Rachel's News #867: Justice and Your Health Department

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Rachel's News #867: Justice and Your Health Department

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News #867

" Environment, health, jobs and justice--Who gets to decide? "

Thursday, August 10, 2006...............Printer-friendly version

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Featured stories in this issue...

 

Justice and Your Health Department

Your ENVIRONMENTAL agency is supposed to protect you and the

natural environment from harm. But your local HEALTH department is

supposed to create and maintain conditions that allow people to be

healthy -- a far more powerful mandate. Your health department is also

supposed to maintain vigilance to ensure social justice. But what if

your health department doesn't do these thing? What then?

A Moral Code for a Finite World

It seems pretty clear that our present industrial civilization is

destroying the capacity of the Earth to sustain humans. Therefore,

we need a new ethics for a finite world, an ethics of the commons.

This article begins a debate that we all need to have.

What Mexican Activists Can Teach Us About Poverty and the Planet

People are an important part of an ecosystem. If they are poor and

unhealthy, then the ecosystem is poor and unhealthy. Many Mexican

activists know this too well, but the closest thing the mainstream

environmental movement in the United States has to this integrated

people-and-poverty approach is the often-neglected environmental

justice movement.

New York Activist Faces Life in Prison

The old anti-communist " red scare " is being replaced by a new

" green scare. "

Military Waste in Your Drinking Water

It's an ugly truth that manufacturing weapons to kill abroad also

kills at home. In other words, the military is killing some of the

people it is supposed to be protecting. After you read this article,

get more details from the Military Toxics Project.

Chicago Residents Are Mobilizing -- and You're Invited

Chicago is home to two coal burning power plants and Illinois is

home to 25. Their pollution pumps mercury, soot and smog into the air,

causing asthma and brain damage to thousands of children. Now

residents are organizing to fight back. Join up!

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News #867, Aug. 10, 2006

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JUSTICE AND YOUR HEALTH DEPARTMENT

 

By Peter Montague

 

Community-based activists may be missing an important opportunity if

they don't explore alliances with their local health department. Some

health departments are like dinosaurs, but many are not. Your local

health department is most likely connected to the national

organization, NACCHO (National Association of County and City Health

Officials). This week let's look at just two of the many resolutions

NACCHO has adopted and published in recent times:

 

ON HUMAN RIGHTS (Resolution 01-10, dated June 27, 2001)

 

WHEREAS, the mission of public health is " to fulfill society's

interest in assuring conditions in which people can be healthy " ;[1]

and

 

WHEREAS, " the values that underlie public health are the values of

human rights and there is an undeniable relationship between

individual rights, human dignity, and the human condition " ;[2] and

 

WHEREAS, Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, states

" Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the

health and well-being of himself and of his/her family, including

food, clothing, housing, and medical care " ;[3] and

 

WHEREAS, " Vigilance to prevent human rights violations and to ensure

social justice for all people is essential to the advancement of human

development and the prevention of human suffering " ;[4] and

 

WHEREAS, according to the World Health Organization, more than 40

percent of all people who died in the world died prematurely, in part

due to major inequalities in access to basic human needs, poverty,

poor sanitary conditions, and violence;[5]

 

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Association of County and

City Health Officials (NACCHO) will advocate for the protection of

human rights and social justice as a guiding principle in public

health practice, research and policies; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO will work to incorporate human

rights, social justice, and efforts to eliminate disparities in health

status into public health curricula, workforce development

initiatives, and program evaluation measures; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO will collaborate with partner

organizations, government agencies, global initiatives, and community

groups in the prevention of human suffering and the promotion of

social justice, health, equity, and sustainable development. [End of

Resolution 01-10]

 

And this one:

 

SUPPORTING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE (Resolution 00-07 Nov. 12, 2000)

 

WHEREAS, throughout the nation there is an overrepresentation of toxic

waste sites and contaminated properties in communities of color and

low-income communities[6], and race is the most significant variable

that has been associated with the siting of hazardous waste

facilities, even after controlling for urbanization, regional

differences and socio-economic status[7]; and

 

WHEREAS, penalties imposed under hazardous waste laws at sites having

the greatest white population were about 500 percent higher than

penalties imposed at sites with the greatest people of color

population[8]; and

 

WHEREAS, serious health concerns and exposures have resulted from the

siting of toxic waste and other contaminated facilities in communities

of color and low-income communities, adding to other threats posed by

poor quality housing, absence of mass transit, unhealthy working

conditions, poverty, and high levels of pollution production[9]; and

 

WHEREAS, urban sprawl and discriminatory land use decisions create

economic and racial polarization, segregated neighborhoods and

deteriorating neighborhoods in people of color and low-income

communities,[10] thereby increasing health and safety risks, health

disparities, air and water pollution, poor quality housing, unstable

neighborhoods, unsustainable ecosystems, and poor quality of life;[11]

 

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Association of County and

City Health Officials (NACCHO) supports the fundamental right to

political, economic, cultural and environmental self-determination of

all peoples, and the right to be free from ecological destruction; and

affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up

and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature while

assuring healthy communities; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO facilitates local public health

agency efforts to ensure that no communities suffer from

disproportional exposures to environmental health hazards; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that NACCHO actively supports programs,

policies, and activities that build the capacity to identify

disproportionate sitings of facilities, discriminatory land use and

zoning laws, and to assure nondiscriminatory compliance with all

environmental, health and safety laws in order to assure equal

protection of the public health; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO supports public and corporate

policy based on mutual respect and justice for all peoples, free from

any form of discrimination or bias; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO supports universal protection from

unnecessary radiation exposure resulting from nuclear testing,

extraction, production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and

poisons that threatens the fundamental right to clean air, land,

water, and food; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO supports the principle that

producers of hazardous waste and materials be held strictly

accountable to the people and responsible for containment and

detoxification; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO supports the right of all people

potentially affected to participate as equal partners at every level

of decision-making about hazardous waste and materials, including

needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement and

evaluation; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO recognizes a special legal and

ethical relationship of the federal, state, and local governments and

Native Peoples through treaties, agreements, compacts, and covenants

affirming sovereignty and self-determination; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO affirms the right of all workers to

a safe and healthy work environment; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO calls for the education of present

and future generations which emphasizes social and environmental

issues, based on our experience, our concern for health, and an

appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives; and

 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NACCHO supports the right to ethical,

balanced and responsible uses of land and renewable resources in the

interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things.

