Rachel's Precaution Reporter #163
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
From: New Internationalist ................................[This story printer-friendly]
October 6, 2008
THIS TOXIC LIFE: OUR WORLD IS AWASH WITH PETRO-CHEMICALS
[Rachel's introduction: Sweden has been one of the main countries pushing the 'precautionary principle,' a common-sense notion which the chemical industry, driven by a blinkered concern with profits and growth, has fought tooth and nail. The concept is simple: if a chemical looks like it may cause problems, let's think twice about using it.]
By Wayne Ellwood
A Bale of Plastic Bottles
'Every time I come here my body gets sad and angry at the same time,' says Ron Plain. 'You can't put into words what it means to me.'
We've just tumbled out of Ron's jeep near the end of a three-hour tour of Sarnia, Ontario's 'chemical valley'. Ron calls it his 'toxic tour'. He's done it dozens of times so the patter is easy and familiar. Sarnia is a gritty blue-collar community of 70,000 people at the top of the St Clair River, on the Canadian side, about a 100 kilometres north of Detroit. The river is wide and fast-flowing here, a natural link from Lake Huron, south to Lake Erie and east to Lake Ontario.
Ron is a member of the Chippewa First Nation of Aamjiwnaang and we've stopped at his community's cemetery, a quiet patch of land ringed by a high steel fence. He's 46 years old but tells me he doesn't expect to make it to 60. Ron points out the graves of his parents, his grandparents and great grandparents, his aunts and uncles. Carbon dating shows his ancestors have been living in this area of southern Ontario for 6,000 years. It's a warm day in early spring and the trees are just starting to leaf out. But nothing can hide the looming petro- chemical plant which abuts the graveyard. A tall chimney burns with an orange flame in the bright sun. To the east, a few hundred yards away, is a parking lot and another chemical complex. The cemetery is a microcosm of the whole reserve. Aamjiwnaang is literally surrounded by dozens of chemical plants. The community of 900 souls on the southern edge of Sarnia sits in the middle of the densest collection of petro- chemical industries in Canada and one of the densest in North America. There are 62 plants within a 25-kilometre radius, 40 per cent of the country's total. The players include some of the word's biggest and most powerful corporations -- Dow, Shell, Nova, Bayer and Imperial Oil (Exxon) all operate within five kilometres of the reserve, most of them 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Gender bending
In 2005, according to a study by the environmental NGO Ecojustice, these factories released more than 131,000 tonnes of pollutants into the air -- a toxic load of 1,800 kilograms for every resident of Sarnia and the Chippewa reserve.[1] There is growing evidence that both Aamjiwnaang and the local townspeople are suffering a range of serious health problems as a result of this rain of toxic chemicals. A community-wide survey carried out with the Sarnia Occupation Health Clinic in 2004-05 found widespread cancers, kidney and thyroid problems. Asthma is ubiquitous (40 per cent of Aamjiwnaang residents use an inhaler) and 23 per cent of children aged 5 to 16 had learning and behavioural problems.
But two of the survey's findings were particularly unsettling and sparked worldwide attention. The first was an unusually high miscarriage rate -- 39 per cent of women on the reserve had experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. The second was a significant shift in the sex ratio of live births. Starting in the late 1990s the number of boys being born on the reserve began to plummet. Fewer than 35 per cent of live births were male compared to the normal average of just over 50 per cent. No-one knows for sure what is causing this skewed birth pattern. But there is a strong suspicion that gender- bending pollutants are at the root of the problem.
Research by pioneering scientists like Dr Theo Colborn in the early 1990s showed that common synthetic chemicals introduced into the environment over the past half-century could mimic natural hormones, alter sexual and neurological development and impair reproduction. Dozens of studies have documented the impact of these endocrine- disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on animals, frogs, fish and birds with deformed genitals, brain damage, cancers and damaged reproductive systems. EDCs have also been linked to declining male testosterone levels and declining male birth rates in areas with concentrated chemical industries.
Many of the animal studies were in the Great Lakes bioregion where Aamjiwnaang is also situated -- an area with a history of polluting heavy industries.
Jim Brophy, Director of the Occupation Health Clinic for Ontario Workers in Sarnia, knows the district well. His centre helped map the pattern of illness and disease in Aamjiwnaang. 'Millions of tons of reproductive toxins are spewed out by these facilities year in, year out. Their effect on animal life has been well documented throughout the Great Lakes. To think these poisons would affect everything else and not the human population is bizarre.'
Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring launched the environmental movement nearly 50 years ago, would have been outraged but not surprised by the findings at Aamjiwnaang.
'The chemical war is never won and all life is caught in its violent crossfire,' she wrote. It was Carson who first promoted the notion of ecology, the complex web that binds human life to the natural world. 'The serious student of earth history knows that neither life nor the physical world that supports it exists in little isolated compartments... harmful substances released into the environment return in time to create problems for mankind... We cannot think of the living organism alone; nor can we think of the physical environment as a separate entity. The two exist together, each acting on the other to form an ecological complex or ecosystem.'[2]
Carson's warnings about the toxic nature of industrial society were prescient. Weight of evidence is building that the millions of tons of chemicals released into the environment are altering the basic foundations of life. Male fertility in the West has dropped by an estimated 50 per cent since 1940; breast cancer, testicular cancer and prostate cancer have jumped by 200 to 300 per cent. More and more male babies are being born with genital abnormalities.[3]
Families tested
We are living in a stew of toxic chemicals, most of which did not exist before modern synthetic chemistry was born in the crucible of World War Two. Estimates vary -- there are more than 80,000 chemicals in industrial production today with hundreds added each year. Few have been tested for their effect on human health or the environment. And, critically, there is almost no knowledge of how chemicals interact with each other to affect our health or the wider environment. When the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was passed in the US in 1976, more than 62,000 chemicals were 'grandfathered' into the market -- ie no testing, no questions asked. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admits that 95 per cent of all chemicals in the US have not undergone even minimal testing for toxicity. In the European Union (EU) it's estimated that two-thirds of the 30,000 most commonly used chemicals have not been vetted. The EPA has banned just five chemicals in the past quarter-century.[4]
All of us live with this toxic burden. The poor, the marginalized, people of colour, those who are cheek-by-jowl with industrial plants, suffer the most -- the Chippewa of Aamjiwnaang are a case in point. But, as Rachel Carson understood, where the environment is concerned we all live downstream.
