This paper is online with live links at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=380
GETTING TO PRECAUTION
(Notes for a Talk at Sarah Lawrence College April 28, 2004)
Peter Montague; 732-828-9995; peter@rachel.org; http://www.rachel.org
I. THE IMPORTANCE OF CITIZEN ACTIVISM
The goal of citizen activism (and the measure of its success) is cultural change the reversal of
which would be unthinkable, as returning to slavery is unthinkable, or denying women the vote is
unthinkable. (It remains to be seen whether the victories won by labor activists and environmental
activists belong in the "irreversible" category.)
Citizen activism:
** ended slavery
** gave women the right to vote
** ended above-ground nuclear testing
** stopped the Vietnam war
** created the right to know
** gave workers (and the rest of us) many rights including the right to form and join a union, to
bargain collectively, and when all else fails to strike. (These union rights hardly exist any more in
the U.S. but in the rest of the industrial world they are pretty secure.[1])
Labor activism gave us all...
** a 40-hour work week;
** weekends off; paid vacations;
** sick leave; family leave;
** retirement (private pensions and social security);
** health insurance;
** limits on child labor;
** workplace safety and health standards; these are better than nothing but are seriously deficient in
the sense that 55,000 workers are still killed on the job each year and another 800,000 are made
sick; the costs of workplace deaths and injuries are greater than the cost of cancer and greater than
the cost of AIDS, but remain largely ignored.[2]
** legal protections against discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual
orientation, or physical disability;
** protection against arbitrary firing, sexual harassment, and so on.
These standards and norms are not perfect, and too often they are not effectively enforced, but they
are fundamental and essential to civilized life, and we would not have them without labor activism.
II BENEFITS WE ALL RECEIVED FROM ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM (partial list)
Environmental Activism...
** severely limited radioactive waste burial in the ground;
** killed 80% of all planned municipal incinerators;
** closed at least 90% of all solid waste landfills and dumps;
** cast a pall of suspicion over, and forced much tighter regulation of, boilers and industrial
furnaces, cement kilns, and medical waste incinerators;
** forced new regulations on solid waste and hazardous waste incinerators;
** severely curbed and regulated international commerce in hazardous wastes;
** forced a virtual end to the licensing of new toxic waste dumps;
** stopped ocean dumping of radioactive wastes, sewage sludge and dredge spoils;
** ended ocean-going incinerator ships for hazardous wastes;
** stopped (or greatly reduced) the dumping of garbage by naval vessels and ocean-going ships;
** curbed the dumping of raw sewage into the oceans;
** forced the agriculture establishment to at least pay lip service to integrated pest management
and, more importantly, convinced a significant proportion of the American people that pesticides
are dangerous and unnecessary;
** forced legislation and billion-dollar expenditures to clean up old toxic dumps;
** stigmatized and thereby curtailed food irradiation;
** killed sewage sludge irradiation;
** passed laws requiring corporate polluters to self-report the immense tonnages of toxics they
dump routinely into communities (via air, sewage treatment plants, and direct discharges to local
streams)
** Created enormous awareness of environmental/human health problems that has been created
because it propels all reform efforts.
** redefined "the environment" and forever changed environmental activism:
The "environmental movement" began in the late 1960s as lawyers and engineers banded together
to curb the use of pesticides. Their main strategy was litigation. The federal government responded
from 1969 to 1990 by passing more than a dozen major laws to protect air, water, and wildlife. But
this early movement was disconnected from the majority of Americans -- it seemed more interested
in saving wild creatures than in helping workers, city dwellers and people of color.
In 1978 the modern "toxics movement" was born at Love Canal, near Buffalo, N.Y. At almost the
same time (1982), a new branch of the modern environmental movement emerged in Warren
County, N.C., in response to a proposed toxic waste landfill in a predominantly African-American
community. Over five hundred people were arrested during a series of protests and the term
"environmental racism" came into the language. This was the beginning of the "environmental
justice" (EJ) movement. In 1983 the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) published a study
showing that waste dumps in the southeastern U.S. were mainly located in communities where the
population was predominantly African American or of low income. In 1987 the United Church of
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Christ published a study confirming that the pattern revealed in the 1983 GAO study was evident
nationwide.
As the 1980s evolved, environmental justice groups developed in many different racial and ethnic
communities: African Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Pacific groups, and the indigenous people of
North America. By 1991, the EJ movement had a clear national identify and philosophy, expressed
in the "Principles of Environmental Justice" adopted at the First National People of Color
Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., which was attended by more than a
thousand activists. (See http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=153 )
Since 1980, our role in the growth of this movement has been as information providers. For 24
years we have helped groups get their hands on reliable medical and scientific information in
understandable form -- and in time to be useful.