[End of Resolution 00-07]

 

In sum, NACCHO recognizes that

 

** Everyone has a right to an environment that promotes health; this

is much more than merely having a right to an environment free of

toxicants. This is the difference between your environmental agency

and your health agency -- the environmental agency aims to " protect "

health from bad things. Your health department has a mandate to

promote health by making good things happen.

 

** Everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for health

and well-being; your environmental agency has no mandate to worry

about your standard of living, but your health department does.

 

** Social justice is the guiding principle of public health practice

and policies;

 

** Vigilance is necessary to ensure social justice;

 

** Local health departments " will collaborate " with partner

organizations, including community groups -- perhaps your community

group;

 

** In communities of color and low-income communities, toxic waste

sites have been piled on top of other threats posed by poor quality

housing, the absence of mass transit, unhealthy working conditions,

poverty, and high levels of pollution. Thus your health department

recognizes that toxic waste and pollution don't occur in a vacuum --

they are part of something now being called " cumulative risk. "

 

** Sprawl and discriminatory land-use decisions (to keep the poor out

of suburbs, mainly by refusing to provide affordable housing) have

increased (a) health and safety risks for the poor and people of

color, (b) health disparities, © air and water pollution, (d) poor

quality housing, (e) unstable neighborhoods, (f) unsustainable

ecosystems, and (g) poor quality of life. In other words, your health

department " gets " that sprawl does more than chew up farmland --

sprawl makes people sick and ruins real lives of real people.

 

** Supports the " fundamental right " to be free from ecological

destruction;

 

** Facilitates local agency efforts to ensure that no communities

suffer from disproportional exposures to environmental health hazards;

 

** Supports the right of all people potentially affected to

participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making about

hazardous waste and materials, including needs assessment, planning,

implementation, enforcement and evaluation. In other words, your

health department " gets it " about the importance of democracy.

 

What if your health department doesn't behave this way?

 

If your local health department doesn't seem to measure up to the

expectations outlined by NACCHO, there's a new tool you can use to

actually measure your health department's performance -- a set of

minimum functions expected of all local health departments, created

by NACCHO. The minimum " core functions " of a health department are

spelled out officially here -- and you can use them as a benchmark

for measuring the performance of your local health department. You say

they don't measure up?

 

Well, then -- that's good ammunition for a local political fight,

isn't it? A good health department is worth fighting for -- and worth

going to bat for when their budget is under threat.

 

==============

 

[1] Institute of Medicine, The Future of Public Health. Washington,

DC: National Academy Press; 1988.

 

[2] Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, July 14, 1992 ILM.

1992; 31:873.

 

[3] Note, this was also echoed in the constitution of the World Health

Organization and was ratified by subsequent international covenants

and conventions.

 

[4] American Journal of Public Health, May 2000, Vol. 90 No. 5,

Rosalia Rodriguez-Garcia, PhD, MSc, Mohammad N. Akhter, MD, MPH

 

[5] World Health Organization. World Health Report. Geneva, 1998

 

[6] Benjamin Goldman, Not Just Prosperity: Achieving Sustainability

with Environmental Justice. Washington, DC: National Wildlife

Federation, 1994; Carita Shanklin, " Comment, Pathfinder: Environmental

Justice, " 24 Ecology Law Quarterly 333 (1997); Commission for Racial

Justice, United Church of Christ, " Toxic Waste and Race in the United

States, a National Report on the Racial and Socio-Economic

Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites, " Public

Data Access, Inc., 1987.

 

[7] Paul Mohai and Bunyan Bryant. " Environmental Justice: Weighing

Race and Class As Factors in the Distribution of Environmental

Hazards, " 63 University of Colorado Law Review 921 (1992).

 

[8] The National Law Journal, " Unequal Protection, the Racial Divide

in Environmental Law, " Sept. 21, 1992.

 

[9] Robert Bullard, Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and

Communities of Color. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1994;. Charles

Lee, Environmental Justice, Urban Revitalization, and Brownfields: The

Search for Authentic Signs of Hope. A Report on the " Public Dialogues

on Urban Revitalization and Brownfields: Envisioning Healthy and

Sustainable Communities. Washington, DC: National Environmental

Justice Advisory Council Waste and Facility Siting Subcommittee.

December, 1996. EPA 500 R-96-002. Also appears as " Environmental

Justice: Creating A Vision for Achieving Healthy and Sustainable

Communities, " in Benjamin Amick and Rima Rudd eds. Social Change and

Health Improvement: Case Studies for Action, forthcoming, 1999; Craig

Anthony Arnold, " Planning Milagros: Environmental Justice and Land Use

Regulation, " 76(1) Denver University Law Review 1998: 1.

