Precautionary Action

1
Precautionary Action to Take Back America from
the Corporate Polluters
2
Welcome to historic Greensboro --- An
auspicious location for a movement gathering
3
The activist phase of the modern civil rights
movement began here in 1960 when four Black
students from North Carolina AT University sat
in at the lunch counter at Woolworth's.
4
Four tumultuous years later, Congress passed the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
5
Today the Mayor of Greensboro is a Black woman,
Yvonne Johnson. Mayor Johnson was elected with
a 57 majority in a city that is 37 Black.
6
Progress really is possible.
7
Yes, a better world really is possible. And the
people who are making it happen are here in this
room today.
8
BREDL and the activist network in this room today
are a mighty engine for change. And it is a
privilege for me to be here with you today.
9
I want to begin by honoring those who came
before us and who built the road that we are
traveling today.
10
We can honor many whose names we know, and many
whose names we do not know, who struggled all
their lives for dignity, freedom, and justice so
that we could arrive here today to take some next
steps.
11
What's it going to take to win? 1. Know why
we're doing what we're doing 2. Understand our
adversaries and undermine their base of power
12
3. Rebuild the economy on a sustainable basis,
creating millions of "green collar" jobs
13
4. To accomplish this, we can continue to build
a powerful multi-racial, multi-ethnic, movement
for change
14
5. But to succeed, we will need to make
decisions in a new way Precautionary Action
15
Point 1 Let's be clear why we are doing this
work
16
We should all have a little rap explaining to our
brother-in-law, our pastor, our co-worker...
what's wrong why it matters what needs to
be done about it.
17
So heres my rap Cancers are increasing in
children
18
Among adults, one out of every 2 men and 4 out
every 10 women will get cancer some time during
their lives
19
50 of men will get cancer sometime during their
lives, and 40 of women
20
There is an asthma epidemic among our children
21
There is an epidemic of attention deficits and
hyperactivity among our children
22
There is an epidemic of diabetes in the
U.S, especially among young people
23
Global warming is upon us, creating more, and
more intense, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts,
and floods
24
Family farms have been destroyed, replaced by
corporate agriculture
25
Wages have stagnated since 1970
26
The gap between the super-rich and everyone else
has grown enormously in the last 30 years, and
this has damaged our democracy. Money talks and
money votes.
27
The U.S. today is controlled by Big Money Two
percent of Americans own 50 of
everything. These are the "corporate elite."
28
In 2004, Congress and the President spent a total
of 3.9 billion getting elected. You don't raise
that kind of money from bake sales. The
corporate elite provides the bulk of those funds.
29
There are 535 legislators in Washington, but
there are 35,000 lobbyists Thats 65 lobbyists
for every member of Congress
30
Lobbyists use every trick in the book, including
legal bribery (campaign contributions) to buy
votes. And they succeed.
31
The corporate elite and their lobbyists decide
the Big Questions, such as What kind of
public education system will we have? What
topics are suitable for public debate?
32
The corporate elite decide Will we have war
or peace? Will we move to renewable
energy? Who can run for office?
33
Point 2 We need to undermine their base of
support
34
Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with
being wealthy. Most of us would love to be
wealthy. But in a democracy, wealth is not
supposed to translate directly into political
power.
35
Its supposed to be one person, one vote NOT
one dollar, one vote
36
We need to ELIMINATE private money from our
elections
37
This would give ordinary people a fair chance of
getting elected and it would ELIMINATE the money
power of the lobbyists in Washington
38
This is the reform that would make all
other reforms possible
39
Point 3 Rebuild the economy The world is awash
in good new ideas
40
green chemistry green building new urban
designs and re-designs new forms of
transportation renewable energy new kinds
of sustainable production
41
cradle-to-cradle design zero waste
manufacturing
42
Many of these advances promise to create large
numbers of jobs, rebuilding the decaying
infrastructure of the nation (bridges, water
supply systems, air traffic control, electrical
grids, and so on)
43
Making our cities energy-efficient and developing
new, green technologies could make America a
world industrial leader again
44
But we can't get to those good new ideas without
major investment by the public sector
45
Public investment has always been the basis of
innovation and progress in the U.S.