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the combined effects of the toxics and EJ
movements. Together, they redirected the environmental movement in the U.S. The movement that
had emerged in 1970 -- a combination of conservation organizations, plus litigators -- tended to
view issues from the traditional conservation perspective, and it was largely staffed and supported
by the middle and upper-middle classes. The toxics and EJ movements introduced a public health
perspective, a working class perspective, and the perspectives of people of color and people with
low-income, thus creating the diverse blend of viewpoints and interests that defines the
environmental movement today.
** Toxics and EJ groups permanently expanded the definition of "the environment" to include not
just wild lands and animals but all the places were people live, work, play, pray and learn. Now for
the first time, the "environmental movement" would focus attention on the cities -- and to a lesser
extent the workplaces -- where most Americans spend their lives. This new perspective meant that
the environmental movement could now appeal to huge numbers of people previously overlooked
by the earlier focus on wilderness and endangered species.
** They emphasized the cumulative impacts of pollutants on communities -- the combined effects
of all sources of contamination, not just one particular pollutant or facility. For many years, risk
decisions had been made in an artificial vacuum, considering one oil refinery, or one cement kiln,
or one hazardous waste incinerator, ignoring all other sources of contamination in the general
vicinity. This narrow perspective had burdened certain communities with numerous sources of
contamination, each of which individually was deemed "acceptable" yet in the aggregate created a
patently unhealthful environment.
** They emphasized the social determinants of disease -- the health consequences of poverty,
stress, and the social isolation created by artificial hierarchies based on race, income, wealth, and
class -- combined with poor nutrition, insufficient recreational opportunities, inadequate health
care, and exposure to toxicants. They thus broke down the barrier -- which had been created in the
original National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 -- between environmental issues and socioeconomic issues.
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** They emphasized the importance of respect for cultural traditions, local knowledge, and the
historical integrity of community and place. The emphasis on risk assessment as a decision-making
technique had created a great divide between "experts" who had "useful" knowledge, and ordinary
people who "only" had common sense, historical understanding of their communities, strong
preferences for how things should be, and a well-developed sense of right-and-wrong, fair play, and
justice.
** They emphasized the essential importance of democratic participation: the key question in any
decision affecting the environment or public health is, who gets to decide? And they emphasized
that local communities have the preeminent right of self-determination, to decide what's best: "We
speak for ourselves," they said.
** They emphasized that a clean and healthful environment is a basic human right under
international law, as well as a civil right under U.S. law.
** They emphasized leadership by women. Most community-based toxics and EJ groups were and
are led by women. Perhaps this reflects somewhat the influence of the women's movement that
energized women throughout the 1970s to seek equal pay for equal work and to demand other
rights and opportunities that had long been denied them by a society organized along patriarchal
lines.
** They emphasized that environmental issues are mainly about justice, fairness, ethical choices,
and acceptable behavior not just acceptable risk. The earlier narrow focus on science and
engineering was expanded to give explicit recognition to the importance of ethics and values in
decisions. In 2001, the European Union expressed the contemporary view of the proper role of
science in environmental protection when it said, "Science should be on tap, not on top."[3]
III. PROBLEMS REQUIRING CONTINUING ACTIVISM
1. GROWING INEQUALITY
In 1976, the wealthiest one percent in the U.S. owned 22% of the nation's private wealth.
Twenty-two years later, in 1998, that same one percent owned 38% of private wealth.
At the rate they're going, that one percent will own 50% of all private wealth 10 years from now,
and will own 2/3rds of all private wealth about ten years after that.[4]
The major consequence of inequality in wealth is, of course, inequality in power, which translates
into diminished democracy, but also diminished public health.
Inequality is our biggest source of public health problems.
As the New York Times reported June 1, 1999, in its weekly Science Section (and we reported in
Rachel's #497, #584, #654 available at http://www.rachel.org).
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"Scientists have known for decades that poverty translates into higher rates of illness and mortality.
But an explosion of research is demonstrating that social class -- as measured not just by income
but also by education and other markers of relative status -- is one of the most powerful predictors
of health, more powerful than genetics, exposure to carcinogens, even smoking.
