BE SAFE Campaign for Precaution, July 26, 2006

CREATING A VISION OF A DESIRABLE FUTURE -- TOWARD TOMORROW

[Rachel's introduction: The Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, has a new project and web site to help us all create a common agenda for getting to the kind of world we want. It's called Toward Tomorrow.]

By Anne Rabe

Toward Tomorrow -- Creating A Vision Of A Sustainable Future

This is an exciting new project from Lowell Center for Sustainable Production. For many years in the U.S., scientists, advocates, and policymakers have largely reacted to immediate health and ecosystem threats without a clear vision or corresponding set of future goals. As a result, the debate about links between health and environment have focused on which materials and substances cause which problems, rather than a discussion about what kind of world we want to live in and how we want to get there. This failure to articulate a vision has contributed to perceptions that the environmental and health movements are thoughtlessly oppositional, and impede technological and economic development.

The overall purpose of Toward Tomorrow is to provide inspiration and tools that enable a wide range of organizations to envision a sustainable future and take effective steps towards it.

The initiative seeks to develop an agenda for action on health and the environment by bringing together leaders and scholars from diverse fields. We aim to identify goals that will guide the next generation as they address the complex linkages between human and ecosystem health: linkages critical for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of global health threats. Toward Tomorrow is predicated on the belief that scientists, government officials, and community, health, environment and business leaders can find common cause in recognizing human consumption and production as sources of both problems and solutions. For more information, visit www.towardtomorrow.org.