46
railroads airlines the petroleum-based
economy the interstate highway system (and
state roads)
47
microprocessors the internet
pharmaceutical products most medical
advances All results of public investment
48
What is standing in the way? Dinosaur
corporations, profiting handsomely from old,
wasteful and destructive ways of doing business
49
coal mining oil nuclear power
petro-chemicals pharmaceuticals
50
More dinosaurs automobile companies
corporate agriculture the garbage industry
51
These industries are committed to an old formula
for succeeding in business, which worked for a
long time haste waste profit
52
It is the commitment to wasteful ways that gives
us long-lived radioactive residues, sewage sludge
dumped onto farmland, and megafills that, once
built, must be fed endless waste for 50 years.
53
And it is these same industries that are standing
in the way, preventing the world from entering
the new age of sustainable production.
54
And this is why your work against waste is
crucially important these dinosaurs must be
exposed and opposed so that the new world of
sustainable production can be born
55
So long as cheap, dirty waste disposal is
available, the new technologies will remain on
the shelf Cheap waste disposal is a taxpayer
subsidy that allows dirty, harmful, dinosaur
industries to survive.
56
Megafills, sewage sludge put on the land,
radioactive waste put into landfills or put into
the recycling stream -- these are all part of the
same problem
57
Point 4 We need to continue to build a
multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-issue movement
for change Some of our friends seem to have
forgotten the basic truth about social
change Social change always requires a FIGHT
for JUSTICE.
58
As Frederick Douglass told us... "Power concedes
nothing without a demand. It never did and it
never will."
59
And he told us "If there is no struggle, there
is no progress. Those who profess to favor
freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who
want crops without plowing up the ground, they
want rain without thunder and lightning."
60
Recall how progress has occurred in the past
The movement to abolish slavery The movement
to gain the right to vote for women
61
The movement to gain equal pay for equal
work The movement for the eight-hour work
day, the 5-day work week, the right to form and
join a union The movement to end child labor
62
The movement to eliminate Jim Crow laws
The movement to end the war in Vietnam All
required a fight for justice
63
The Modern Phase of the Fight The movement to
protect people against chemical trespass is
a movement to understand and eliminate white
privilege, and class privilege, to assure
environmental justice for all
64
is a movement to control excessive corporate
power is a movement to rebuild the U.S.
economy on the basis of sustainable production,
green jobs, independent family farms, using
renewable sources of energy
65
is a movement to achieve zero waste is
a movement to make sure people have a say in the
decisions that affect their lives, restoring
democracy
66
... is a movement to take precautionary action
67
Point 5 None of this will work if we dont
begin to make decisions in a new
way Precautionary Action
68
How does Precautionary Action differ from the
present system?
69
The present way of doing business 1. Requires
definite proof of harm for each hazard before
taking preventive action 2. Places the burden on
the public (or government agencies) to show that
each chemical, material, or technology is harmful
70
3. Does not consider potential health and
environmental impacts when designing new
materials and technologies 4. Discourages public
participation in decision-making about control of
hazards and introduction of new technologies
71
Let's run through that again, so we know what
we're up against Under the present way of doing
business
72
1. Anyone is free to introduce a new hazard into
the environment 2. Governments must wait until
an overwhelming body of evidence is accumulated
before they will intervene
73
3. Each new regulatory action is challenged by
the dinosaur polluters, for the purpose of
slowing down or stopping public oversight of
production and distribution of technologies and
chemicals and wastes
74
4. We have witnessed delays in regulating a long
list of hazards whose risks were clear long
before effective action was taken to control
them many pesticides, toxic lead, asbestos,
benzene, dioxins, PCBs, the chemicals that make
plastic soft (phthalates), many flame retarding
chemicals, the list goes on...
75
The four main ideas in the Precautionary
Principle 1. taking preventive action in the
face of uncertainty 2. shifting the burden of
proof to the proponents of an activity
76
3. exploring a wide range of alternatives to
possibly harmful actions 4. increasing public
participation in decision-making.
77
You may hear that the precautionary principle is
vague, that there are many ways to define it.