"What matters is not simply whether a person is rich or poor, college educated or not. Rather, risk
for a wide variety of illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, infant mortality,
many infectious diseases and some types of cancer, varies with RELATIVE wealth or poverty: the
higher the rung on the socioeconomic ladder, the lower the risk.” [Emphasis in the original.][5]
We now have an extensive medical literature showing that economic inequality and ill health are
strongly correlated. It's not just that poverty causes illness and death, it's that inequality itself -- the
chasm between the top and bottom -- causes poor health. Low income forms part of the picture, but
equally important are social exclusion, feelings of powerlessness, chronic anxiety, insecurity, low
self esteem, social isolation (racism, for example), inability to cope, and the sense that life is out of
control -- all of which contribute significantly to heart disease, cancer, infectious diseases,
depression and other serious ailments.[6]
The vehicle for consolidating wealth and power (and thus expanding inequalities) is the publiclyheld corporation.[7,8]
2. THE CORPORATION
Fiduciary Duty of the Corporation
As a matter of law, publicly-held corporations must try to return a steady, modest profit to
investors. If corporate managers make decisions that might interrupt the flow of steady profit to
investors, they can be (and probably will be) sued for breach of fiduciary duty. This legal
requirement to return a more-or-less steady profit narrowly restricts the kinds of decisions that
corporate managers can make.
Because of the legal requirement to return a modest but steady profit to investors, corporations have
a built-in incentive to "externalize" their costs -- to dump toxic materials into public air and water,
to take inadequate steps to promote the health and dignity of their workers, and to oppose almost all
laws, regulations, and policies that enhance social justice or protect the environment but might
interfere with profits.
Therefore, so far as social justice and environmental protection are concerned, corporations have no
reliable built-in mechanism for self-restraint, no built-in conscience. They cannot "do the right
thing" merely because it is the right thing to do -- they can only do the right thing if it happens to
pay off for them.
If an individual were to behave like a corporation, he or she could be labeled a "sociopath" or a
"psychopathic personality." [7,8]
THE CORPORATE AGENDA
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The agenda of the corporate elite is pretty simple, all in one way or another having the effect of
increasing inequality (of wealth or power, usually both:
(a) As required by law, return a steady profit to investors;
(b) Therefore externalize costs to the extent allowed by law: pollute the environment; pass risks
onto the public; avoid gathering information on problems both before and after they are created;
harm, abuse and disrespect workers...
(c) Do whatever it takes to influence lawmakers, to prevent the enactment of laws that might
restrict the ability of corporations to externalize costs; [there are also other reasons to influence
lawmakers]
(d) Cut taxes to starve government, to reduce government's ability to interfere in corporate affairs.
Government has two dangerous tendencies: First, government interferes with markets (for example,
bringing externalities into the price system), prohibiting certain behavior, etc. For some, this is a
mortal sin that cannot be forgiven; for others is it merely a secular heresy, a well-meaning but
wrongheaded attempt to improve humanity -- one that is bound to make everyone worse off.
Second, government redistributes wealth (and therefore power) thereby leveling the playing field
and thus, by definition, diminishing the power of the corporate elite; [acknowledge that some corps
LIKE regulation because it gives them competitive advantage]
(e) Promote growth of GDP. It is growth of GDP (basically, churning the economy) that creates
opportunities for making a profit. Growth of GDP also substitutes for sharing. Growth of GDP
requires rapid innovation... [Explain this more fully]
(f) Allow the unrestricted flow of capital across international borders. This grows more necessary
as time passes because the U.S. has exhausted many of its needed resources (petroleum and tin, for
example) and must rely on foreign sources of supply which therefore must be made secure. (Think
Iraq war.) It also allows the harnessing of foreign labor. A corollary of this is a lax immigration
policy on the border with Mexico, combined with "trade" policies that drive Mexican farmers off
their land, forcing them to trek northward to avoid starvation -- abandoning family life, culture,
village, everything they know and love -- to wander into a place where they know they will be will
be abused, mistreated, cheated, hated, and treated like criminals.
(g) Dismantle -- or bring under corporate control -- the institutions of democracy. In the past 30
years, corporate elites have undermined all the institutions of democracy: schools and libraries have
been starved; the public airwaves have been privatized and 90% of the mass media (newspapers,
magazines, books, movies, videos, TV and radio) have been consolidated in the hands of 6
corporations; elections (at both federal and state levels) have been bought (perfectly legally); and
the courts have been stacked, corrupted and bought -- again, perfectly legally.
(h) Prevent and break unions -- for obvious reasons. Workers have always been the most effective
opponents of corporate elites. Organized workers are dangerous. So in the U.S., labor organizations
have been gutted (or co-opted) and to a significant degree outlawed.
