
From: Rachel's Democracy Health News #831, Dec. 1, 2005
The Emperor Of Risk Assessment Isn't Wearing Any Clothes
By Peter Montague
Some of my best friends still put their faith in numerical risk
assessments. For example, over in Jersey City, N.J., local people are
now debating how clean is clean enough for thousands of tons of
cancer-causing chromium wastes. My friends argue that 30 parts per
million (ppm) of chromium-VI (chromium six) is a science-based
number that will protect residents from lung disease caused by
chromium. On the other hand, N.J. state government wants to save the
chromium polluters some money by declaring 240 ppm safe, thus
requiring less cleanup. The experts are duking it out, debating 30
ppm vs. 240 ppm.
Over in New York, major polluters have convinced state officials that
toxic waste cleanup standards are unnecessarily strict, so the state
has proposed to relax its toxic cleanup rules. Citizens are pressing
to maintain the existing standards, which they hope are fully
protective of human health, fish, and all other critters. Again, we
have dueling experts defending their favorite numbers.
It's the same all over, really. After decades of industry-written
government-delivered propaganda, many people have become convinced
that there is some safe amount of PCBs plus mercury plus lead plus
benzene plus trichloroethylene (TCE) plus [you name it] that can be
released into the general environment. But let's think about this for
a minute.
This whole approach is based on protecting a most-exposed individual
located in the immediate vicinity of the pollution source. Once the
pollution-source has been declared safe from the viewpoint of that
most-exposed individual, the toxic discharge becomes legal, and a
continuous stream of contamination enters the environment. As time
passes, this safe discharge (plus thousands more like it) creates a
buildup of pollution and the entire planet becomes contaminated with
industrial poisons. As a result, everyone is endangered -- the asthma
rate rises, diabetes increases, and cancers proliferate, not to
mention male fish turning into females, oysters dying from bacterial
infections because their immune systems are damaged, sea turtles
developing deadly growths and lesions, ducks that cannot eat because
they are born with crossed bills... and so on and so on.
Let's face it, a regulatory system based on risk assessments to
protect the most-exposed individual ends up having one important
effect: it legalizes the contamination of the biosphere upon which
all life depends. It allows industrial poisons to pollute every
living thing on
