Rachel's Precaution Reporter #99
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
From: The Age (Sydney, Australia) .........................[This story printer-friendly]
July 18, 2007
GLOBAL WARMING NOW WORLD'S MOST BORING TOPIC: REPORT
[Rachel's introduction: Global warming has been identified as the topic most likely to prompt people into feigning heart attacks so as to avoid hearing the phrases "procrastination penalty", "precautionary principle" and "peer-reviewed analysis" ever again.]
Global warming and the debate over whether man-made carbon gas emissions are having a detrimental influence on climate change has been ranked as the most boring topic of conversation on earth, according to a new report.
The issue of global warming far out-performed other contenders for the title, such as the production of goat cheese, the musical genius of the artist formerly known as P Diddy and media speculation over the likely outcome of the upcoming federal election.
These topics still tracked strongly, according to the report, but global warming was identified as the topic most likely to prompt people into feigning heart attacks so as to avoid hearing the phrases "procrastination penalty", "precautionary principle" and "peer- reviewed analysis" ever again.
The study, conducted by a non-partisan think tank located somewhere between the small township of Tibooburra and the NSW border, identified global warming as the current topic of choice for people who want their dinner party to finish early.
According to the parents in the survey, global warming has now replaced the traditional bedtime story when it comes to putting children to sleep. The study found the topic was also being used instead of water cannon by riot police around the world to disperse crowds.
In a key finding, the survey revealed that the amount of damaging carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of discussing the global warming issue now exceeds the greenhouse gas emissions of northern China.
The survey also raised a number of important issues regarding the global warming debate.
Of those surveyed, 83 per cent said that while they understood both sides of the issue, they did not understand Al Gore.
Participants in the study were asked whether Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth had helped enlighten people to the importance of the global warming issue.
The standard response was that if the issue of global warming is as important and urgent to Gore as he keeps saying every time he is on Letterman, then why didn't he make the movie during the eight years he was vice-president of the United States, the second most powerful position in the world? Why did he wait until his political career was dead?
The issue was also raised as to why Gore personally came out to promote his film in Australia -- a relatively insignificant market - and then make a big deal about all the carbon off-setting he had done to counter the pollution his trip had generated. Over 95 per cent of those who took part in the survey wanted to know why he didn't just do it all from his house via satellite.
Other key findings of the survey were:
* 89 per cent wanted to know how it was possible for humans to control the climate, given that they have enough trouble forecasting it;
* 96 per cent believe those who use the term "climate change denial" are attempting to equate it with "Holocaust denial";
* 100 per cent of these respondents also believe such people should receive lengthy prison terms for crimes against the English language;
* 79 per cent of the bands that took part in the Live Earth event did so because they feared the planet would be destroyed by global warming before they had a chance to receive free worldwide television exposure;
* 87 per cent only tuned in to watch the lead singer from Sneaky Sound System, who is hot;
* 92 per cent of those same people watched her on mute because they didn't want to hear that song again;
Of all the issues raised in the survey, most common was whether the global warming debate was all just an elaborate ruse designed to sell stuff.
The study highlighted how those who subscribe to the prophecy of global warming automatically commit themselves to purchasing a vast array of expensive products, whereas sceptics don't have to buy anything to support their point of view.
Over 98 per cent of people surveyed also predicted that the standard response from global warming proponents to that last statement would be: "yeah, it won't cost anything -- except the future of your planet".
To obtain a copy of the full results of this survey please send $120 to this office. Cash only, please. No student concessions available.
Copyright 2007. The Age Company Ltd.
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From: Washington Times (pg. A15) .........................[This story printer-friendly]
June 25, 1997
PRECAUTIONARY RISKMONGERS
[Rachel's introduction: This early attack on the precautionary principle appeared in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's newspaper, the Washington [D.C.] Times, in 1997, long before the Wingspread statement on the precautionary principle had been written. This article set the pattern for all later attacks on precaution: it distorts and misrepresents precaution, then attacks its own distortions and misrepresentations as if they were the real thing. The old "straw man" tactic. We have never seen a single attack on precaution that did not rely on this tactic.]