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(i) Keep people insecure because insecure people are not usually able to effectively oppose the
corporate agenda; this is probably the single most important aim of the corporate agenda of the last
30 years -- so important that it deserves its own name -- the Social Insecurity Program.
The Social Insecurity Program
** wages have been falling for 30 years, so people are scrambling to maintain what their parents
had;
** the power of the working class shrinks as the power of the corporate elite grows
** government power shrinks as the power of corporations grows
** "globalization" means that jobs are moving to Mexico and Malaysia and even the THREAT of
such a move creates terrible anxiety within communities;
** corporate downsizing leaves people wondering whether their job will exist next year and even
whether their employer will exist next year;
** good jobs with benefits are being replaced by part-time contingent jobs without benefits;
** people respond by putting more family members into the workforce, working several jobs,
working longer hours, driving greater distances to find work, so more people are simply exhausted
at the end of the day and unable to function as citizens;
** the epidemic of chronic disease combined with the absence of health insurance for huge
numbers of people (40 million at least -- some estimates go as high as 52 million) plus the
constantly-rising cost of medical care creates major insecurities;
** junk food tempts us constantly to eat a substandard (but affordable!) diet; the average diet is
loaded with additives that the federal Institute of Medicine acknowledges can make people sick
(such as hydrogenated oils and trans-fats), while we are barraged by constant reminders of toxins in
air, water, and food -- which government has proven to be incapable of curbing -- thus convincing
many of us that a future dominated by disease (cancer, diabetes, arthritis, etc.) is unavoidable; the
result is too often resignation to our fate...
** constant discussion of the bankruptcy of social security (and "privatization" as a solution) has
more than half the people convinced social security won't be there when they need to retire;
** more and more jobs require college which is getting more and more expensive;
** mediocre public education prepares kids poorly for the job market and for democratic
participation;
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** information overload -- and a mass media that avoids "big picture" reporting -- convinces people
they can't possibly understand what's going on;
** public libraries are being closed for "lack of funds" when the nation has never been wealthier;
** guns and drugs are everywhere in urban areas, giving rise to huge anxieties about personal
safety and a "get tough on crime" response rather than a crime prevention response;
** free speech is under attack on many fronts (Slapp suits; veggie libel laws; Monsanto sued
Vermont dairies to prevent them from labeling their milk "rBGH-free"; McDonalds successfully
sued a dictionary publisher to prevent the term "McJobs" from being included in a dictionary, for
example) -- but corporate money as "free speech," in the form of election-campaign contributions,
is vigorously defended;
** lax immigration policy keeps wages low; there's nothing wrong with immigration but it should
be regulated for the same reasons that international flows of capital should be regulated.
** the internationally-recognized human rights of workers to join a union, bargain collectively, and,
when all else fails, to strike, are routinely and blatantly violated in the U.S....
** The people hurting the most are people of color, the poor, the working class, women, and people
of the third world (though the middle class is also getting badly squeezed).
THE CORPORATE NEED FOR GROWTH
The ultimate source of corporate power and of environmental destruction is growth, which requires
rapid innovation, which churns the economy, creating opportunities for profit. (John Kenneth
Galbraith described how this works in The Affluent Society, 1958, and The New Industrial State,
1967.)
Rapid innovation plunges us forward, flying blind. Under these circumstances, no one can really be
held accountable when we occasionally smash into one of those mountains hidden in the clouds.
Think of tetraethyl lead, PCBs, CFCs, PBDEs, hexachlorobenzene -- the purveyors of these
manifestly destructive innovations have never been called to account, partly because we all
understand that they had no time to consider the consequences as they plunged ahead, fulfilling
their duty to meet the expectation for growth. The requirement for rapid innovation provides an
excuse when things go bad.
THE CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION PROJECT
The corporate globalization project is replacing government control with corporate control. This is
really what "free" trade is about. Nafta, the WTO (World Trade Organization) and other "trade"
agreements are replacing government decision-making with corporate decision-making. It's not
really about expanding trade (though that may be a side-effect), it's about getting rid if democracy.
[ADD examples.]
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However: This offers opportunities for new international alliances. (Read Jeremy Brecher's book,
Globalization from Below.)
IV. SOME SOLUTIONS
Some solutions that activists are pursuing now
1) Get private money out of politics; obviously McCain-Feingold has failed since the major
presidential contenders have chosen not to limit themselves to public funding of their elections.
A presidential campaign typically spends $600 million; a senate campaign $5 to $25 million; a
House race, typically $1 million. The only obvious source for such sums is wealthy corporate elites,
which means that the elected enter office heavily indentured.