Detailed analyses across Europe, Canada and the US have found hundreds of dangerous chemicals in the blood and urine of ordinary citizens. In Europe, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) tested three generations of women and found everything from banned pesticides like DDT to deadly PCBs. When the Environmental Working Group in the US tested the umbilical cords of 10 infants in 2005 scientists discovered more than 280 chemicals. Greenpeace came up with similar numbers in Europe.[5] In Canada, the NGO Environmental Defence tested five families from British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. Those included seven children, five parents and one grandparent. On average, 32 chemicals were in each parent and 23 in each child. Of the 46 chemicals detected in total: 38 were cancer-causing substances; 38 were chemicals that can harm reproduction and child development; 19 can harm the nervous system; 23 can disrupt the hormone system; and 12 chemicals were linked to respiratory illnesses.[6]
The Canadian study found that children were less polluted than their parents by PCBs and organochlorine pesticides, most of which were banned before the children were born -- an indication that regulatory action can make a difference. But the study also found that some children were more polluted than their parents by chemicals still in use. These included PFCs (used as stain and water repellents in clothing and furniture and for non-stick cookware) and PBDE flame- retardants.
'Safe' household items
Many of these chemicals are linked not just to the petro-chemical industry but to the toxins that infuse our daily lives: solvents, detergents, cosmetics, herbicides, pesticides -- plastics. As the Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center concluded in its recent study of chemical contamination: 'much of our exposure may be from products we have assumed to be safe for use.'[7]
Recent concern has focused on plastic, perhaps the most ubiquitous material of the modern age. The profusion of plastic has peppered the world with potentially deadly chemicals. One of the most powerful is bisphenol A (BPA), the lifeblood of the plastics industry. Nearly three million tons of the stuff is manufactured every year. It's used to make polycarbonate plastic, a rigid hard plastic used in everything from baby bottles and sports water bottles to CDs, DVDs, dental sealants and the resin lining food and drink containers. Polycarbonate plastic can be clear or coloured and usually has the number '7' marked on the bottom. The problem with BPA is that it doesn't stay put. As plastic ages or when liquids are heated or stored in BPA containers the chemical migrates into our bodies. In 2005 the CDC in Atlanta found BPA in the urine of 95 per cent of Americans sampled. In November 2006, 38 leading scientific experts on BPA warned of 'potential adverse health effects of exposure' to polycarbonate plastic.
BPA was first identified as an estrogen mimic in 1936. Hundreds of animal studies have shown that low-dose exposure to BPA could lead to a range of human health problems including reproductive tract abnormalities, breast and prostate cancer, spontaneous miscarriage, type 2 diabetes and obesity.
The evidence is not conclusive. Frederick Vom Saal of the University of Missouri, a leading researcher on the health effects of BPA, admits as much. 'We don't know for sure,' he says. 'Some of these trends are so prevalent they almost seem normal: abnormal puberty changes, fertility difficulties for both men and women, breast cancer, prostate cancer. All of these trends parallel the onset of the plastics revolution... Part of this is just connecting the dots.'[5]
The tide is turning
Although the plastics industry continues to deny the risks of BPA, the tide is turning. Industry officials brushed aside critics of BPA, claiming that the amounts found in humans were so small as to be insignificant. But hormone-mimicking chemicals like BPA don't work that way. In fact researchers have found that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are more dangerous at lower doses, a notion which overturns the traditional pharmacological view that 'the dose makes the poison'. 'At low doses hormones stimulate their own receptors,' says Vom Saal. 'At higher doses they inhibit their responses.'[8]
In April 2008 Canada became the first country to limit BPA exposure, labelling the chemical 'a dangerous substance'. Polycarbonate plastic baby bottles were banned and strict targets set for BPA migration from infant formula cans. Within days major BPA manufacturers threw in the towel, including Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Playtex.
BPA is one of hundreds of synthetic chemicals that alter gene behaviour, what writer Pete Myers calls 'gene hijacking'.[9] Other plastic additives with the same gender-bending properties include phthalates and brominated flame-retardants (BPDEs). Phthalates are an essential ingredient in one of the most common of all plastics, PVC. They are used to make vinyl soft and pliable. You can find them in thousands of products, from squishy children's toys and vinyl shower curtains to medical tubing. The chemical is also found in personal care products -- shampoos, soaps, fragrances, and as a coating on some pills. 'Phthalate syndrome' is the term scientists coined to describe the constellation of symptoms found in animal studies. These include reduced penis size, lower sperm count, incomplete male genital development, infertility and testicular cancer. The EU has banned phthalates in children's toys and the state of California has followed suit.
The third major group of plastic toxins are BPDEs. Half of these flame-retardants are used in the casings of myriad consumer electronics -- computers, cell phones, printers, TVs, you name it. BPDEs are both persistent -- they don't break down easily in the environment -- and bio-accumulative. They build up in the bodies of animals and humans through the food chain. They also pass easily across the placental barrier in the developing foetus. BPDEs can act as endocrine disruptors and they can harm the brain of developing infants, disrupting learning and memory. They've also been linked to thyroid malfunctioning, reproductive problems and increased risk of testicular cancer. North Americans have levels of flame-retardants in their blood up to 40 times higher than people in Europe or Japan. 'These compounds have the same properties as PCBs and DDT,' says Ake Bergman, head of environmental chemistry at Stockholm University. 'It's just a matter of time before we have a toxic effect. We knew less about PCBs when they were banned than we know about BPDEs today... Didn't we learn from PCBs?'[10] Proven carcinogens, PCBs were banned in the 1970s. But because they bio-accumulate they are still found in the environment and in the bodies of animals and people.
Tomorrow's tobacco
Sweden has been one of the main countries pushing the 'precautionary principle', a common-sense notion which the chemical industry, driven by a blinkered concern with profits and growth, has fought tooth and nail. The concept is simple: if a chemical looks like it may cause problems, let's think twice about using it. Better safe than sorry, even if the science is not 100 per cent certain. The chemical giants (in league with Big Oil) reason differently: if it kills someone then it's time to do something.