 

[10] Michael Gelobter, " The Meaning of Environmental Injustice, " 21(3)

Fordham Urban Law Journal (Spring, 1994): 841-56; Robert Bullard,

Glenn S. Johnson and Angel O. Torres. Sprawl City. Washington, DC:

Island Press, 2000; Paul Stanton Kibel, " The Urban Nexus: Open Space,

Brownfields, and Justice, " 25 Boston College Environmental Affairs Law

Review (1998): 589.

 

[11] Carl Anthony, Suburbs Are Making Us Sick: Health Implications of

Suburban Sprawl and Inner City Abandonment on Communities of Color.

Environmental Justice Health Research Needs report Series. Atlanta:

Environmental Justice Resource Center, 1998; David Bollier, How Smart

Growth Can Stop Sprawl. Washington, DC: Essential Books, 1998; Craig

Anthony Arnold, " Planning Milagros: Environmental Justice and Land Use

Regulation, " 76(1) Denver University Law Review (1998): 1-152.

 

Return to Table of Contents

 

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Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 15, 2002

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A MORAL CODE FOR A FINITE WORLD

 

By Herschel Elliott and Richard D. Lamm

 

What if global warming is a reality, and expanding human activity is

causing irreparable harm to the ecosystem? What if the demands of a

growing human population and an expanding global economy are causing

our oceans to warm up, our ice caps to melt, our supply of edible fish

to decrease, our rain forests to disappear, our coral reefs to die,

our soils to be eroded, our air and water to be polluted, and our

weather to include a growing number of floods and droughts? What if it

is sheer hubris to believe that our species can grow without limits?

What if the finite nature of the earth's resources imposes limits on

what human beings can morally do? What if our present moral code is

ecologically unsustainable?

 

A widely cited article from the journal Science gives us one answer.

Garrett Hardin's " The Tragedy of the Commons " (1968) demonstrated

that when natural resources are held in common -- freely available to

everyone for the taking -- the incentives that normally direct human

activity lead people to steadily increase their exploitation of the

resources until they are inadequate to meet human needs. The

exploiters generally do not intend to cause any harm; they are merely

taking care of their own needs, or those of others in want.

Nevertheless, the entire system moves inexorably to disaster. Everyone

in the world shares in the resulting tragedy of the commons.

 

Today, our standard of living, our economic system, and the political

stability of our planet all require the increasing use of energy and

natural resources. In addition, much of our political, economic, and

social thinking assumes a continuous expansion of economic activity,

with little or no restraint on our use of resources. We all feel

entitled to grow richer every year. Social justice requires an

expanding pie to share with those who are less fortunate. Progress is

growth; the economies of developed nations require steady increases in

consumption.

 

Every environment is finite. At a certain point, the members of an

increasing population become so crowded that they stop benefiting each

other; by damaging the environment that supports everyone, by limiting

the space available to each person, and by increasing the amount of

waste and pollution, their activity begins to cause harm... And if the

population continues to expand, its material demands may so severely

damage the environment as to cause a tragedy of the commons -- the

collapse of both environment and society.

 

What if such a scenario is unsustainable? What if we need an ethics

for a finite world, an ethics of the commons?

 

It is not important that you agree with the premise. What is important

is that you help debate the alternatives. An ethics of the commons

would require a change in the criteria by which moral claims are

justified.

 

You may believe that current rates of population growth and economic

expansion can go on forever -- but debate with us what alternative

ethical theories would arise if they cannot. Our thesis is that any

ethical system is mistaken and immoral if its practice would cause an

environmental collapse.

 

Many people assume that moral laws and principles are absolutely

certain, that we can know the final moral truth. If moral knowledge is

certain, then factual evidence is irrelevant, for it cannot limit or

refute what is morally certain.

 

Our ethics and concepts of human rights have been formulated for a

world of a priori reasoning and unchanging conclusions. Kant spoke for

that absolutist ethical tradition when he argued that only knowledge

that is absolutely certain can justify the slavish obedience that

moral law demands. He thought he had found rational grounds to justify

the universal and unchanging character of moral law. Moral knowledge,

he concluded, is a priori and certain. It tells us, for example, that

murder, lying, and stealing are wrong. The fact that those acts may

sometimes seem to benefit someone cannot diminish the absolute

certainty that they are wrong. Thus, for example, it is a

contradiction to state that murder can sometimes be right, for, by its

very nature, murder is wrong.

 

Many human rights are positive rights that involve the exploitation of

resources. (Negative rights restrain governments and don't require

resources. For example, governments shouldn't restrict our freedom of

speech or tell us how to pray.) Wherever in the world a child is born,

that child has all the inherent human rights -- including the right to

have food, housing, and medical care, which others must provide. When

positive rights are accorded equally to everyone, they first allow and

then support constant growth, of both population and the exploitation

of natural resources.

 

That leads to a pragmatic refutation of the belief that moral

knowledge is certain and infallible. If a growing population faces a

scarcity of resources, then an ethics of universal human rights with

equality and justice for all will fail. Those who survive will

inevitably live by a different ethics.

 

Once the resources necessary to satisfy all human needs become

insufficient, our options will be bracketed by two extremes. One is to

ration resources so that everyone may share the inadequate supplies

equally and justly.

 

The other is to have people act like players in a game of musical

chairs. In conditions of scarcity, there will be more people than

chairs, so some people will be left standing when the music stops.

Some -- the self-sacrificing altruists -- will refuse to take the food

that others need, and so will perish. Others, however, will not play

by the rules. Rejecting the ethics of a universal and unconditional

moral law, they will fight to get the resources they and their

children need to live.