By Marlo Lewis, Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Precautionary Principle -- the proposition that new technologies or products should not be permitted until we know they won't endanger health, safety, or biodiversity -- is central to the modern environmentalist vision and underlies most Nanny-State regulation. Indeed, for environmentalists, precaution has become a categorical imperative. Thou shalt not tolerate even the risk of a risk. A good illustration of the Precautionary Principle at work is Superfund, the government's toxic waste cleanup program. Although you are more likely to be struck by a falling airplane than be harmed by an abandoned toxic waste site (there is no documented case of anyone dying from groundwater contamination caused by a Superfund site); and although public health could often be protected by inexpensive measures (such as surrounding a dump with a chain link fence and a warning sign), the EPA routinely commands businesses and municipalities to spend millions cleansing the soil to pristine cond! itions. Imbued with precautionary zeal, EPA proudly compels Americans to pay any price, bear any burden, to eliminate the risk of a risk.
Had this risk-averse mentality held sway since ancient times, men would never have brought fire into their huts and caves, domesticated wild animals, plowed and mined the earth, founded cities, crossed the seas, unlocked the secrets of electricity and the atom, or developed open-heart surgery. Every technology extending man's dominion over nature has been a two-edged sword, creating some risks in the process of reducing and eliminating others. On balance, the benefits have outweighed the risks; technological innovation has made the world a safer place.
But to precautionary zealots, such risk-benefit comparisons are irrelevant. All that matters is whether a substance or technology may do harm. If the risk of harm cannot be ruled out, then the risky product or activity should not be permitted, period. Since no invention is risk-free (aspirin is deadly to some people, for example), the Precautionary Principle is a recipe for technological stagnation -- perhaps the most perilous condition of all. Nonetheless, better safe than sorry easily persuades a public unversed in the hazards of overcaution.
In the great climate change debate, the precautionary imperative has become the greenhouse lobby's trump card. Science does not support predictions of a global warming catastrophe. The Earth seems to have warmed half a degree since 1880, but most of this temperature rise occurred before 1940 -- before the largest increase in greenhouse (heat-trapping) emissions; the effect preceded the cause. Moreover, satellite and weather balloon observations over the past 18 years reveal no warming at all, but rather a slight cooling. Finally, a modest warming that occurs mostly in winter and at night (which many scientists consider the most probable scenario) would benefit mankind, producing milder weather and longer growing seasons.
Finding science an unreliable ally, eco-apocalysts resort to precautionary rhetoric. Since industrial civilization could be warming the planet, and global warming might accelerate dangerously in the next century, we should take no chances. Curbing energy use to reduce emissions may be expensive, but what is money compared to the lives that might otherwise be lost?
The fatal flaw in this argument -- as in environmental advocacy generally -- is its complete one-sidedness. Environmentalists demand assurances of no harm only with respect to actions that government might regulate, never with respect to government regulation itself. But government intervention frequently boomerangs, creating the very risks precautionists deem intolerable.
Examples abound. Federal fuel-economy mandates force automakers to produce smaller, lighter, less crash-resistant cars, causing thousands of highway deaths per year. FDA regulations delay the availability of life-saving therapies, killing tens of thousands over the past decade. Banning DDT revived malaria epidemics in the Third World, afflicting 2.5 million people in Sri Lanka alone.
Frank Cross of the University of Texas at Austin notes that regulation can kill just by misdirecting resources and destroying wealth. Resources available to protect public health and safety are limited. Regulatory schemes that divert attention, effort, and money from major threats to minor risks make us less safe. For example, the millions local governments waste on gold-plated Superfund cleanups cannot be used to improve police and fire protection.
Even more important is the fact that, for individuals as well as nations, wealthier is healthier and richer is safer. Precautionists ignore the obvious connection between livelihood and life -- as if jobs and income were not the chief safety net for most of the world's people. Even in relatively wealthy countries like the United States, studies indicate that every $5 million to $10 million drop in economic output translates into one statistical death.
So how can greenhouse alarmists be sure their anti-energy policies won't destroy millions of jobs, and that the economic hardship won't cause the death of even one child? They can't. And how can they know spending trillions on global warming won't impair our ability to survive other possible calamities (another ice age, a new viral plague, a meteor encounter)? Again, they can't.