The US EPA approves 700 new chemicals a year on the assurance of the industry that they are safe. Meanwhile, there is growing public unease about the toxic storm that engulfs us. In June 2007, the EU adopted its REACH legislation (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) despite a full-throttle attempt by corporate lobbyists (especially from the powerful German chemical industry) and the Bush Administration to derail the law. The result is a compromise: companies have 11 years to prove safety and chemicals produced in volumes of less than 10 tonnes a year are exempt. But the basic principle of producer responsibility is firmly in place. Companies can no longer sell a chemical without first providing information about its safety -- an important breakthrough which should have global repercussions. Elsewhere environmental and citizens' groups are advocating 'right to know' legislation so polluters can no longer hide their actions from public scrutiny. Power is slowly shifting. There is a growing consensus that the current model is bankrupt. Critics predict that in 10 years the fallout from the petro-chemical and plastics plague will rank with tobacco and pesticides as a major global public health issue.
Back in Aamjiwnaang, Ron Plain would be the first to agree. He's not about to give up his fight to force industry to clean up its act.
'Every one of these people tells me to keep going,' he says, gesturing to his ancestor's graves. 'I won't allow them to be forgotten. This is our connection, this is who we are.'
Notes:
1. E MacDonald, S Rang, Ecojustice, 'Exposing Canada's Chemical Valley', Toronto, October 2007, www.ecojustice.ca
2. JB Foster, B Clark, 'Rachel Carson's Ecological Critique', Monthly Review, New York, February 2008
3. Robert Allen, The Dioxin War, Pluto Press, London, 2004
4. Mark Schapiro, Exposed: the toxic chemistry of everyday products, Chelsea Green, White River Junction, Vermont, 2007
5. Libby McDonald, The Toxic Sandbox, Penguin, New York, 2007
6. 'Pollution in Canadian Families', Environmental Defence, Toronto, June 2006, www.toxicnation.ca
7. Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center, 'Is It In Us? Chemical Contamination in Our Bodies', Bolinas, California 2007, www.is itinus.com
8. Martin Mittelstaedt, 'Inherently toxic chemical faces its future', Globe & Mail, 8 April 2007
9. Pete Myers, 'Good genes gone bad', American Prospect, April 2006
10. Marla Cone, 'Cause for alarm over chemicals', Los Angeles Times, 20 April 2003.
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From: Duck of Minerva .....................................[This story printer-friendly]
October 5, 2008
ROBOT SOLDIERS V. AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS: WHY IT MATTERS
[Rachel's introduction: As I see it, a precautionary principle against autonomous weapons depends quite a great deal on whether we accept the construction of autonomous weapons as "robot soldiers" or whether they remain conceptualized as merely a category of "weapon."]
By Charli Carpenter
I have a post up right now at Complex Terrain Lab about developments in the area of autonomous weaponry as a response to asymmetric security environments. While fully autonomous weapons are some distance away, a number of researchers and bloggers argue that these trends in military technology have significant moral implications for implementing the laws of war.
In particular, such writers question whether machines can be designed to make ethical targeting decisions; how responsibility for mistakes is to be allocated and punished; and whether the ability to wage war without risking soldiers' lives will remove incentives at peaceful conflict resolution.
On one side are those who oppose any weapons whose targeting systems don't include a man (or woman) "in the loop" and indeed call for a global code of conduct regarding such weapons: it was even reported earlier this year that autonomous weapons could be the next target of transnational advocacy networks on the basis of their ethical implications.
On the other side of the debate are roboticists like those at Georgia's Mobile Robot Lab who argue that machines can one day be superior to human soldiers at complying with the rules of war. After all, they will never panic, succumb to "scenario-fullfillment bias" or act out of hatred or revenge.
Earlier this year, Kenneth Anderson took this debate to a level of greater nuance by asking, at Opinio Juris, how one might program a "robot soldier" to mimic the ideal human soldier. He asks not whether it is likely that a robot could improve upon a human soldiers' ethical performance in war but rather:
"Is the ideal autonomous battlefield robot one that makes decisions as the ideal ethical soldier would? Is that the right model in the first place? What the robot question poses by implication, however, is what, if any, is the value of either robots or human soldiers set against the lives of civilians. This question arises from a simple point -- a robot is a machine, and does not have the moral worth of a human being, including a human soldier or a civilian, at least not unless and until we finally move into Asimov-territory. Should a robot attach any value to itself, to its own self preservation, at the cost of civilian collateral damage? How much, and does that differ from the value that a human soldier has?"
I won't respond directly to Anderson's point about military necessity, with which I agree, or with his broader questions about asymmetric warfare, which are covered at CTLab. Instead, I want to highlight some implications for potential norm development in this area of framing these weapons as analogous to soldiers. As I see it, a precautionary principle against autonomous weapons, if indeed one is warranted, depends quite a great deal on whether we accept the construction of autonomous weapons as "robot soldiers" or whether they remain conceptualized as merely a category of "weapon."
This difference is crucial because the status of soldiers in international law is quite different from the status of weapons. Article 36 of Additional Protocol 1 requires states to "determine whether a new weapon or method of warfare is compatible with international law" -- that is, with the principles of discrimination and proportionality. If a weapon cannot by its very nature discriminate between civilians and combatants, or if its effects cannot be controlled after it is deployed, it does not meet the criteria for new weapons under international law. Adopting this perspective would put the burden of proof on designers of such weapons and gives norm entrepreneurs like Noel Sharkey or Robert Sparrow a framework they can use to argue that such robots could not likely make the kind of difficult judgments necessary in asymmetric warfare to follow existing international law.
But if robots are ever imagined to be analogous to soldiers, then the requirements would be different. Soldiers must only endeavor to discriminate between civilians and combatants and use weapons capable of discriminating. They need not actually do so perfectly, and in fact it is common to argue nowadays that it is almost impossible to do so in many conflict environments. In such cases, the principles of military necessity and proportionality trade off against discrimination. And the fact that soldiers cannot necessarily be "controlled" once they're deployed doesn't mitigate against their use, as is the case with uncontrollable weapons like earlier generations of anti-personnel landmines. In such a framework, the argument that robots might sometimes make mistakes doesn't mean their development itself would necessarily be unethical. All designers would then most likely need to demonstrate is that they are likelier to improve upon human ability.
In other words, framing matters.
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From: Rachel's Environment & Health News #510 ........[This story printer-friendly]
September 5, 1996
DEALING WITH UNCERTAINTY
[Rachel's introduction: In 1996, economist Robert Costanza proposed a way to protect society against new technologies that might cause major harm -- like new chemicals or biotechnology or nanotechnology (among others).]