 

Under neither extreme, nor all the options in between, does it make

sense to analyze the problem through the lens of human rights. The

flaw in an ethical system of universal human rights, unqualified moral

obligations, and equal justice for all can be stated in its logically

simplest form: If to try to live by those principles under conditions

of scarcity causes it to be impossible to live at all, then the

practice of that ethics will cease. Scarcity renders such formulations

useless and ultimately causes such an ethics to become extinct.

 

We have described not a world that we want to see, but one that we

fear might come to be. Humans cannot have a moral duty to deliver the

impossible, or to supply something if the act of supplying it harms

the ecosystem to the point where life on earth becomes unsustainable.

Moral codes, no matter how logical and well reasoned, and human

rights, no matter how compassionate, must make sense within the

limitations of the ecosystem; we cannot disregard the factual

consequences of our ethics. If acting morally compromises the

ecosystem, then moral behavior must be rethought. Ethics cannot demand

a level of resource use that the ecosystem cannot tolerate.

 

The consequences of human behavior change as the population grows.

Most human activities have a point of moral reversal, before which

they may cause great benefit and little harm, but after which they may

cause so much harm as to overwhelm their benefits. Here are a few

representative examples, the first of which is often cited when

considering Garrett Hardin's work:

 

In a nearly empty lifeboat, rescuing a drowning shipwreck victim

causes benefit: It saves the life of the victim, and it adds another

person to help manage the boat. But in a lifeboat loaded to the

gunwales, rescuing another victim makes the boat sink and causes only

harm: Everyone drowns.

 

When the number of cars on a road is small, traveling by private car

is a great convenience to all. But as the cars multiply, a point of

reversal occurs: The road now contains so many cars that such travel

is inconvenient. The number of private cars may increase to the point

where everyone comes to a halt. Thus, in some conditions, car travel

benefits all. In other conditions, car travel makes it impossible for

anyone to move. It can also pump so much carbon dioxide into the

atmosphere that it alters the world's climate.

 

Economic growth can be beneficial when land, fuel, water, and other

needed resources are abundant. But it becomes harmful when those

resources become scarce, or when exploitation causes ecological

collapse. Every finite environment has a turning point, at which

further economic growth would produce so much trash and pollution that

it would change from producing benefit to causing harm. After that

point is reached, additional growth only increases scarcity and

decreases overall productivity. In conditions of scarcity, economic

growth has a negative impact.

 

Every environment is finite. Technology can extend but not eliminate

limits. An acre of land can support only a few mature sugar maples;

only so many radishes can grow in a five-foot row of dirt. Similar

constraints operate in human affairs. When the population in any

environment is small and natural resources plentiful, every additional

person increases the welfare of all. As more and more people are

added, they need increasingly to exploit the finite resources of the

environment. At a certain point, the members of an increasing

population become so crowded that they stop benefiting each other; by

damaging the environment that supports everyone, by limiting the space

available to each person, and by increasing the amount of waste and

pollution, their activity begins to cause harm. That is, population

growth changes from good to bad. And if the population continues to

expand, its material demands may so severely damage the environment as

to cause a tragedy of the commons -- the collapse of both environment

and society.

 

Those cases illustrate the fact that many activities are right --

morally justified -- when only a limited number of people do them. The

same activities become wrong -- immoral -- when populations increase,

and more and more resources are exploited.

 

Few people seem to understand the nature of steady growth. Any rate of

growth has a doubling time: the period of time it takes for a given

quantity to double. It is a logical inevitability -- not a matter

subject to debate -- that it takes only a relatively few doublings for

even a small number to equal or exceed any finite quantity, even a

large one.

 

One way to look at the impact of growth is to think of a resource that

would last 100 years if people consumed it at a constant rate. If the

rate of consumption increased 5 percent each year, the resource would

last only 36 years. A supply adequate for 1,000 years at a constant

rate would last 79 years at a 5-percent rate of growth; a 10,000-year

supply would last only 125 years at the same rate. Just as no trees

grow to the sky, no growth rate is ultimately sustainable.

 

Because the natural resources available for human use are finite,

exponential growth will use them up in a relatively small number of

doublings. The only possible questions are those of timing: When will

the resources be too depleted to support the population? When will

human society, which is now built on perpetual growth, fail?

 

The mathematics makes it clear: Any human activity that uses matter or

energy must reach a steady state (or a periodic cycle of boom and

bust, which over the long run is the same thing). If not, it

inevitably will cease to exist. The moral of the story is obvious: Any

system of economics or ethics that requires or even allows steady

growth in the exploitation of resources is designed to collapse. It is

a recipe for disaster.

 

It is self-deception for anyone to believe that historical evidence

contradicts mathematical necessity. The fact that the food supply

since the time of Malthus has increased faster than the human

population does not refute Malthus's general thesis: that an

increasing population must, at some time, need more food, water, and

other vital resources than the finite earth or creative technology can

supply in perpetuity. In other words, the finitude of the earth makes

it inevitable that any behavior causing growth in population or in the

use of resources -- including human moral, political, and economic

behavior -- will sooner or later be constrained by scarcity.

 

Unlike current ethics, the ethics of the commons builds on the

assumption of impending scarcity. Scarcity requires double-entry

bookkeeping: Whenever someone gains goods or services that use matter

or energy, someone else must lose matter or energy. If the starving

people of a distant nation get food aid from the United States, then

the United States loses that amount of food; it also loses the

fertility of the soil that produced the food. To a point, that

arrangement is appropriate and workable. Soon, however, helping one

group of starving people may well mean that we cannot help others.

Everything that a government does prevents it from doing something

else. When you have to balance a budget, you can say yes to some

important services only by saying no to others. Similarly, the ethics

of the commons must rely on trade-offs, not rights. It must specify

who or what gains, and who or what loses.

