Rachel's Precaution Reporter #183, February 25, 2009

THE PRECAUTION REPORTER WILL CONTINUE UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

[Rachel's introduction: Rachel's Precaution Reporter lives! In future it will be published by the Science and Environmental Health Network - -thanks to enthusiastic and passionate expressions of support from readers.]

By Katie Silberman

When the staff of the Science & Environmental Health Network learned that Rachel's Precaution Reporter (RPR) was slated for retirement, we knew we had to do something. RPR has been a keystone of SEHN's work on the precautionary principle, and we had a feeling that our colleagues relied on it as well.

In order to gauge reader interest, we asked RPR publisher Peter Montague if he would do a readership survey. We hoped to discover whether people were really reading and using RPR, and therefore whether we should devote our organization's resources to keep it going.

Were we surprised! Within hours of sending the survey, we were positively deluged with responses, lamenting the end of RPR, begging it to go on, relaying the specific ways activists and scholars have been using RPR in their work, and offering an outpouring of volunteer time, funding and support to keep it going. From every corner of the US as well as several other countries, devoted readers pledged their loyalty to RPR.

Well Dear Readers, we can't deny such passion! Due to popular demand from you, SEHN has decided to carry on RPR. Although noone can do it like Peter -- one of the true Godfathers of the environmental health and justice movements -- we will do our best to steer this little ship. At first SEHN will publish RPR monthly, and then depending on resources (has anyone else heard that phrase this year?) we will try to ramp up the frequency. (Unfortunately we can't pick up Rachel's Democracy and Health News too, only Rachel's Precaution Reporter.)

And meanwhile, SEHN and Rachel's have been deeply touched by your offerings of support for the work. Like all non-profits, SEHN is on pins and needles financially this year. To those of you who love RPR and offered to send $12 or $120 to support its continuation, we humbly and gratefully accept your partnership in this vital work.

To donate online, click here.

To donate by check (to "Science & Environmental Health Network") please mail to: PMB 282 217 Welch Ave, Ste 101 Ames IA 50014

We thought you'd like to hear some of the comments made by your fellow readers:

** Precaution Reporter is invaluable as a tool that utilizes and reports upon the precautionary principle and the issues regarding environmental changes, human impacts due to population and industrial growth, etc. Its value is priceless. It would be a shame if it were to be stopped just when we need it the most.

** I strongly support Rachel's and have been a loyal subscriber. If Rachel's stops its activities, who else out there is going to "take up the slack?" Few other outlets are openly discussing limits to growth, problems with capitalism, or the steady state economy.

** Rachel's is an invaluable resource for small, poor grassroots organizations. Peter Montague has done more for the environment in Denton, TX than I can tell you. Without Rachel's, Citizens for Healthy Growth would have never made what progress it has over the past eight years in making our community a healthier place to live.

** I've used material from RPR in articles I've written, a book I've edited, and more. Often I forward articles from it to scores of people, some of whom have their own lists, much bigger than mine, and they then forward to hundreds. Academics have incorporated materials I've cut and forwarded in their classes... throughout the US & in India. My brother, who is VP for business development at an international company, first learned about the PP via articles I forwarded him. He has incorporated this in his work and in panels he participates in.

** It's great; you should keep doing it. It is this sort of media monitoring that is invaluable in providing the broader picture of the development of intangible, yet critical ideas like precaution. Otherwise, one's experience of it is willy- nilly; this makes it clear that it is a global MOVEMENT.

** I find Rachel's information invaluable. Sure -- some things could be found elsewhere -- but in today's messed up world -- who's got the time??? Yet as we all know, information is power and Rachel's definitely supplies both!! Please continue this publication!

** The work Peter Montague and his group have done has proven INVALUABLE and we can never thank him enough!! We are indebted to him forever for all his incredible work. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep the Precaution Reporter going -- there's nothing else like it and I think many of us absolutely rely on it.

** Rachel's fills an important void, in that it provides analysis of environmental and public health issues through the lens of precautionary thinking; it is a vehicle that is helping us rethink our approach to the biosphere and to each other. Beyond simply reporting news stories (which is also important), it provides context and insight. I do hope it continues.

** This newsletter has been valuable through a time of growing awareness of the issues it addresses. It's hard to see it go just as more people really are growing more environmentally conscious and want to learn more. I think the readership is poised to grow right now. The key to it all is in presenting possibilities & generating excitement in creating change, because much of the info is so painful to take in that people find it easier to keep turning the other way. With a cultural turning point at hand, I do hope you keep this newsletter going and promote it.

** I remember particularly a long and very useful dossier about lead and other heavy metals that I shared with the social organizations that fought in Uruguay to have lead removed from gasoline. It was in 2002, and I published more than 50 articles about lead in the Uruguayan press. I hope to have the opportunity to return one day the solidarity and generosity that your work contains.

** As a teacher of geography and environmental studies I have come to rely up on Rachel's for materials that I use in class on a formal basis but also for its contributions to the vast wealth of random knowledge that I draw upon on any particular occasion. At a time when the environment is so under threat and the world is sort of finally starting to get with the programme -- or at least have some concept of what "we" have been talking about for the last 40 years Rachel's (all parts of Rachel!!) is incredibly important. It would be a terrible loss.

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Many thanks to all of you who sent in survey responses, and we thank you for your support and look forward to continuing this journey together.

Thank You, Bon Voyage and Godspeed, Peter!

Katie Silberman and the other staff of the Science & Environmental Health Network