By Peter Montague
The problem of uncertainty has plagued environmental regulation from the beginning. The common practice in the U.S. is to ignore or deny the existence of uncertainty, or to apply arbitrary numerical "fudge factors," then to proceed as if everything were known with a high degree of certainty. For example, a deadly amount of a chemical may be determined for mice; then a fudge factor of 100 or 1000 may be applied to the mouse number to reach a standard called "safe" for humans. U.S laws promote this sort of unscientific behavior. For example, our laws typically require a regulatory agency to develop "safe" standards for toxic chemicals. Science cannot determine "safe" levels of toxic chemicals, so government agencies, environmental lobbyists, and the polluters all respond identically, PRETENDING that "safe" levels of toxics have been determined and that only "good science" has been employed in the process. As a result of such widespread abuses of the scientific method, many Americans have begun to lose confidence in science as a way of knowing about the world.
When science is disconnected from the typical regulatory process, it openly acknowledges uncertainty. There are two kinds of uncertainty: first there is risk, which is an event with a known probability (such as the risk of losing your life in your car this year --the accident and death rates are known). Then there is true uncertainty, which is an event with unknown probability. For example, no one can predict what will happen to your immune system if you are exposed day after day to smoggy air, pesticide-laced food, chlorinated water, fumes released from carpets, perfumes and other fragrances, second-hand tobacco smoke, and perhaps a couple of prescription drugs. The effect of such combined exposures on your immune system is simply unknown. Most environmental problems involve true uncertainty.
To deal with "risk" uncertainty, policy makers have created a process called "risk assessment," which can be useful when the probability of an outcome (for example, death by automotive collision) is known from experience. However, risk assessment is often applied to problems characterized by true uncertainty (unknown probabilities); in such situations, risk assessment quickly turns into guesswork, and people tend to make guesses that promote their economic goals. This, too, erodes people's confidence in science as a way of knowing.
In recent years, two principles have developed for dealing with true uncertainty: the precautionary principle, and the principle that the polluter should pay.
As stated in Principle 15 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the precautionary principle says that, "Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation." Some people consider that the principle of "reverse onus" is inherent in the precautionary principle;[1] the principle of reverse onus says that the burden of proof for safety belongs on the proponent of a technology or chemical, not on the general public--in other words, new chemicals and technologies should be considered dangerous until shown otherwise.
Unfortunately, the precautionary principle does not specify what should trigger action, nor does it specify what action should be taken.[1] It is therefore vague and difficult to craft into workable policies. Likewise, the principle that the polluter should pay is often not useful in the real world because it is not obvious how much the polluter should pay, or when.
Now some innovative thinking has come along to improve the situation. In recent years Robert Costanza, an economist at University of Maryland, has been exploring ways to improve environmental decision- making under conditions of uncertainty. One goal of his work is to make the precautionary principle (including the principle of reverse onus), and the polluter-pays principle, more useful in the real world. Costanza's idea is formally known as "flexible assurance bonding"[2] but sometimes it is called "4P" ("the precautionary polluter pays principle").[3]
Costanza's idea is derived from two common concepts: performance bonds, and bottle deposit laws. Bottle deposits are simple and familiar --you leave a nickel deposit whenever you buy a soft drink in a bottle, and you get your nickel back when you return the empty bottle. Performance bonds are common in the construction industry. Before a job begins, a construction company puts up a bond --an amount of money that is held by a third party. If the construction is completed satisfactorily and on time, the bond monies are returned to the construction company. On the other hand, if the work is unsatisfactory, or is late, part or all of the bond will be forfeited.
Costanza has combined these two ideas into an assurance bond, similar to a performance bond. Here is how it would work: Before someone introduced a new chemical, or a new technology, they would estimate the worst-case consequences of their act.[4] The proponent would then put up an assurance bond to cover the current best estimate of the largest potential future environmental damages. The bond would be held in an interest-bearing escrow account; the bond would be returned to the proponents after the uncertainties were reduced and it was clear that their actions would not cause harm. Alternatively, if harm occurred, the bond would be used for environmental restoration, and to pay damages to anyone who had been harmed.
This plan provides the following benefits:
** It creates an incentive for the proponent of a project to conduct research to reduce the uncertainties about their environmental impacts. If they could show that the worst case was very unlikely to happen, part of their bond would be refunded to them. The proponent would thus have an incentive to fund independent research or, alternatively, to change to less damaging technologies. (A quasi- judicial body would have to be created to resolve disputes about when and how much of the bonds should be refunded.)
** This plan puts the burden of proof on the economic agent that stands to gain from a new chemical or new technology, not on the public.
** In keeping with the precautionary principle, this plan requires a commitment of resources up front to offset the potentially catastrophic future effects of current activity;
** The only cost to the proponent would be the difference (plus or minus) between the interest on the bond and the return that might have been earned by the business if it had invested in other activities. On average, this difference should be small.
** The "forced savings" that the bond would require might improve overall performance of national economies like that of the U.S., which chronically undersaves.
** It is consistent with the principle that the polluter should pay, an idea embedded in Principle 16 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. The 4P plan requires the polluter to pay for uncertainties, as well as for environmental damage.
** By this plan, proponents of new technologies are not charged in any final way for uncertain future damages. They can recover portions of their bond (with interest) in proportion to how much better their environmental performance is than the predicted worst-case scenario.
The bonds could be administered by an existing agency, such as EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), or a completely new agency could be created for the purpose.
Some people might object that such a plan would favor relatively large businesses, which could afford to handle the financial responsibility of activities that might damage the environment. This is true, but businesses that cannot handle the financial responsibility should not be passing the cost of potential environmental damage on to the public.
Small businesses could band together to form associations to handle the financial responsibility, or they could change to more environmentally benign technologies that did not require large assurance bonds. This encouragement of new, environmentally benign technologies is one of the main attractions of the bonding system.
4P assurance bonds could be used in the following instances (for example):
** A developer would post an assurance bond to mitigate the hidden environmental and economic costs of a new development. This would give developers an incen-tive to design well because developers that had to forfeit their bonds would not compete well in the market place against those who could design more benign projects. Without taking away the right to develop, the 4P system would impose the true costs of growth on the parties that stood to gain from it, while providing strong economic incentives to reduce impacts to a minimum.