The Precautionary Principle says we should not go upsetting apple carts until we're sure nobody will get hurt. Since draconian energy restrictions would jeopardize health and safety, the Precautionary Principle cannot justify such measures. Indeed, far from mandating drastic action to avert a greenhouse crisis that may never materialize in any event, the Precautionary Principle forbids us to adopt risky climate change policies.
For far too long, environmentalists have gotten away with precautionary deception. In the global warming debate, they admonish us not to gamble with the planet. Yet they are more than willing to gamble with industrial civilization. They cannot logically have it both ways.
Of course, environmentalists may allege (despite strong evidence to the contrary) that the risks of climate change exceed the risks of climate change policy. But if they do so, they can no longer pretend that slogans like "err on the side of caution" settle the argument; they can no longer posture as defenders of a categorical imperative. They will have to make their case on prudential and empirical grounds, weighing and balancing one set of risks against another. Which means, they'll have to fight on unfamiliar terrain.
Marlo Lewis Jr. is vice president for policy of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Copyright 1997 News World Communications Inc.
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From: Reuters Africa ......................................[This story printer-friendly]
July 4, 2007
U.N. TOLD TO OVERHAUL CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY PACT
[Rachel's introduction: In early July, non-governmental organizations urged the United Nations to strengthen its voluntary "global compact," which says transnational corporations should "support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges."]
GENEVA, July 4 (Reuters) -- Human rights and environmental activists urged the United Nations on Wednesday to overhaul its seven-year-old initiative on business responsibility, saying it needed teeth to spur companies to improve their practices.
Amnesty International, Greenpeace and ActionAid, speaking ahead of a summit of the U.N. Global Compact expected to draw more than 1,000 executives and officials to Geneva, said that voluntary rules had done little to improve companies' practices.
They said the United Nations should monitor adherence to the Global Compact's 10 principles, such as pledges to abolish child labour and work against corruption, and sanction signatory companies who are not upholding them.
"What is needed are legally binding regulations to control corporate activities with respect to human rights," Aftab Alam Khan of ActionAid told journalists in Geneva.
The Global Compact was created in 2000 as a counterweight to anti- globalisation protests, such as those that disrupted the 1999 World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle.
More than 3,000 businesses have signed onto the initiative, which has no enforcement mechanism beyond public scrutiny and the requirement for participants to report annually on their progress in meeting the 10 principles.
Greenpeace International advisor Daniel Mittler said many of the initiative's guidelines were so ambiguous that companies did not need to make any changes to their policies, citing as an example Principle 7 that reads: "Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges."
"The principles are vague and they are not enforced," he said. "The Global Compact is simply not delivering."
Executives from Coca-Cola Co. , Ericsson and Anglo- American are among those participating in the two-day conference in Geneva which will open on Thursday with an address from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
While Global Compact Executive Director Georg Kell has said some 600 firms have been delisted in past years for failing to deliver real changes, Amnesty International said such companies were dropped for "technical reasons", such as not filing reports on time, and not for their performance on substantive issues.
"It is not possible to either suspend or expel participating companies in cases of substantive breach of the Global Compact's principles," Audrey Gaughran, Amnesty International's head of economic relations, told journalists in Geneva.
"The Global Compact must find ways to strengthen how companies are held to account for non-compliance with its principles," she said.
In a survey of 391 chief executives of firms participating in the Global Compact, released this week by the consultancy McKinsey & Co., 59 percent said they were incorporating environmental, social and governance issues into their core strategy "much more" now than five years ago.
Another 34 percent said they were doing so "somewhat more" and 7 percent said they were integrating the issues the same amount or less than in 2002.
Copyright Reuters 2007
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From: Ag-IP-news ..........................................[This story printer-friendly]
July 10, 2007
BUSINESS LEADERS ADOPT GENEVA DECLARATION ON RESPONSIBLE PRACTICES
[Rachel's introduction: On July 9, hundreds of transnational corporations pledged to adopt a precautionary approach -- voluntarily, of course.]
GENEVA -- The second UN Global Compact Leaders Summit concluded on Friday with a pledge by hundreds of business leaders from developed and developing countries to comply with labor, human rights, environmental and anti-corruption standards.