2) Modify the corporate charter to give corps permission to consider other goals,[8] or even repeal
corporate personhood.[9]
3) Develop clear alternatives to "business as usual." With no clear alternatives coming from "our
side," people stick with what they know even though it is ruining their possibilities. (See Robert
Costanza and others, Introduction to Ecological Economics.)
4) "Our side" needs a simple, clear agenda that includes a few top priorities we can all agree on.
(Our adversaries know exactly what they want: cut taxes to starve government, limit free speech
[our greatest strength – if we lose it, we’re sunk], increase insecurity among workers and the
public, promote their globalization project to diminish democracy.)
5) Adopt new ways of making decisions:
No matter what else happens, we need a precautionary approach to decision-making to replace the
failed “risk-based” approach.
The precautionary principle can be traced back to Germany’s forsorgeprinzip, but I prefer to derive
the precautionary principle from the public trust doctrine:
THE PUBLIC TRUST DOCTRINE
The Public Trust Doctrine and the Precautionary Principle create an expectation that the purpose of
government is to protect our common heritage, for us and for future generations. Preventing trouble
is the key.
The Public Trust Doctrine is an ancient legal doctrine handed down to us from Roman law, through
English law, into the law of the 13 original colonies and now the states.[10]
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The public trust doctrine asserts that government has an inalienable duty (a duty that cannot be
denied or given away) to protect the common wealth -- air, water, wildlife, public health, our
genetic heritage, and more -- which we all inherit and own together and none of us owns
individually.[10] The purpose of government is not to auction off our common heritage to the
highest bidder, nor to "balance" the needs of corporate polluters against public health and
environmental protection.
The public trust doctrine casts government in a heroic role as guardian of the public trust -- a trust
created by ancient laws, requiring the sovereign to protect the common assets that we all own
together. As trustee, government must protect the trust assets (nature and human health) for the
trust beneficiaries (present and future generations). Government even has a duty to protect the trust
assets against harmful actions by the beneficiaries themselves, and so from time to time
government must limit some of the prerogatives of private property in order to protect the common
wealth for present and future generations.
In carrying out its duty to protect the public trust, government has a duty to anticipate harm, to look
ahead to protect the trust against impending threats.[11] If government waits until harm can be
demonstrated beyond doubt, then it will be too late -- the trust property will be damaged and
government will have failed in its duty as trustee.
The analogy to a financial trust is exact. There is a trust property (air, water, wildlife, our genes,
and more) -- the things we all inherit and own together and none of us owns individually. There is a
trustee (government) which has an inalienable duty to protect the trust property on behalf of the
trust beneficiaries (present and future generations). The trustee has a duty to look ahead, to
anticipate and avert harm to the trust property because if the trustee waits for proof of harm to the
trust property, it will be too late -- the trust property will be damaged and the trustee will have
failed in its fiduciary duty.
Those who harm the public trust property can and should be assessed "natural resource damages" -monetary penalties for harming the trust property. New Jersey is doing this now, quite aggressively.
THE PRECAUTIONARY APPROACH
Precautionary = foresight to protect against possible harm
Principle = a habitual devotion to right
The old risk-based approach to decisions asked, "How much harm is acceptable," or "How much
harm can we get away with?" The newer, precautionary approach asks, "How much harm can we
avoid?"
Basic statement of the precautionary principle [11a]:
If we have reasonable suspicion of harm even in the face of some scientific uncertainty we all have
a duty to take action to avert harm.
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1. Set and state our goals (including implicit ones, such as justice and democratic participation).
Different parties may have different goals, and it's good to acknowledge this.
2. Assess available alternatives
3. Gather and consider complete and accurate information -- and the proponent bears the burden of
providing it. This is what we mean by "shifting the burden of proof" onto the proponent of a new
technology.
Complete and accurate information means more than scientific knowledge (which is, of course,
essential). It includes historical knowledge, spiritual knowledge, local knowledge, business
knowledge, community preferences, cultural values, artistic perceptions, and so on. This is not antiscience; it merely acknowledges that there are other valid ways of knowing about the world. As the
European Environment Agency is fond of saying, "Science should be on tap, not on top."
Sometimes non-scientific information is characterized as "emotional" and "emotional" is then
equated with "irrational." However, we should recognize that emotions -- including fear -- have
served humans well over the eons, so there is nothing wrong with an "emotional" response. When
you're operating in the dark, it's smart to be cautious -- and somewhat fearful -- so being
"emotional" can be entirely rational. Emotional does not equal irrational.