** Factories and farms that use toxic chemicals would post assurance bonds up front equal to the worst-case costs of releasing toxics into their products and into the environment. To the extent that individual enterprises performed better than the worst case, they would have portions of their bonds refunded. Even individual homeowners would post a bond for using potentially dangerous chemicals, and thus would have a substantial incentive to seek less toxic solutions which, under the 4P system, would be relatively cheaper. The system could be designed to complement other regulatory schemes, would be self- policing, and self-funding.
** A problem like global warming would be managed by an assurance bond on releases of carbon dioxide. The bonds would be equal to the worst- case estimates of the magnitude of future damages. The 4P bond would work better than a carbon tax because such a tax would be based on highly-uncertain estimates of what levels of emissions would eliminate long-term problems.
The 4P system seems logical, fair and economically efficient. It creates market incentives for good behavior, and for continuing innovation to minimize environmental damage. It acknowledges uncertainties up front, rather than denying their existence. And it employs science to evaluate worst cases, which science is better- suited to doing than it is to determining "safety." Furthermore, the 4P approach provides a practical way of implementing the precautionary principle and the principle that the polluter should pay. --Peter Montague
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[1] Daniel Bodansky, "The Precautionary Principle in US Environmental Law," in Timothy O'Riordan and James Cameron, editors, INTERPRETING THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE (London: Earthscan Publications [120 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN], 1994), pgs. 203-228.
[2] Robert Costanza and Charles Perrings, "A Flexible Assurance Bonding System for Improved Environmental Management," ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS Vol. 2 (1990), pgs. 57-75.
[3] Robert Costanza and Laura Cornwell, "The 4P Approach to Dealing With Scientific Uncertainty," ENVIRONMENT Vol. 34, No. 9 (November 1992), pgs. 12-20, 42.
[4] Our society has experience conducting worst-case analyses because the Council on Environmental Quality required worst case analysis in its 1977 regulations governing the writing of environmental impact statements. See Council on Environmental Quality, "Regulations for Implementing the Procedural Provisions of NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act]," reprinted as Appendix F in Council on Environmental Quality, ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY-1979 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979), pgs. 760-794. The discussion of worst case analysis, as a way of dealing with uncertainty, is found in Section 1502.22. These regulations appeared in final form in the FEDERAL REGISTER Vol. 43 (1978), pg. 55987 and following pages. These regulations were revised in 1986, removing the requirement for worst case analysis.
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From: Dieoff.org ..........................................[This story printer-friendly]
October 7, 2008
INTERPRETING THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE
[Rachel's introduction: This 1994 essay argues that there are six separate ideas wrapped up in the precautionary principle.]
Definitions of the precautionary principle
As Sonja Boehmer Christiansen points out in the chapter that follows, the precautionary principle evolved out of the German socio-legal tradition, created in the heyday of democratic socialism in the 1930s, centering on the concept of good household management. This was regarded as a constructive partnership between the individual, the economy and the state to manage change so as to improve the lot of both society and the natural world upon which it depended for survival. This invested the precautionary principle with a managerial or programmable quality, a purposeful role in guiding future political and regulatory action.
As Boehmer Christiansen argues, the German concept of Vorsorgeprinzip means much more than the rough English translation of foresight planning. It absorbs notions of risk prevention, cost effectiveness but in a looser economic framework, ethical responsibilities towards maintaining the integrity of natural systems, and the fallibility of human understanding. The right of nature means, in part, giving it room to accommodate to human interference, so precaution presumes that mistakes can be made. For the Germans, therefore, precaution is an interventionist measure, a justification of state involvement in the day to day lives of its lander and its citizenry in the name of good government. Social planning in the economy, in technology, in morality and in social initiatives all can be justified by a loose and open ended interpretation of precaution. As we shall see, it is precisely the unravellability that makes precaution both feared and welcomed.
Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s these notions of care and wise practice have been extended to six basic concepts now enshrined in the precautionary principle.
** Preventative anticipation: a willingness to take action in advance of scientific proof of evidence of the need for the proposed action on the grounds that further delay will prove ultimately most costly to society and nature, and, in the longer term, selfish and unfair to future generations.
** Safeguarding of ecological space or environmental room for manoeuvre as a recognition that margins of tolerance should not even be approached, let alone breached. This is sometimes known as widening the assimilative capacity of natural systems by deliberately holding back from possible but undesirable resource use.
** Proportionality of response or cost-effectiveness of margins of error to show that the selected degree of restraint is not unduly costly. This introduces a bias to conventional cost benefit analysis to include a weighting function of ignorance, and for the likely greater dangers for future generations if life support capacities are undermined when such risks could consciously be avoided.
** Duty of care, or onus of proof on those who propose change: this raises profound questions over the degree of freedom to take calculated risks, thereby to innovate, and to compensate for possible losses by building in ameliorative measures. Formal duties of environmental care, coupled to an extension of strict liability for any damage, no matter how unanticipated, could throttle invention, imagination and growth. Alternatively, when creatively deployed such strictures could encourage imagination and creativity in technology, economic valuation, technological advance and unusual forms of ameliorative compensation. Hence the concept of proportionality can be regarded either as a deadweight or a touchstone for the visionary.
** Promoting the cause of intrinsic natural rights: the legal notion of ecological harm is being widened to include the need to allow natural processes to function in such a manner as to maintain the essential support for all life on earth. The application of ecological buffers in future management gives a practical emphasis to the thorny ethical concept of intrinsic natural rights.
** Paying for past ecological debt: precaution is essentially forward looking but there are those who recognize that in the application of care, burden sharing, ecologically buffered cost effectiveness and shifting the burden of proof, there ought to be a penalty for not being cautious or caring in the past. This suggests that those who have created a large ecological burden already should be more "precautious" than those whose ecological footprints have to date been lighter. In a sense this is precaution put into reverse: compensating for past errors of judgment based on ignorance or an unwillingness to shoulder an unclearly stated sense of responsibility for the future. This element of the principle is still embryonic in law and practice, but the notion of "common but differentiated responsibility" enshrined in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the concept of conducting precaution "according to capabilities" as laid down in principle 15 of the Rio Declaration reflect to some extent these ideas.