"Over these two days, it has been heartening to see such a prominent group of leaders from business, Government, civil society, labor, academia and the United Nations, display such a deep and broad commitment to the principles of the Global Compact," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in his closing speech.
"I am encouraged by your willingness to share and openly discuss actions, experiences and challenges. Working together across sectors in this way to address the most pressing issues facing business and society is the hallmark of the Global Compact," he added.
Top executives of corporations such as Coca-Cola, Petrobras, Fuji Xerox, China Ocean Shipping Group, Tata Steel, L M Ericsson and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria adopted the 21-point Geneva Declaration.
Delivered by UN Global Compact Vice Chair Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, the Declaration stressed that "It is unprecedented in history to have the objectives of the international community and the global business community so aligned. Common goals, such as building sustainable markets, combating corruption, safeguarding human rights and protecting the environment, are resulting in new levels of partnership and openness among business, civil society, labor, governments, the United Nations, and other stakeholders."
The Declaration spells out concrete actions for business in society, governments and UN Global Compact participants.
Some 4,000 organizations from 116 countries -- among them trade unions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and about 3,100 businesses -- have so far subscribed to the Global Compact, pledging to observe ten universal principles related to human rights, labor rights, the environment and the fight against corruption.
Addressing the business sector, Abu-Ghazaleh said "Your support will exemplify your own commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)."
"It will advance its principles and goals, will provide a concrete principle-based approach to CSR, will contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable economy, and will demonstrate your championship for the fundamental goals the United Nations," he further noted.
The Global Compact asks companies to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set of core values in these areas, these principles are:
In human rights: Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.
While in labor standards: Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor; Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labor; and Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
In environment: Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges; Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.
Finally in anti-corruption: Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.
A Ministerial Roundtable chaired by General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed al Khalifa discussed the role of governments in promoting responsible corporate citizenship. Six parallel sessions focused on human rights, labor, climate change and the environment, UN-business partnerships, corruption and responsible investment were held.
Global as well as local initiatives were launched at the Summit. Through the "Caring for Climate" platform, Chief executive officers (CEOs) of 150 companies from around the world, including 30 from the Fortune Global 500, pledged to speed up action on climate change and called on governments to agree as soon as possible on Kyoto follow-up measures to secure workable and inclusive climate market mechanisms.
The CEOs of six corporations -- The Coca-Cola Company, Levi Strauss & Co., Läckeby Water Group, Nestle S.A., SABMiller and Suez -- urged their business peers everywhere to take immediate action to address the global water crisis. They launched the "CEO Water Mandate," a project designed to help companies to better manage water use in their operations and throughout their supply chains.
Also launched at the Summit, the "Principles for Responsible Investment" seek to disseminate the tenets of corporate citizenship among capital markets. The "Principles for Responsible Management Education" aim to take the case for universal values and business into business schools around the world.
Over 1,000 people registered for the Summit -- most from companies, but also from government entities, international organizations, international business organizations, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academia, foundations and international labor organizations.
The first Global Compact Leaders Summit took place in New York in 2004, and the next is scheduled for 2010.
Copyright 2006 ag-IP-news
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From: Reuters Africa ......................................[This story printer-friendly]
July 5, 2007
TOP EXECUTIVES SEEK TO BOLSTER UN BUSINESS PACT
[Rachel's introduction: Executives of transnational corporation say the United Nations Global Compact provides needed rules governing corruption and environmental protection, tacitly acknowledging that corporations cannot do these things themselves.]
GENEVA (Reuters) -- Top executives from some of the world's biggest companies sought on Thursday to bolster a U.N. corporate responsibility pact, saying their firms would benefit from stricter rules on corruption and the environment.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon backed calls from the heads of Coca-Cola, Anglo American and Petrobras for more checks and balances to ensure members of the seven-year-old Global Compact uphold its standards.
Ban, who took over as United Nations chief in January, said firms who signed up to the voluntary initiative must present their records on human rights, labour practices, corruption and the environment for scrutiny each year.
"We are going to strengthen this accountability and transparency," he told a news conference in Geneva, where 1,100 business and government leaders were meeting to review the Global Compact's effectiveness.