 

Indeed, in a finite world full of mutually dependent beings, you never

can do just one thing. Every human activity that uses matter or energy

pulls with it a tangled skein of unexpected consequences. Conditions

of crowding and scarcity can cause moral acts to change from

beneficial to harmful, or even disastrous; acts that once were moral

can become immoral. We must constantly assess the complex of

consequences, intended or not, to see if the overall benefit of

seemingly moral acts outweighs their overall harm.

 

As Hardin suggested, the collapse of any common resource can be

avoided only by limiting its use. The ethics of the commons builds on

his idea that the best and most humane way of avoiding the tragedy of

the commons is mutual constraint, mutually agreed on and mutually

enforced.

 

Most important, the ethics of the commons must prevent a downward

spiral to scarcity. One of its first principles is that the human

population must reach and maintain a stable state -- a state in which

population growth does not slowly but inexorably diminish the quality

of, and even the prospect for, human life. Another principle is that

human exploitation of natural resources must remain safely below the

maximum levels that a healthy and resilient ecosystem can sustain. A

third is the provision of a margin of safety that prevents natural

disasters like storms, floods, droughts, earthquakes, and volcanic

eruptions from causing unsupportable scarcity.

 

Not to limit human behavior in accordance with those principles would

be not only myopic, but also ultimately a moral failure. To let excess

human fertility or excess demand for material goods and services cause

a shortage of natural resources is as immoral as theft and murder, and

for the same reasons: They deprive others of their property, the

fruits of their labors, their quality of life, or even their lives.

 

The ethics of the commons is a pragmatic ethics. It denies the

illusion that human moral behavior occurs in a never-never land, where

human rights and duties remain unchanging, and scarcity can never

cancel moral duties. It does not allow a priori moral arguments to

dictate behavior that must inevitably become extinct. It accepts the

necessity of constraints on both production and reproduction. As we

learn how best to protect the current and future health of the earth's

ecosystems, the ethics of the commons can steadily make human life

more worth living.

 

As populations increase and environments deteriorate, the moral laws

that humans have relied on for so long can no longer solve the most

pressing problems of the modern world. Human rights are an inadequate

and inappropriate basis on which to distribute scarce resources, and

we must propose and debate new ethical principles.

 

=============

 

Herschel Elliott is an emeritus associate professor of philosophy at

the University of Florida. Richard D. Lamm, a former governor of

Colorado, is a university professor at the University of Denver and

executive director of its Center for Public Policy and Contemporary

Issues.

 

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Grist, Mar. 7, 2006

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WALKING THE LINE

 

What Mexican activists can teach the U.S. about poverty and the planet

 

By Oliver Bernstein

 

As the border organizer for Sierra Club's Environmental Justice

program, I bounce back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border

supporting grassroots environmental activists. More than the food,

language, or currency, the biggest difference from one side to the

other is what issues are considered " environmental. " Perhaps nowhere

else on earth is there such a long border between such a rich country

and such a struggling one, and this disparity seems to carry over to

which issues take priority.

 

For example, Laguna La Escondida in Reynosa, Mexico, a water source

for the surrounding community whose name means Hidden Lagoon, is also

an important migratory bird stopover point. Reynosa citizens concerned

about their environment are working to clean up the lagoon to protect

their families' health from the waste dumped into its waters.

Neighboring Texas citizens concerned about their environment are

working to clean up the lagoon to prevent habitat destruction for

hundreds of migratory birds. This binational effort is a terrific

start, but it avoids confronting the issue of poverty. For all their

goodwill and concern, the Texans' narrow focus on bird habitat

prevents many of them from seeing the bigger problem -- human habitat.

 

Since the enactment of NAFTA in 1994, rapid industrialization along

the border has led to some of the fastest population growth in either

country. Almost 12 million people now live in Mexico and the United

States along the nearly 2,000-mile border, and by 2020 that number

could reach 20 million. This is not " smart growth, " but instead a

ferocious growth to support the movement of consumer goods.

 

NAFTA was supposed to bring economic prosperity to Mexico, but the

poverty and human suffering along the border tell a different story.

Mexico's more than 3,000 border maquiladoras -- the mostly foreign-

owned manufacturing and assembly plants -- send about 90 percent of

their products to the United States. The Spanish word " maquilar " means

" to assemble, " but it is also slang for " to do someone else's work for

them. " This is what's really going on; the maquiladora sector produced

more than $100 billion in goods last year, but the typical maquiladora

worker earns between $1 and $3 per hour, including benefits and

bonuses. Special tariff-free zones along the border mean that many

maquiladoras pay low taxes, limiting the funds that could improve

quality of life.

 

Those who don't work in the maquiladoras live in their shadows. The

industrial growth has drawn more people and development to the region,

putting additional pressure on communities and the environment. Towns

that until recently were small agricultural settlements now produce

toxic chemicals for a worldwide market. Informal, donkey-drawn garbage

carts cannot keep up with the waste stream from booming border cities.

The natural environment suffers, indeed, but the most immediate

suffering is human.

 

I recently visited a community near Matamoros, at the eastern end of

the border, where the streets and canals were filled with trash.

Rather than a classic litter campaign, the local activists explained

that their biggest concern was the roads. If the local authorities

don't pave the road, they told me, the garbage trucks cannot get in

and pick up the waste. Even burning the waste would be preferable to

having to live with it in their homes, they say. The activists lament

the polluted canals and the litter, but their focus is on the people.

Without regular pickups, families live with trash piling up in their

houses, and their children get sick.