By no means all of these interpretations are formally approved in international law and common practice. At present the line is to act prudently when there is sufficient scientific evidence and where action can be justified on reasonable judgments of cost effectiveness and where inaction could lead to potential irreversibility or demonstrate harm to the defenders and future generations. In substance, the application is usually derived for chemicals whose effects are potentially toxic, persistent or bioaccumulative (i.e. concentrating in the food chain from one predator to another), or where certain combinations or concentrations of chemicals could alter the physical and chemical state of soil or water. In this sense the notion in international affairs is mostly one of prevention, and justification of some action rather than to claim scientific uncertainty as a reason for delay.
Let us put precaution into both the sustainability perspective and that of proportionality, or economic-societal justification of possible adverse costs in favour of taking care. On the sustainability front, economists like to speak of weak and strong sustainability as a major distinction, with very weak and very strong variants on either side. The most accessible reference is Turner (1993). Very weak sustainability is based on the presumption that losses of environmental resources (natural capital) can be made up by innovation, ingenuity, imagination and adaptation. In Figure 1.1 rising damage costs spurs an interest in damage avoiding market prices, regulatory behavior and technological substitution. Precaution has a place, mostly as a spur to innovation and managerial adaptation. So the line of precautionary action lies towards the upper left of the diagram, namely where the threat of irreversible damage is palpable, and the benefits of intervention are clear.
Weak sustainability places more emphasis on extended cost benefit analysis, that is in introducing firmer measures of the value of safeguarding ecological and biogeochemical processes that are irrecoverable if lost. These processes and their associated species mix are referred to as critical natural capital. The distinction between weak and strong sustainability lies in the degree to which the precautionary principle and its economic interpretation is applied to ensuring the protection of critical natural capital, including the creation of new critical capital by deliberate management. Note here that the curve of safeguard tends move towards the right, i.e. to ensure that plenty of life support systems remain intact. Both models of sustainability take a more sanguine view of inbuilt resilience of natural systems.
Very strong sustainability favours a more fundamentalist mode of ecological solidarity with the earth. Here the line is to adapt to the frames set by natural systems, and to build precaution into an approach to living that is altogether more in empathy with the natural world. The amount of "ecological footprint" becomes progressively lighter, and the precautionary line drops to the lower right hand zone of the diagram, being triggered at the point of relatively little damage. Here, the bias of "proporationally" favours early action in the face of pessimism over the ability of the earth to cope with human intervention for the survival of the human species.
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From: Green Party of Monroe County (N.Y.) .................[This story printer-friendly]
October 7, 2008
SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN. SOMEONE TO VOTE FOR.
[Rachel's introduction: Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has endorsed the precautionary principle.]
By Jason Nabewaniec
Iraq
As a member of Congress, opposed the war before it began, as a matter of principle,recognizing it was illegal under international law, a war of aggression that had nothing to do with defense of the nation. She has also consistently opposed the occupation and consistently opposed every appropriation meant to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Calls for an orderly but immediate and complete withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq, Afghanistan and other foreign nations.
Health Care
Recognizing that private, for-profit health insurance is a central cause of our failing health-care system, McKinney uncompromisingly calls for a universal, single-payer 'Medicare for all' health-care system in the United States.Notes that even though we spend more than twice as much per capita on health care as most industrialized nations, we rank 37th in the world in health care,18,000 Americans die every year from lack of access to health care and about half of all bankruptcies are partly due to medical costs. Countries with single payer systems have better life expectancy, lower infant mortality, and more doctors, nurses, hospital beds and doctor visits per capita. She says it's time to stand up to the insurance lobby and bring single- payer health care to America, pointing out that the $2.3 trillion lost by the Pentagon could pay instead for jobs, health care, and education.
Taxes
Believes that tax relief must flow to those who need it the most, the working class and people with limited incomes. Received a 100 percent approval rating from Citizens for Tax Justice, as a champion of progressive and fair taxation. Authored legislation to take tax breaks from companies that move their plants overseas. Voted against cutting taxes on capitol gains and eliminating the estate tax. Relentlessly fought Pentagon waste, fraud and abuse. By dismantling the military- industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex and corporate welfare, she will bring about a real 'peace and justice dividend' that would allow us to put our resources into meeting social needs, and still lower the tax burden on the vast majority of Americans.
Immigration
Recognizes that the root cause of the flow of undocumented immigration is our nation's domineering corporatist economic policies that destroy domestic agriculture in Latin America, then seek to blame the impoverished victims and stir up racism and repression when they come to the United States. Recognizes that the way to address the problem is to address the cause; repeal NAFTA and CAFTA. Rejects the border fence as a wasteful militarized approach to the question. It's not the immigrants who are 'illegal'; what is illegal is the way U.S. economic policies treat workers in this country and throughout the world. Supports immigration policies that promote fairness, non- discrimination, family reunification, not preferential quotas based on race, class and ideology.
Gay Marriage
Supports the right of all individuals to freely choose their partners regardless of sex or sexual orientation and the equal rights of all to the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage. Every religion is free to define 'marriage' as it sees fit, but 'marriage' under the law must not discriminate. Supports a transgender-inclusive employment nondiscrimination act, the right of lesbian and gay persons to serve in the military, and laws allowing federal investigation of local bias-motivated crimes. Voted against the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996. As Rev. Al Sharpton once observed, we should be less concerned with who people go to bed with at night, and more concerned with whether either partner has a job to go to in the morning. The only kind of 'marriage' that needs a constitutional ban is the marriage between corporations and government.
Energy
Calls for a 'New Deal'-scale program for sustainable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable transportation, to eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels and combat global warming. Supports a policy of 'leave the oil in the soil';goal is to go carbon-free and nuclear-free. This is not only necessary for life on the planet; it is also essential for economic recovery and health. The promotion of solar, wind, biomass and geothermal energy will create hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing, construction and service jobs, sited in under-served communities.
Would promote investment in solar energy through tax credits. Supports energy policies that emphasize mass transportation and conservation rather than rewarding oil-company profiteering. In Congress, supported Kyoto Protocol, raising CAFE standards, more funds for rail; consistently opposed oil exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Supported Clean Alternatives for Energy Independence Act to divert record energy profits toward doubling incentives for producing vehicles using cleaner, more efficient and hybrid technologies.