4. Involve affected parties in decisions (beginning at earliest possible stages when questions are
being asked and goals set). Provide them the wherewithal to participate in a sustained way and
respect their values, knowledge, experience and preferences.
SOME BASIC ARGUMENTS for PRECAUTION
Past practices: Many past practices have damaged the environment and public health. The "old
way" has been harmful, so we need a new way of making decisions. Many kinds of chronic
diseases are increasing: childhood cancers, breast cancer, cancers of the testicles and prostate,
nervous system disorders (Parkinson's Disease, Lou Gehrig's disease), immune system disorders
(diabetes, asthma), are all increasing.[13]
Birth defect rates are steadily increasing. The federal Centers for Disease Control in 1990
summarized the trends in 38 types of birth defects; they found 29 increasing, 2 decreasing, and 7
remaining unchanged.[14]
In 1987, about 45% of Americans were living with one or more chronic conditions (a term that
includes chronic diseases and impairments). In 1935, the proportion was 22%, so chronic
conditions have approximately doubled during the last 60 years. The majority of people with
chronic conditions are not disabled, nor are they elderly. In fact, one out of every four children in
the U.S. (25%) now lives with a chronic condition.[15]
Full world: On a global scale, there is abundant evidence that the world is no longer empty but is
now full -- of humans and their artifacts. Examples: Humans are now appropriating for their own
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use 40% of all terrestrial net primary product of photosynthesis; within one doubling of human
population (40 to 45 years), this number will rise to 80%.[16] Worldwide, topsoil is being depleted
at least 10 times as fast as nature can create it.[17] Species are being driven to extinction at rates
somewhere between 100 and 1000 times as fast as historical rates of extinction.[18] The earth's
capacity to absorb or assimilate wastes has been exceeded -- the evidence for this is unmistakable:
global warming, depletion of the Earth's ozone shield, the presence of toxic chemicals in salmon
and other fish, and industrial poisons in breast milk, for example, There is no longer any place
called "away" where it is safe to throw our discards. Living in a full world means that we have new
responsibilities to be careful, to try hard to avoid causing further harm, and to give the benefit of
the doubt to the environment and human health.
Early warnings: When traveling in the dark, we move cautiously and keep all our senses attuned
for signs of danger. When flying blind, we pay close attention to the first sign of shapes emerging
in the clouds ahead and take action to avert harm at our earliest opportunity. In other words, we
look for, and heed, early warnings. In the recent past, we as a society have failed to heed early
warnings; evidence: asbestos, lead in paint, lead in gasoline, PCBs [polychlorinated biphenyls],
phthalates, polybrominated diphenyls, and many pesticides, for example.[12]
Benefit of the doubt: When we're not sure what the effects of our actions will be, we should give
the benefit of the doubt to public health and the environment.
Natural rights: We all have a right to a clean, healthful environment. To avoid breaching this
right, we all have a responsibility to anticipate harm and take steps to avert it.
Responsibility for our behavior: We are all responsible for the consequences of our behavior,
and we all have a responsibility to prevent impending harm. Once we accept the responsibility to
try to prevent harm, then the rest follows: set goals, examine alternatives, consider all information
(which entails democratic participation by affected parties) and choose the least-harmful
alternative.
Precedents: We already have precautionary language and behavior in many of our laws and
practices. Catalog these are organize them into a coherent "environmental code," which can include
assertions about everyone's right to a clean environment, everyone's responsibility to protect the
environment and avert harm, and the need for an anticipatory, precautionary approach to
stewardship.
At the federal level, we have precaution built into the pre-market testing of pharmaceutical
products, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) monitoring program that aims to
identify unexpected reactions to pharmaceutical products. The European Union is trying to
establish pre-market testing as the norm for all industrial chemicals – a proposal known as REACH
(Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals). The European’s have a slogan that
captures the essence of REACH: No data, no market. In other words, if a chemical has not been
thoroughly tested for effects on human health and the environment, it cannot be marketed.
Needless to say, REACH is being opposed bitterly and vociferously by the Bush Administration
and the chemical industry world-wide.
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Decision-making process: Precaution establishes a decision-making process where perhaps there
was none before.
Decision-makers: The precautionary approach redefines the essential question for decisionmakers. It is no longer sufficient to ask, Is it legal? and Is it safe? We must now also ask, Is it
necessary?" [How do we judge what's "necessary"? Can necessity can be tied to goals -- can our
goals define what is "necessary" and what is not. Another way to approach it: If there are
alternatives, then a thing is not "necessary."]