 

South of Tijuana, on the western end of the border, a small

environmental group advocates for more drains and sewers. Heavy

seasonal rains flood the valleys and bring sewage and trash tumbling

down to the beaches. While a goal of the local campaign may be to have

cleaner beaches and unpolluted water, the way to reach that goal is by

talking about quality-of-life issues like proper drainage from homes,

regular trash pickup in outlying areas, and safe drinking water --

something that 12 percent of border residents do not have. In the

United States, these issues are all too often considered a given,

lumped into the category of " basic services. " But even in the U.S.

there are people who suffer as we ignore their poverty, having decided

that it is not an environmental issue.

 

People are an important part of an ecosystem. If they are poor and

unhealthy, then the ecosystem is poor and unhealthy. Many Mexican

activists know this too well, but the closest thing the mainstream

environmental movement in the United States has to this integrated

people-and-poverty approach is the often neglected environmental-

justice movement. The EJ movement works for justice for people of

color and low-income communities that have been targeted by polluters.

The EJ movement is our salvation -- but we must stop viewing it as

extracurricular to the business of conservation.

 

It's time to support the right to a clean and healthful environment

for all people. This means that residents in the border region should

not suffer disproportionately from environmental health problems

because of the color of their skin, the level of their income, or the

side of the international line on which they live. It also means that

environmental activists should not look past human poverty to save an

endearing species, but must look instead at the big picture.

 

The cries of intense poverty and injustice across the world are

getting louder. It is time for the environmental movement to listen,

and to act.

 

- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

 

Oliver Bernstein is a Sierra Club environmental-justice organizer

along the U.S.-Mexico Border.

 

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Satya Magazine, Aug. 1, 2006

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NEW YORK ACTIVIST FACES LIFE IN PRISON

 

By friends and family of Daniel McGowan

 

On December 7th, 2005, Daniel McGowan, a highly respected and long-

time environmental and social justice activist from New York, was

unjustly arrested by federal marshals as part of a nationwide

crackdown on activists. He is being charged in federal court with

multiple counts of arson, property destruction and conspiracy,

relating to two direct actions that occurred in Oregon in 2001. Daniel

maintains his innocence and has pled not guilty to all charges. He is

facing a minimum of life in prison if convicted on all counts.

 

Daniel's arrest is part of " Operation Backfire, " a well- coordinated,

multi-state sweep of environmental activists by the federal

government. Many of the charges, including Daniel's, are for cases

whose statute of limitations were about to expire. Fifteen people have

since been indicted by a grand jury on 65 charges in connection with

17 direct actions that took place between 1996 and 2001 in Oregon,

Washington, California, Colorado and Wyoming. This FBI offensive

appears as just the beginning of a nationwide " green scare. "

 

The Green Scare

 

The term " green scare " was first introduced in 2002 in the zine Spirit

of Freedom referring to tactics used by the U.S. government to attack

environmental and social justice activists. In the U.S. today,

" terrorism " has replaced " communism " as the catchphrase for all the

evils in the world. Where the red scare once saw leftwingers

stigmatized as " communists, " today we have a green scare where

environmentalists and animal rights activists are being targeted as

" eco-terrorists " by the media, business interests and politicians-

including Attorneys General Gonzales and Ashcroft.

 

Since 2001, there has been a rise in the number of environmentalists

arrested and a dramatic lengthening of the potential sentences they

face. Activists who have never physically harmed or injured anyone now

risk being arrested and charged with crimes carrying life sentences

(or, in some cases, a charge sheet that could result in a 300-plus

year prison sentence).

 

Similar to the campaign of Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-

American Activities Committee (HUAC) of the 1950s, today, legislators,

property rights advocates and industry spokespeople are using threats

and propaganda to crush political resistance. History is repeating

itself and one cannot help but wonder which of our friends and family

will be next.

 

Anti-Terror Legislation

 

In the current political climate, it is virtually impossible for the

accused to get a fair trial once the specter of " terrorism " has been

raised. This climate of fear is reinforced by legislative changes that

have considerably broadened the definition of a " terrorist. "

 

Lobbying by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a powerful

right wing advocacy group funded by over 300 corporations, is

successfully pushing for legislation defining terrorism as an act by

" two or more persons organized for the purpose of supporting any

politically motivated activity intended to obstruct or deter any

person from participating in an activity involving animals or natural

resources. " It includes such acts as property defacement -- which is

already illegal -- within the scope of terrorism, and holds the

potential to include other forms of legal protest within the same

definition. So far ten states have already passed legislation defining

the destruction of property as terrorism.

 

Additionally, fake grassroots groups, or " astroturf " groups like the

deceptively-named Stop Eco Violence, the Center for Consumer Freedom

and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, have organized

letter writing campaigns to Northwest politicians lobbying to push

legislation that would increase penalties for environmentalist direct

action.

 

At a federal level, Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT (Uniting and

Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to

Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act defines domestic terrorism as an

act which intends to " intimidate or coerce a civilian population, "

" influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, " or

" affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination

or kidnapping. " But, as the American Civil Liberties Union has pointed

out, the breadth of the first two definitions means that " Greenpeace,

Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and WTO protesters, and the [Earth]

Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could

subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism. "

 

Although none of the defendants in this case are technically charged

with domestic terrorism, the government has used the term extensively

in the media to discredit the activists involved.

 

The larger aim of such legislation is to spread fear and distrust in

the activist community with the hope that it will act as a deterrent

and make it hard for us to support our friends and family when they

are targeted.

 

It is essential that we combat this misrepresentation of our movement

and not allow people who are arrested to fade away and be forgotten.