About 3,000 companies from 116 countries are members of the Global Compact, created in 2000 as a counterweight to discontent over the effects of globalisation. It requires firms to follow 10 principles, including pledges to abolish child labour and to work against corruption, extortion and bribery.
Human rights and environmental activists say the initiative has brought little change in company practices because of the United Nations' failure to monitor adherence to the principles, some of which are vague.
Principle 7, for instance, simply asks signatories to "support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges".
Executives meeting in Geneva noted the Global Compact had revoked the membership of hundreds of companies that failed to report on their corporate governance performance as required.
"The good news is that the number of signatories is increasing (and) the quality is also increasing, because of the delistings," Anglo American chairman Mark Moody-Stuart told Reuters on the sidelines of the summit.
Jose Sergio Gabrielli, chief executive of Brazil's state-run petroleum company Petrobras, said he supported a shift toward closer monitoring of companies' commitments under the initiative to ensure its legitimacy.
Copyright Reuters 2007
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From: Interpress News Service ............................[This story printer-friendly]
July 6, 2007
UN: GLOBAL COMPACT WITH BUSINESS 'LACKS TEETH' -- NGOS
[Rachel's introduction: Critics say the United Nations' Global Compact is so voluntary that it really is nothing more than "a happy- go-lucky club."]
By Gustavo Capdevila, Inter Press News Service (IPS)
The U.N.'s Global Compact with international big business "at the moment is so voluntary that it really is a happy-go-lucky club," says Ramesh Singh, chief executive of ActionAid, a non-governmental organisation.
The international initiative, proposed by the United Nations to bring companies together with U.N. agencies, labour and civil society to support universal environmental and social principles and take action to overcome the social and environmental challenges posed by globalisation, has no binding power and hence no teeth, Singh told IPS.
ActionAid and other civil society organisations of global stature, such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International (AI) and the Swiss-based Berne Declaration, fired their criticism at the Global Compact's weakest flank, which is its total lack of legal enforceability.
The environmental organisation Greenpeace believes that "voluntary action, though welcome, can never be a substitute for much-needed government regulation," said Daniel Mittler, Corporate Accountability Adviser at Greenpeace International.
"Greenpeace is therefore opposed to the U.N. Global Compact," he said.
Jean Ziegler, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food, went even further. He is particularly interested in this subject because of the laxity of standards for prosecuting human rights violations committed by transnational corporations.
"I think that we have to fight the Global Compact, not only criticise it, because it is a public relations operation of the big multinational companies," Ziegler told IPS.
"The 500 biggest multinational companies controlled last year 52 percent of the gross world product," the Swiss academic said.
The controversy has come to a boiling point because of the Global Compact Leaders' Summit being held in Geneva on Thursday and Friday, at which over 1,000 representatives of multinational companies are taking part, in addition to well-known civil society figures like Irene Khan, the secretary general of AI; Mary Robinson, president of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative; Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation; and Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International.
The U.N. said that the Summit would, above all, focus on "building the markets of tomorrow." Participants are addressing a range of core issues at the interface between business and society, such as climate change, human rights, corruption and access to finance and capital, the U.N. said.
The Global Compact initiative was launched on Jan. 31, 1999 by Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the U.N., in an address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"In the presence of the most powerful chiefs of companies, the Global Compact was launched under pressure from the Americans (the United States)," Ziegler told IPS, adding that "Annan is a very nice and decent man."
The Compact challenges corporations to adhere to 10 principles of corporate responsibility: firstly, to support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, and to ensure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.
On the labour front, they should uphold the freedom of association and effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining. They should also eliminate all forms of forced labour and effectively abolish child labour, as well as eliminate discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
With regard to the environment, businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges. They should undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility, and encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.
The problem of corruption, originally completely forgotten by companies and the U.N., was added belatedly as the 10th principle, which states that businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.
Although critical of the Global Compact because of the lack of an enforcement mechanism to make it compulsory, the head of Economic Relations at AI, Audrey Gaughran, said that "such initiatives have a role to play, in particular as forums for learning."
"Some companies are learning" what the 10 principles and human rights mean in business. "We are seeing a definitive advance," she said.