We acknowledge that our world will never be free from risk. However, any risk that is unnecessary
or not freely chosen is not acceptable.
Decision-makers must consider the full range of costs including costs outside the original price.
Three basic questions (to avoid the cause-end-effect stalemate):
1) Is the harm preventable?
2) Can we find less harmful alternatives? (Have we looked?)
3) Do we know enough to act to prevent harm?
Religious: The Earth belongs to God and we have a duty to protect it from harm. In trying to
protect God's creation, we have a duty to try to foresee and forestall harm because if we wait for
proof of harm before acting, harm will occur and we will have failed in our duty. If harm becomes
evident, we have a duty to stop the harmful activity (and to look around and find and stop similarly
harmful activities elsewhere) and to take restorative action.
Economic arguments:
1) As we have seen, publicly-traded corporations are rather severely restricted in what they can do.
Under law, they have a fiduciary duty to return a modest, more-or-less steady profit to investors, so
any goal that conflicts with that duty is, as a matter of law, of secondary importance. This gives
them a powerful incentive to externalize their costs (market failure) -- which puts them in conflict
with the religious and public trust doctrines.
2) Precaution is fundamental to the insurance industry -- anticipating harm and taking steps to
mitigate its effects (partly by sharing the costs, partly by agreeing to avoid risky behavior). Often
requires insured parties to take steps to avert foreseeable harm (install smoke detectors; minimize
the use of radioactive or reactive chemicals; maintain and inspect equipment such as elevators, etc.)
3) Precaution stimulates innovation, creating satisfying and long-term (sustainable) jobs.[19]
4) Waste is evidence of design failure. We pay to produce, process, and dispose of something that
we don't even want. Avoiding waste is precautionary and makes economic sense.
13
Medical: Medical practitioners take precautionary action all the time. They rarely have full
information, but they take action to avert harm, giving the benefit of the doubt to the well being of
their patient. Public health practitioners have taken "primary prevention" as the starting point of
public health work since about 1850.
Media: Reporters (and more importantly editors) should be asking what alternatives were
considered in any unfolding story that has ramifications for public health or the environment. They
can also ask the three basic questions
1) Can anyone find less harmful alternatives? (Has anyone looked?)
2) Is harm preventable?
3) Do we know enough to act to prevent harm?
Academic: How can academic researchers advance a public-interest agenda and promote a
precautionary approach?
Allies (please add to this list)
Those working on military toxics
Public health advocates/practitioners (NACCHO - Nat'l Ass'n of County and City Health Officials)
Medical practitioners (doctors, nurses)
Animal rights activists
Land Use advocates
Traditional conservationists
Toxics activists
Environmental Justice advocates
Survivors of particular diseases
Children's advocates
Democratic labor unions
Green businesses
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NOTES and REFERENCES
[1] Lance Compa, Unfair Advantage: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States Under
International Human Rights Standards (New York: Human Rights Watch, August 2000). ISBN 156432-251-3. Documents that the international rights of working people in the U.S. are routinely
abridged and denied.
[2] K. Steenland and others, "Dying for work: The magnitude of US mortality from selected causes
of death associated with occupation," American Journal of Industrial Medicine Vol. 43, No. 5
(May 2003), pgs. 461-82. J.P. Leigh and others, "Occupational Injury and Illness in the United
States. Estimates of Costs, Morbidity and Mortality," Archives of Internal Medicine Vol. 157, No.
14 (July 28, 1997), pgs. 1557-1568. 44. Associated Press, "Job-Related Illness Cost Put at $171
Billion in '92," New York Times July 28, 1997, pg. A9.
[3] See, for example, Andrew Stirling, On Science and Precaution in the Management of
Technological Risk, Vol. I. A Synthesis Report of Case Studies (Brussels, Belgium: European
Science and Technology Observatory, May, 1999.) Available at
http://esto.jrc.es/detailshort.cfm?ID_report=289
[4] Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel, Economic Apartheid in America (New York: New Press,
2000); revised and corrected data available at
http://www.ufenet.org/research/Economic_Apartheid_Data.html#p55
[5] Erica Goode, "For Good Health, It Helps to be Rich and Important," New York Times June 1,
1999, pgs. D1, D9. See also Rachel's #497, #584, #654 at www.rachel.org.