These legal (and illegal) measures look likely to make an already bad

situation worse. There are now so many pending cases against activists

that it is impossible to mention them all here. We urgently need to

provide arrested activists with moral support so they know that people

are aware of their situation and feel less isolated, and we need to

ensure that fear does not spread as our movement continues to be

targeted under this green scare.

 

An Activist in Need

 

For years Daniel McGowan was behind the scenes keeping countless

campaigns afloat. He worked on old growth protection campaigns,

fighting to keep trees over 2,000 years old from becoming toilet

paper. He ran successful Burma divestment campaigns. He did extensive

education and press work about genetically modified organisms. He

provided active support for indigenous people, including the Dineh,

the Ogoni and the Uwa people, all the while supporting political

prisoners all over the world.

 

During the 2004 Republican National Convention, Daniel decided to

publicly organize demonstrations, fundraisers and benefit shows as

part of the RNCnotwelcome.org protest mobilization. Daniel is an

expressive, caring, thoughtful and compassionate person and his

tireless dedication and support for political prisoners makes it all

the more moving that we are now being called upon to provide the same

support for him.

 

To find out how you can help Daniel McGowan, visit

www.supportdaniel.org and email friendsofdanielmcg to

receive regular updates. To learn more about the green scare see

www.greenscare.org. If you would like to write to Daniel, please

send your letter of support to:

 

Daniel McGowan, P.O. Box 106, New York, NY 10156.

 

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AlterNet, Aug. 4, 2006

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MILITARY WASTE IN OUR DRINKING WATER

 

By Sunaura Taylor and Astra Taylor

 

The US military is poisoning the very citizens it is supposed to

protect in the name of national security.

 

In 1982 our family was living on the southside of Tucson, Ariz., in a

primarily working class and Latino neighborhood not far from the

airport. That year Sunaura was born with a congenital birth defect

known as arthrogryposis, a condition that severely impedes muscle

growth and requires her to use an electric wheelchair. On nearby

blocks, women were giving birth to babies with physical disabilities

and neighbors were dying of cancer at worrisome rates. Over time, we

learned that our groundwater was contaminated.

 

Most of us are vaguely aware that war devastates the environment

abroad. The Vietnamese Red Cross counts 150,000 children whose birth

defects were caused by their parents' exposure to Agent Orange. Cancer

rates in Iraq are soaring as a result of depleted uranium left from

the Gulf War. But what about closer to home?

 

Today the U.S. military generates over one-third of our nation's toxic

waste, which it disposes of very poorly. The military is one of the

most widespread violators of environmental laws. People made ill by

this toxic waste are, in effect, victims of war. But they are rarely

acknowledged as such.

 

On Sept. 11, 2001, we were living together in New York City. In the

months following the attack on the World Trade Center, the media and

government routinely informed a fearful citizenry of the importance of

clean drinking water. Terrorists, they warned, might contaminate

public sources with arsenic. We were instructed to purchase Evian

along with our duct tape.

 

In 2003, when the Defense Department sought (and later received)

exemptions from America's main environmental laws, the irony dawned on

us. The military was given license to pollute air and water, dispose

of used munitions, and endanger wildlife with impunity. The Defense

Department is willing to poison the very citizens it is supposed to

protect in the cause of national security.

 

Our family knows of something much more dangerous than arsenic in the

public aquifers: trichloroethylene, or TCE, a known carcinogen in

laboratory animals and the most widespread industrial contaminant in

American drinking water.

 

Disturbingly Common

 

Last week a study was released by the National Academy of Sciences,

raising already substantial concerns about the cancer risks and other

health hazards associated with exposure to TCE, a solvent used in

adhesives, paint and spot removers that is also " widely used to remove

grease from metal parts in airplanes and to clean fuel lines at

missile sites. " The report confirms a 2001 EPA document linking TCE to

kidney cancer, reproductive and developmental damage, impaired

neurological function, autoimmune disease and other ailments in human

beings.

 

The report has been garnering some publicity, but not as much as it

deserves. TCE contamination is disturbingly common, especially in the

air, soil and water around military bases. Nationwide millions of

Americans are using what Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey, D-NY, has called

" TCE-laden drinking water. " The Associated Press reports that the

chemical has been found at about 60 percent of the nation's worst

contaminated sites in the Superfund cleanup program.

 

" The committee found that the evidence on carcinogenic risk and other

health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene has strengthened

since 2001, " the study says. " Hundreds of waste sites are contaminated

with trichloroethylene, and it is well-documented that individuals in

many communities are exposed to the chemical, with associated health

risks. "

 

The report urges the EPA to amend its assessment of the threat TCE

poses, an action that could lead to stricter regulations. Currently

the EPA limits TCE to no more than five parts per billion parts of

drinking water. Stricter regulation could force the government to

require more thorough cleanups at military and other sites and lower

the number to one part per billion.

 

The EPA found it impossible to take such action back in 2001, because,

according to the Associated Press, the agency was " blocked from

elevating its assessment of the chemical's risks in people by the

Defense Department, Energy Department and NASA, all of which have

sites polluted with it. " The Bush administration charged the EPA with

inflating TCE's risks and asked the National Academy to investigate.

Contrary to the administration's hopes, however, the committee's

report has reinforced previous findings, which determined TCE to be

anywhere from two to 40 times more carcinogenic than previously

believed.

 

Thousands Contaminated

 

We didn't know it when we lived there, but our Tucson neighborhood's

public water supply was one of thousands nationwide contaminated with

TCE (along with a medley of other toxic chemicals including,

ironically, arsenic). It wasn't terrorists who laced our cups and

bathtubs with these poisons -- it was private contractors employed by

the Air Force.

