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Featured stories in this issue...

This Toxic Life: Our World Is Awash with Petro-chemicals
  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.
Robot Soldiers V. Autonomous Weapons: Why It Matters
  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."
Dealing with Uncertainty
  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).
Interpreting the Precautionary Principle
  This 1994 essay argues that there are six separate ideas wrapped up
  in the precautionary principle.
Precautionary Principle Enters Presidential Politics
  Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has endorsed
  the precautionary principle.
European Union Pushes for All Batteries To Be Replaceable
  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.

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From: New Internationalist, Oct. 6, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

THIS TOXIC LIFE: OUR WORLD IS AWASH WITH PETRO-CHEMICALS

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, Oct. 5, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

ROBOT SOLDIERS V. AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS: WHY IT MATTERS

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, Sept. 5, 1996
[Printer-friendly version]

DEALING WITH UNCERTAINTY

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

===============

[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, Oct. 7, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

INTERPRETING THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE

A chapter from "Interpreting the Precautionary Principle," edited by
Tim O'Riordan and James Cameron (Earthscan Publications Ltd, 1994;
ISBN 1-85383-200-6 Available from Island Press, Phone: 800-828-1302 or
707-983-6432; FAX: 707-983-6164)

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.), Oct. 7, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN. SOMEONE TO VOTE FOR.

Where Cynthia McKinney Stands On the Issues

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, Oct. 6, 2008
[Printer-friendly version]

NEW EU DIRECTIVE PUSHES TOWARD REPLACEABLE IPHONE BATTERIES

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.

  Editor:
  Peter Montague - peter@rachel.org
  
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