[6] Robert G. Evans, Morris L. Barer, and Theodore R. Marmor, editors, Why Are Some People
Healthy and Others Not? (Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1994); Richard Wilkinson,
Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality (New York: Routledge, 1997; ISBN:
0415092353); and see the bibliography in D. Raphael, Inequality is Bad for Our Hearts: Why Low
Income and Social Exclusion Are Major causes of healrt Disease in Canada (Toronto: North York
Heart Health Network, 2001). And see, for example: Ana V. Diez Roux and others, "Neighborhood
of Residence and Incidence of Coronary Heart Disease," New England Journal of Medicine Vol.
345, No. 2 (July 12, 2001), pgs. 99-106. And: Michael Marmot, "Inequalities in Health," New
England Journal of Medicine Vol. 345, No. 2 (July 12, 2001), pgs. 134-136. And see the extensive
bibliographies in the following: M. G. Marmot and Richard G. Wilkinson, editors, Social
Determinants of Health (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; ISBN
0192630695); David A. Leon, editor and others, Poverty, Inequality and Health: An International
Perspective (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; ISBN 0192631969); Norman
Daniels and others, Is Inequality Bad for Our Health? (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000; ISBN:
0807004472); Ichiro Kawachi, and others, The Society and Population Health Reader Volume I:
Income Inequality and Health (New York: New Press, 1999; ISBN: 1565845714); Alvin R. Tarlov,
editor, The Society and Population Health Reader, Volume 2: A State Perspective (New York: New
Press, 2000; ISBN 1565845579).
15
[7] Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh, Top 200; The Rise of Corporate Global Power
(Washington, D.C.: Institute for Policy Studies, Dec. 4, 2000. Available at:
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=147
[8] For a modest proposal for corporate reform, see Robert Hinkley, "Twenty Eight Words to
Redefine Corporate Duties," Multinational Monitor Vol. 23, Nos. 7 and 8 (July/August 2002);
available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=237 . And be sure to see The Model
Uniform Code for Corporate Citizenship, available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=236 .
[9] See http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/ and
http://www.celdf.org/scm/ord/ord12.asp
[10] Peter Manus, "To a Candidate in Search of an Environmental Theme: Promote the Public
trust," Stanford Environmental Law Journal Vol. 19 (May 2000), pg. 315 and following pages.
Available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=234
[11] James T. Paul, "The Public Trust Doctrine: Who Has the Burden of Proof?" Paper presented
July, 1996 in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a meeting of the Western Association of Wildlife and Fisheries
Administrators. Available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=190
[11a] Article 15 of the Rio Declaration (1992) contains an early statement of the precautionary
principle and can be found here: http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=201
The Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle (1998) can be found here:
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=189 and
[12] Poul Harremoes and others, Late lessons from early warnings: the precautionary principle
1896-2000 [Environmental Issue Report No. 22] (Copenhagen, Denmark: European Environment
Agency, 2001). This report is available free at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=301 .
[13] Rising rates of many kinds of diseases were documented in Rachel's #417, available at
http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/index.cfm?issue_ID=708 .
[14] Larry D. Edmonds and others, "Temporal Trends in the Prevalence of Congenital
Malformations at Birth Based on the Birth Defects Monitoring Program, United States, 19791987," MMWR [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report] CDC SURVEILLANCE SUMMARIES
Vol. 39, No. SS-4 (December 1990), pg. 22.
[15] Catherine Hoffman and others, "Persons With Chronic Conditions," Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA) Vol. 276, No. 18 (November 13, 1996), pgs. 1473-1479. The data
describe the non-institutionalized population.
[16] Peter M. Vitousek, and others. "Human Appropriation of the Products of Photosynthesis,"
Bioscience Vol. 36 No. 6 (June, 1986), pgs. 368-373. Available at:
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=376
16
For additional evidence supporting the "full world" hypothesis, see Peter M. Vitousek and others,
"Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems," Science Vol. 277 (July 25, 1997), pgs. 494-499;
available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=200 . And see Jane Lubchenco, "Entering
the Century of the Environment: A New Social Contract for Science," Science Vol. 279 (Jan. 23,
1998), pgs. 491-497, available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=203
[17] David Pimentel and others, "Environmental and Economic Costs of Soil Erosion and
Conservation Benefits," Science, Vol. 267, No. 5201. (Feb. 24, 1995), pp. 1117-1123, available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=381
[18] Stuart L. Pimm and others, "The Future of Biodiversity," Science Vol. 269 (July 21, 1995),
pgs. 347-350, available at http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=382
[19] Frank Ackerman and Rachel Massey, Prospering With Precaution. This short report,
published during 2002 by the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University,
argues that precautionary policies promote industrial innovation and create jobs. Available at
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=218
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