 

Beginning during the Korean War, military contractors began using

industrial solvents, including TCE, to degrease airplane parts. Hughes

Missiles Systems Co. (which was purchased by the Raytheon Corp. in

1997) worked at the Tucson International Airport, spilling chemicals

off the runway and letting them sink into the soil of a city entirely

dependent on its underground water supply. What didn't seep into the

earth was dumped into unlined pits scraped into the desert floor. Over

the course of many years Hughes used barrels and barrels of TCE at the

airport hangars and at weapons system manufacturing facilities on

government-owned and contractor-operated land not far from where we

lived. As late as 1985, 2,220 pounds of TCE was still being dumped in

Tucson landfills every month.

 

Like so many other toxic hotspots, Tucson's southside is primarily a

working-class community called home by many people of color. It is

situated near the San Xavier Indian reservation, which also had

residential areas affected by runoff.

 

Generally, fines associated with hazardous waste laws are up to six

times higher in white communities than their minority counterparts.

What has happened in Tucson since the early '80s reflects this

unevenness. There has been only one legal case against the military

and its cohorts, a lengthy personal-injury lawsuit filed in behalf of

1,600 people against the aircraft manufacturer, the city of Tucson and

the Tucson Airport Authority (citizens are not allowed to sue the

federal government over such matters). The case excluded thousands of

potential plaintiffs and did not include funds from which future

claimants could collect for illnesses like cancers, which typically do

not appear until 10 or 20 years after chemical exposure. As a result,

many southside residents have yet to be compensated and probably never

will be. To this day, some area wells remain polluted, and most

estimate cleanup will not be completed for another 20 to 50 years.

Meanwhile, residents have the small consolation their water supply is

being monitored.

 

The National Academy of Sciences study is a step in the right

direction, but one that will certainly be met with resistance. In

Tucson, because the lawsuit was settled out of court, none of the

defendants had to admit that TCE is carcinogenic. Instead of

acknowledging the link between TCE and local health problems,

officials blamed the smoking and eating habits of local residents and

said their cancer was the result of " eating too much chili. " It was

suggested to our parents, who are white, that Sunaura's birth defect

may have been the consequence of high peanut butter consumption.

 

But people who have lived on the southside of Tucson don't need

experts to verify that TCE is deadly. Some estimate that up to 20,000

individuals have died, become ill, or been born with birth defects.

Providing further proof, the Tucson International Airport area is one

of the EPA's top Superfund sites. Arizona state guidelines also assert

that TCE is toxic; they say one gallon of TCE is enough to render

undrinkable the amount of water used by 3,800 people over an entire

year. Over 4,000 gallons drained into Tucson aquifers. As a result of

this week's report, Arizona's environmental quality chief says the

state is independently and immediately going to adopt stricter TCE

soil standards.

 

It's an ugly truth that manufacturing weaponry to kill abroad also

kills at home. The process involves toxic chemicals, metals and

radioactive materials. As a consequence, the U.S. military produces

more hazardous waste annually than the five largest international

chemical companies combined. The Pentagon is responsible for over

1,400 properties contaminated with TCE.

 

Citizens, who pay for the military budget with their tax dollars, are

also paying with their health and sometimes their lives.

 

==============

 

Sunaura Taylor, a figurative painter, has written on disability for

various publications. View her paintings online at

www.sunnytaylor.org. Astra Taylor is a writer and documentary

filmmaker. Her first book, Shadow of the Sixties, is forthcoming from

the New Press in 2007.

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News #867, Aug. 10, 2006

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CHICAGO RESIDENTS ARE MOBILIZING -- AND YOU'RE INVITED

 

By Tim Montague

 

Please join the Chicago Clean Power Coalition for a town-hall style

meeting to learn what you can do to make Chicago and Illinois a more

livable and healthy place to live, work and play. Please come to our

next bi-weekly meeting on Chicago's near south side.

 

When: Wednesday, August 23, 2006;

Where: 2856 S. Millard Ave Chicago

IL 60623-4550 (held at the offices of Little Village Environmental

Justice Organization; tel. 773.762.6991).

 

For more information http://www.ChicagoCleanPower.org or contact Tim

Montague: tim

 

Did you know... Chicago is home to two coal burning power plants.

Their pollution pumps mercury, soot and smog into our city's air just

a few miles southwest of the downtown, causing asthma and brain damage

to thousands of children in the Chicago area.

 

The agreement reached between the coal power industry (Ameren) and

the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, announced on August 1st

2006, is a significant setback for improving our state's polluted air

from dirty coal power plants. Organized action by residents is needed

now to take back our right to healthy air.

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News (formerly Rachel's Environment &

Health News) highlights the connections between issues that are

often considered separately or not at all.

 

The natural world is deteriorating and human health is declining

because those who make the important decisions aren't the ones who

bear the brunt. Our purpose is to connect the dots between human

health, the destruction of nature, the decline of community, the

rise of economic insecurity and inequalities, growing stress among

workers and families, and the crippling legacies of patriarchy,

intolerance, and racial injustice that allow us to be divided and

therefore ruled by the few.

 

In a democracy, there are no more fundamental questions than, " Who

gets to decide? " And, " How do the few control the many, and what

might be done about it? "

 

As you come across stories that might help people connect the dots,

please Email them to us at dhn.

 

Rachel's Democracy & Health News is published as often as

necessary to provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the

subject.

 

Editors:

Peter Montague - peter

Tim Montague - tim

 

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To start your own free Email subscription to Rachel's Democracy

& Health News send a blank Email to: join-rachel.

 

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dhn

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