This not true. In EVERY definition of the
precautionary principle, there are three common
elements
78
1. When we have reasonable suspicion that harm is
occurring or may occur 2. and we have scientific
uncertainty 3. then we all have a duty to act to
prevent harm.
79
The precautionary principle does not tell us what
action to take But advocates for the principle
have suggested the following...
80
Eight kinds of precautionary action we can
take 1. Set goals (dream, then plan) 2. Monitor
(pay attention -- no sleep-walking) 3. Heed
early warnings (be prepared to act on results of
monitoring)
81
4. Consider all the evidence (no cherry-picking
data, no ignoring inconvenient facts) 5. Engage
the affected people in decisions really engage
them
82
6. Evaluate all reasonable alternatives and
choose the best alternative for achieving the
goal 7. Give the benefit of the doubt to nature
and to public health (reverse the burden of
proof). It is not up to the public to prove
harm.
83
8. Monitor (pay attention no sleep-walking).
84
Put simply, the precautionary principle seeks to
avoid unintended consequences of particular
actions. Precaution is not anti-science. Rather
than "overriding" science and data, this
principle explicitly acknowledges the central
role of scientific data in decision-making.
85
We all use this principle every day in our own
lives. For instance, we may grow our own food,
or buy organically grown food, because of the
risk from pesticides.
86
Even though we don't know everything there is to
know about pesticides and our health, we take
precautionary action (buy organically grown food)
to avoid unintended consequences (getting cancer
or other diseases).
87
Where did the precautionary principle come
from?
88
Precaution grew out of grass-roots activists
identifying problems -- chemical dumps and
Superfund sites, polluted wells, polluted
rivers, fish too toxic to eat, leaking landfills,
radioactive waste, pesticide poisonings, sludge
dumped on land, toxic dumps placed in poor
communities and communities of color
89
Precaution came from activists opposing
risk-based decisions. Risk assessment asks, How
much harm is acceptable? Precautionary action
asks, How much harm is avoidable?
90
Precaution developed in response to big mistakes
of the past -- lead in gasoline and in paint
pesticides destruction of the ozone layer,
global warming... We are wrecking the planet as
a plane suitable for humans and we must make
decisions in a new way
91
Precaution comes directly from the central
principle of public health primary
prevention Precaution derives from the guiding
principle of clinical medicine first do no harm
92
Precaution comes from the German vorsorgeprinzip
the principle of foresight or forecaring The
European Union adopted the precautionary
principle in its founding document (The
Maastricht Treaty of 1990)
93
Precaution comes directly from your
grandmother better safe than sorry look
before you leap a stitch in time saves nine
94
How is the precautionary principle being used?
95
Many cities and a few states now take a
precautionary approach to pest management in
schools, playgrounds, parks, and public
buildings. They have passed laws and regulations
specifying that chemicals will be used only as a
last resort, after all other alternatives have
been tried.
96
Many cities in Canada have passed ordinances
prohibiting the use of pesticides on lawns for
cosmetic purposes.
97
The Supreme Court of Hawaii has ruled that the
state must manage Hawaii's water resources using
the precautionary principle, aiming to avoid harm
to the resource, which the state holds in trust
for present and future generations of Hawaiians.
98
Many nations (and a few states in the U.S.) have
adopted a precautionary approach to the
management of fisheries, to avoid harm from
overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution.
99
The City and County of San Francisco have adopted
precaution as overarching governmental policy,
guiding all their decisions
100
Several towns in rural Pennsylvania have taken a
precautionary approach to local public health and
corporate power they have passed local laws
prohibiting corporations from farming, mining,
and putting sewage sludge on land, among other
things.
101
So there you have it The precautionary
principle is a new way of making decisions for a
new time
102
The old way of doing business has reached a dead
end People are sick, especially children, and
dinosaur technologies are wrecking the planet as
a place suitable for humans
103
Precaution tells us to take action to prevent
environmental injustices before they develop,
because fixing these problems after they develop
is painful and can take several lifetimes
104
These days, when it sometimes seems as if the
future itself is endangered, precaution offers us
a way forward.
105
Precaution offers us hope.