"However, we must be careful that we understand the role of voluntary approaches to business and human rights, including their limitations and their weaknesses," Gaughran said.
Greenpeace's Mittler took the view that it is not the U.N.'s role to organise business round tables. "It is the job of the United Nations to set binding international standards and ensure that these can be, and are, enforced," he said.
"The world needs action and binding global codes for corporate behaviour," he added. "The Global Compact is not delivering."
Mittler pointed out that an analysis by McKinsey & Co., a management consultancy firm, "showed that only in 10 percent of cases was there any evidence of companies doing something that they would otherwise not have done as a result of being a member of the Global Compact."
Oliver Classen, media officer for The Berne Declaration, one of Switzerland's oldest non-governmental organisations, called on U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to "fundamentally rethink the 'accord' with big business."
Mittler, in turn, asked Ban "to disassociate himself from 'greenwashing' by the coal and nuclear industries through the Global Compact."
"The UN's Global Compact is been a mockery because several companies violating human rights have been free to join and remain in the Global Compact, (thus) benefitting from an association with the UN," said Aftab Alam Khan, ActionAid's head of trade.
Ziegler described the Global Compact as "a gentlemen's agreement" which allows transnational corporations that sign up to the 10 principles to "put the U.N. logo" on their letterhead. The Swiss corporation Nestle, for example, uses it to get away with violations of the code on maternal breastfeeding in its marketing strategy for infant food products, he said.
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From: The Daily Green .....................................[This story printer-friendly]
July 18, 2007
PARENTS: PESTICIDE SPRAYING CAUSED "HEARTBREAKING" HARM
[Rachel's introduction: Two families in Indiana describe what happened to their young children when pesticides were sprayed in their homes.]
In a story that underscores just how dangerous chemical pesticides can be, two families in Indiana say their lives were forever altered after chemicals were used in their homes. In 1994, New Albany toddler Christie Ebling was an active, bright-eyed girl according to her parents. But she has spent the years since severely hindered by thousands of seizures, resulting in broken bones, and requiring constant care.
Christie and her brother AJ began to experience the seizures months after powerful pesticides were sprayed in their home. Doctors diagnosed them with chemical exposure. Their mother, Cindy Ebling, miscarried her third child.
Not far away in Indianapolis, the Hannan family was experiencing flu- like symptoms after their home was sprayed for ants. Doctors told Mary Jane Hannan not to have any more children as a result of her level of exposure.
In the case of the Hannans, it turned out a worker admitted in court to having sprayed 15 times the recommended amount of an insecticide containing the organophosphate Diazinon. In 1995, a year after the trouble had begun for both families, the EPA fined pesticide maker Dow $832,000 for failing to report adverse health effects for related chemicals. The Eblings are immersed in their own legal battle now.
Such cases of pesticide poisoning have been reported across the world for decades, and they underscore why it is prudent to exercise extreme caution when it comes to industrial chemicals. The European Union is leading the way with a regulatory framework called the precautionary principle, in which more burden of proof is placed on companies to demonstrate that new chemicals can be safely used.
In North America, it's clear that integrated pest management, biological control and organic farming and gardening will go a long way to keeping our families, as well as the environment, safer.
Read more about this story here.
Copyright 2007 Hearst Communications, Inc.
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Rachel's Precaution Reporter offers news, views and practical examples of the Precautionary Principle, or Foresight Principle, in action. The Precautionary Principle is a modern way of making decisions, to minimize harm. Rachel's Precaution Reporter tries to answer such questions as, Why do we need the precautionary principle? Who is using precaution? Who is opposing precaution?
We often include attacks on the precautionary principle because we believe it is essential for advocates of precaution to know what their adversaries are saying, just as abolitionists in 1830 needed to know the arguments used by slaveholders.
Rachel's Precaution Reporter is published as often as necessary to provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the subject.
As you come across stories that illustrate the precautionary principle -- or the need for the precautionary principle -- please Email them to us at rpr@rachel.org.
Editors:
Peter Montague - peter@rachel.org
Tim Montague - tim@rachel.org
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Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 160
New Brunswick, N.J. 08901
rpr@rachel.org
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