Trade
Supports fair trade, not corporate globalization. Has consistently opposed so-called 'free trade' agreements -- NAFTA, CAFTA, Fast Track, the Caribbean FTA, the US-Peru FTA, etc. -- that undermine labor and environmental rights and cause the loss of living-wage jobs. She supported the No Tax Breaks for Runaway Plants bill in Congress; authored the TRUTH Act, requiring disclosure of the whereabouts of subsidiaries of US corporations operating overseas, and the Corporate Responsibility Act, to force US corporations operating overseas to abide by US environmental and labor standards. Opposed Most Favored Nation status for China; and to condition trade with China on an improved human rights record; supported U.S. withdrawal from the World Trade Organization. As President, she would continue the fight against corporate globalization and require corporations to be held publicly accountable and socially responsible.
Abortion
Has been a consistent supporter of full reproductive rights for women, including funding for contraception and UN family planning. Option of safe, legal abortion must remain available, while we promote policies that will minimize unwanted pregnancies. Supports making 'morningafter' pill affordable and accessible without prescription.
Economy
By dismantling the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex and corporate welfare, she will bring about a real 'peace and justice dividend' that will allow us to create the foundation of a truly healthy economy:single-payer health care, Green energy and transportation projects, rebuilding our infrastructure and affordable housing, quality K-12 and subsidized higher education eliminating student indebtedness and investments in Main Street's small businesses, not Wall Street's predatory corporations and banks. This will create a rebuilt manufacturing base and strong local economies. She supports monetary reform: the power to create money must be taken from private hands and restored to Congress. She supports -- and has authored -- legislation to create a national living wage.
Education
Education should be free, motivating, relevant and high quality. Opposes 'reforms'l ike No Child Left Behind that are basically aimed at dismantling public education. Says we need to instill pride and a desire to learn. Supports free higher education for all; no student should be saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. By eliminating tax cuts for the wealthy and obscene spending on militarism, war and prisons, we can afford to invest in quality education for all. Supports decreasing class sizes, modernizing schools in disrepair, and combating the digital divide. In Congress, she consistently supported improved education funding and opposed voucher schemes aimed at undermining our public schools. She supports keeping Title IX in place so that women and girls have equal access to participation in sports.
Transparency and Accountability
She worked hard to open classified government files while in office concerning the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tupak Shakur. She held briefings when hearings were impossible, on key issues about 9/11 and the policies and New COINTELPRO abuses that followed it, both on Capitol Hill and in the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conferences. She promoted legislation to gather information on conscientious objectors inside the US military and how they have been treated. She opposed government secrecy and took part in many public forums to support oversight and accountability in government.
Guns
She believes that the right to bear arms must be tempered by common- sense measures to keep firearms out of the hands of those most inclined to threaten others with violence. (In light of its history, this would have to include the U.S.government and many police officers, but those issues are dealt with elsewhere.) She has favored waiting periods for gun purchases and opposed measures to restrict or bar lawsuits against gun manufacturers resulting from the misuse of their products by others.
Foreign Policy
She has been a consistent and strong advocate for a peaceful foreign policy based on human rights. Supports complete withdrawal of U.S.forces and bases worldwide; opposes U.S.military intervention and U.S.military sales, on the basis of Green values and principles.Supported closing the School of the Americas. Introduced, championed, and passed in the House the Arms Trade Code of Conduct, prohibiting the sale of arms to know n human rights abusers; authored legislation to end the use of depleted uranium weapons.Co-sponsored the Hunger to Harvest bill to reduce hunger in sub-Saharan Africa. Supports debt relief for developing nations and genuine aid policies, not phony 'aid' policies that actually subsidize corporate agribusiness and exploitation.
Environment
Has been a strong and consistent advocate for a restored, protected, healthy environment.Says we want our forests protected and restored; sustainable resource use and reuse, and less waste to dispose of. Supports renewable energy and opposes policies that pit food production against energy production. Calls for an entirely new paradigm that encourages us to produce green, local, and fairly; most importantly we need true, representative government that puts the needs of the people over those of corporations so that these policies can become law. Supports organic farming and local food production for local use; opposes GMO foods. Opposes commercial logging on public land. Supports the precautionary principle, and cradle-to- grave,closed-loop industrial practices to eliminate toxic emissions from our environment; supports right-to-know laws for communities. Recognizes global climate destabilization as a critical issue; see also her stance on Energy issues.
Ethics & Election Integrity
Supports comprehensive campaign finance reform. Has long been a supporter of publicly financed elections. Supports the principle that the public airwaves belong to the people. Calls for the reinstatement and enforcement of the Equal Time Provision of the Federal Communication Act, requiring broadcasters to carry debates including all ballot-qualified candidates and provide free time for all such candidates as a license requirement to use our public airwaves. Believes that ethics reform must also include protecting and restoring the integrity of the voting process itself. She has been a champion of voting integrity, declaring that we need to eliminate privately owned and/or party-controlled electronic voting machines and every machine that does not provide a paper ballot.Supports Instant Runoff Voting; opposes voter caging, requiring voters to produce photo ID and other tactics of voter disenfranchisement.
Race
Has been a strong advocate for social justice and combating discrimination in all of its forms. She has supported Federal funding and contracting preferences for women and minority owned businesses; advocated for reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans; opposed efforts to end Affirmative Action in college admissions; opposed racial profiling. She exposed the racial discrimination that occurred in the disenfranchisement of voters in the 2000 and 2004elections. Served on the international tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and has been an advocate for those kept from their homes on grounds of race and class.
Social Security
Opposes efforts to privatize Social Security. Claims about the insolvency of the system have been deliberately concocted and the facts distorted in order to push privatization schemes. Social Security was a gain of the progressive movements of the past that must be guarded from encroachment. If there are any future solvency issues, they should be dealt with by improving the funding stream as needed, not sacrificing the integrity of the program. She supported the Social Security Lockbox bill to require that any budget surplus cannot be spent until the solvency of Social Security and Medicare is guaranteed.
Housing
She believes that, like food and health-care, housing must be recognized as a right.As part of her plan to rebuild America's infrastructure, she would greatly expand the construction of affordable, quality housing. As part of her energy policy, she supports providing rapid, substantial assistance for the energy- efficient retrofitting of homes, with priority going to low-income housing, which typically imposes the highest heating and cooling costs on those least able to afford it. In Congress, she supported increased funding for the Section 8 housing program. To stop the wave of foreclosures,the goal must be to promote home ownership, not bail out irresponsible banks with taxpayer money. She supports legislation requiring renegotiation of unconscionable mortgage agreements to fall within new regulatory standards and repeal of the relaxed laws on speculation and predatory lending that led to the current mortgage crisis.
Veterans
McKinney has long been a strong supporter of the nation's veterans. She passed legislation to extend health benefits for Vietnam War veterans still suffering the health effects from exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange. She supports measures to acknowledge Gulf War Syndrome and provide full health benefits and disability pay for veterans who suffer from both physical and mental effects of war,including PTSD. She supports a new GI Bill, including tuition grants and low-interest loans for housing and business start-ups.
Nuclear Arms
A longtime peace activist, she opposes all research, testing, production and deployment of nuclear weapons and calls for rapid, mutual nuclear disarmament. She supports immediate ratification and signing of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,and complete honoring of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and any other treaties banning or limiting research, development, testing, or deployment of any nuclear weapons. She would reverse the Bush administration's sabotage of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. She would ban the manufacture and use of depleted uranium, as well as biological, chemical and anti- personnel weapons such as cluster bombs and mines. She opposes the 'Nukes in Space' and 'Star Wars' programs.
Lobbyists
The question of accepting money from federally registered lobbyists has not been an issue for the McKinney campaign, as corporate lobbyists, knowing where to find a receptive audience, don't exactly beat a path to the door of Green Party candidates. However, if they did, they would find the door locked shut. McKinney does recognize a distinction between public interest lobbyists, like those representing NETWORK,American Friends, etc., and the corporate variety. The door would be open to public interest lobbyists -- for their ideas, not their money.
Global Warming
As is reflected in her energy policies, she recognizes global climate change as a major threat to our survival: 'The United States can no longer hide its truculence under the mask of weather fluctuations or unclear science.Islands are disappearing; indigenous ways of life are threatened; indeed the world as we know it is at risk if the US continues to do nothing. Therefore, a drastic cut in emissions is necessary. This can be accomplished by using the tax code to incentivize behavior. From retrofitting buildings, demanding new standards for all new construction, utilizing existing technologies and developing new ones, to subsidizing infrastructure rehabilitation, not only can the US reverse its deadly inaction, but it can become a world-class leader.'
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From: AppleInsider ........................................[This story printer-friendly]
October 6, 2008
NEW EU DIRECTIVE PUSHES TOWARD REPLACEABLE IPHONE BATTERIES
[Rachel's introduction: The European Union (EU) has taken the lead in pushing for precautionary regulations that impact all companies that sell their products in Europe. Now the EU is planning to require that all batteries in consumer products be removable and replaceable.]
By Prince McLean
The European Union is preparing new directives that could have an impact on Apple's future products, including "the New Batteries Directive," which proposes to mandate that batteries in electronic appliances be "readily removed" for replacement or disposal.
The EU has taken the lead in pushing for industry regulations that impact all companies that sell their products in Europe. For example, the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive, known as RoHS, demanded tough new limits to the use of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and flame retardants known as PBB and PBDE.
Every RoHS has its thorn
RoHS, which took effect in July 2006, spelled the end of Apple's standalone iSight camera, which would have required a redesign to sell in Europe. California also passed laws that made many products banned by RoHS in Europe illegal to sell in California after January 2007 as well. By 2006, Apple had integrated compliant iSight cameras into its laptops and the iMac, leaving little need for a redesigned standalone iSight camera and resulting in the cancelation of the existing product. "As a result of our precautionary approach to substances," the company reported, "Apple was able to meet many of the RoHS restrictions long before the July 2006 deadline."
Alongside RoHS, other regulations related to handling eWaste, power efficiency, and the use of chemicals have gone into effect, some of which have the force of law while others are only guidelines that EU member nations exercise some flexibility in enforcing. Early on, some manufacturers complained that tough new regulations could cause problems that outweighed the social and environmental benefits they are intended to deliver.
In particular, the industry warned that without using lead, soldered connections would be weaker and products would fail faster. At the same time, the automotive industry has discovered that RoHS' mandated lead-free solder has a high temperature resistance that actually makes it better suited to the harsh conditions of temperature, shock, and vibration in the engine bay of cars. IBM discovered new lead-free technologies that resulted in "solder waste reduction, use of bulk alloys, quicker time-to-market for products and a much lower chemical usage rate."
Assault on batteries
Introduced with RoHS, the EU's 2006 Battery Directive updated existing regulation from 1991. It primarily sought to prevent the unnecessary use of toxic metals in batteries and attempts to make it easier to properly dispose of and recycle old batteries. The directive required EU member states to implement national laws and rules on batteries by September 2008.
While the Battery Directive now in force states that it must be easy for consumers to remove batteries from electronic products, the "New Batteries Directive" now being drafted over the next year goes even further to state that electrical equipment must be designed to allow that batteries be 'readily removed' for replacement or removal at the end of product's life.
Gary Nevison, writing for New Electronics, said [PDF] "the requirement is clearly intended to ensure that users can remove batteries by opening a cover by hand or after removal of one or two screws. The producer will also have to provide the user with details on how to remove the battery safely."
The EU and Apple
Such a regulation would seem to impact Apple's integrated battery design of its iPods and the iPhone, which are somewhat unique in that their batteries are not designed to be user replaceable and typically require special tools or professional assistance to remove them. At the same time however, the directives are not yet completed or ratified, and subject to both modification and exception.
The EU's Battery Directives are designed primarily to prevent toxic batteries from ending up in landfills, not to force manufacturers to develop products with specific features. Apple already offers free recycling for iPods and iPhones. Third party vendors also offer money for dead or broken iPods, further negating much of the concern that users would throw away their iPod with the battery still inside it. The real concern involves appliances with integrated batteries that have little value at the end of their life, few recycling options, and would likely be discarded with the battery intact.
Still, just as RoHS impacted the iSight as an international product, Apple may find it easier to modify how it packages its iPod and iPhone products than to attempt to work around or gain exceptions to the New Batteries Directive now being drafted. That may result in making modular, replaceable batteries a new feature, or at least further a continuation in the efforts Apple has already made recently to deliver iPods with batteries that are not glued in and therefore easier to replace or remove during recycling.
Apple's global product line makes it extremely unlikely that the company would develop different versions of its products for European markets in order to meet the EU directives. Instead, as with the iSight, Apple is likely to make international adjustments that meet the stringent requirements of regulations like RoHS and the New Batteries Directive and therefore provide the benefits to users everywhere it sells its products.
AppleInsider Copyright 1997-2008
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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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