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Featured stories in this issue...
Are Children Dogs Without Fur?
The super-rich are using their tax breaks to buy their dogs bottled
water, organically-grown beef, fake-mink beds, braces for their teeth,
and Prozac for the nerves while "Increasing numbers of young American
children are showing signs of serious malnourishment, fueled by a
greater prevalence of hunger in the United States..."
Redneck for Wilderness -- an Interview with Dave Foreman
The Sun is one of our favorite magazines, partly because it
contains so much good writing and partly because it offers such
thought-provoking interviews. This interview with Dave Foreman,
cofounder of Earth First!, should cause all of us to question how
we've been doing our work, and what it means to be a "conservative."
You can subscribe to The Sun here.
Household Chemicals Could Double Child Leukaemia Risk
Recent research suggests a connection between household use of
insect sprays, medicated shampoos, and mosquito repellants -- and
childhood leukemia. Before using such chemical preparations, we can
always ask, "What's the least-harmful way to achieve my goal?"
Corporate Watchdog Radio Launches Podcast
For almost 25 years, Sanford Lewis -- lawyer, writer, film maker,
activist-strategist, and computer guru -- has been helping grass-roots
community groups figure out what's important and how to fight the good
fight. Now, with Bill Baue, Sanford has started a web-based radio
program and podcast service, focused on the heart of the problem:
corporate power.
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From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News #838, Jan. 19, 2006
ARE CHILDREN DOGS WITHOUT FUR?
By Peter Montague
Americans think of themselves as a generous and caring people, and
when it comes to the family pet there's no doubt that it's true.
Nearly 2/3rds (69 million) of all families own a pet (90 million
cats and 77 million dogs), and we give them $35.9 billion worth of
pet supplies and services each year. Pets in turn soothe us, console
us, amuse us, teach us responsibility, compassion and trust, connect
us to the non-human world, and in some cases even prolong the lives of
their elderly owners. No doubt, our pets benefit us greatly and we
owe them a lot.
Among the super-well-off, however, many pets now enjoy a life as rich
with indulgences and activities as any suburban child's. "Pets provide
unconditional love," says Sherril Stone, an expert in animal-human
relations. "In lots of households, they're like surrogate children,"
she says.
Particularly in upper-crust locales -- like Westchester County, N.Y.,
Fairfield County, Connecticut, parts of northern California, the
Hamptons on Long Island, and parts of the Jersey shore -- pets are
benefiting from the hard-earned tax breaks that their owners have
received again and again from the Bush administration and our gold-
plated K-Street Congress.
As the New York Times reported in April last year, "Beyond standard
offerings like dog parks and running areas, there are also baby
sitters, day-care and play groups available to enhance the life of the
Westchester canine. High-end clothing, special food and catered
parties are not uncommon. Medical care rivals what is available for
humans, in both variety and cost."
A dog's birthday cake can be had for $79.00 (the dog gets a cake, a
treat bag, a hat and a birthday bandanna); for $770 you receive
similar get-ups for your dog and 40 canine guests. A fake mink
dog bed sells for $199.
E&E Hallstrom Haute Couture will make your dog a unique dress,
coat, bathrobe or Halloween costume by hand, custom-fitted for $90 to
$160. Presently they are dry-clean only, but the firm is working on a
wash-and-wear line, according to Eva Hallstrom, who runs the company
with her sister. Unlike dogs, most cats refuse to keep their clothes
on, but Ms. Hallstrom says a cat looks elegant "with a simple strand
of pearls."
Amanda Jones has made a name for herself as a pet photographer. For
$850 she will reveal your dog's inner soul in a unique portrait.
There are now pet psychics, pet chiropracters and pet psychiatrists.
You can now get your cat psychoanalyzed for $450 per session.
"They're not just pets anymore," says LuAnn Gevaza, 49, who left
her 23-year job with Goldman Sachs for a pet boutique and gift shop in
Point Pleasant Beach, N.J. "They're fulfilling psychological needs in
people, and therefore becoming more important in people's lives.
People referring to themselves as their pet's "mommy" or "daddy"
increased to 83% in 2003, compared to 55% in 1955. Signs commonly
sold in pet stores say "Dogs are just children with fur."
Taking care of our furry children has become a major business. In
many high-end communities, there are specialized services for pets --
pet baby sitters (national average rate: $28.72/hour), pet day
care, pet play groups and pet play dates. In a wealthy state like
Connecticut or New Jersey, $100,000/year is said to be within
reach for an enterprising dog walker.
Then there are the high-end pet supplies -- leather collars imported
from Switzerland ($60 to $100 each), "Char-dog-nay" wine-flavored
doggie treats at $9.95 a bag, orthopedic beds with NASA-grade foam,
microwavable hot water bottles (no wires to chew on), and step ladders
to help older pets get up onto the furniture.
Pet supplies are now one of the fastest-growing businesses in the
U.S. Petco has 756 stores and 17,000 employees and opened 90 new
stores in 2005. Its competitor, Petsmart, has 750 stores, and opened
about 80 new ones in 2005. Pet owners in the U.S. spent $8.4 billion
in 2005 on pet supplies (not including food). During 2005, more than
465 new pet products hit the market worldwide, up from 291 the
year before -- shampoos, sunburn cream for dog's noses and bellies,
and scented after-bath spritzes, so when your pooch crawls in bed with
you, he or she will smell like a rose instead of a dog.
In 2002, the New York Times reported that medical care for pets
has advanced dramatically: "Expensive medical treatments that five
years ago would have been reserved almost exclusively for the human
species -- CT ["cat"] scans, ultrasound, M.R.I.s and radiation
therapy -- are now all performed on pets. Pharmaceutical giants like
Pfizer and Bayer are marketing an ever wider selection of drugs for
geriatric cats and dogs, like Rimadyl for arthritis and Anipryl for a
newly recognized condition, cognitive dysfunction syndrome, or canine
senility."
Many pets are now routinely given Prozac, Xanax and Anafranil to
improve their dispositions and ward off depression.
Since 2002 the medical trend has, if anything, accelerated. Pacemakers
and organ transplants are now available for aging pets. Pet-shop
bulletin boards bristle with advertisements offering massages and
acupuncture. A masseuse will come to your home and ease your pet's
aches and pains for $70 to $100 per hour.
As more and more pets (like their owners) are getting cancer,
surgery followed by chemotherapy has entered the mainstream of
veterinary medicine. The surgery itself costs anywhere from $6,500 to
$7,500 and follow-up chemotherapy ranges from $5,000 to $10,000.
Veterinarians are now offering Credit Care, a kind of instant credit
card, in order to prevent what is called "financial euthanasia." In a
survey taken earlier this year by the American Animal Hospital
Association, 47% of pet owners said they would spend any amount of
money to keep a pet alive. "I can't imagine life without a pet," says
Maggie Rapp, a decorative painter from Lawrenceville, N.J.
"Especially now, when people are so unsure about their careers, and
money, and the way this country is going. Then you come home at night
and there's this animal that just wants you," she explains.
In the late 1980s, during the first Bush Presidency, dentistry for
animals was the fastest-growing branch of veterinary medicine. "In
a 1988 survey, 5.2 percent of pet owners said their pets had had
dental work on their most recent visit to the vet. That is more than
twice as many as in 1982, according to a mail survey with 30,000
respondents done by the American Veterinary Medical Association," the
New York Times reported in 1990.
Pets with crooked teeth can now get them straightened with braces.
Orthodontia for pets is no longer very unusual. T. Keith Grove, a
dentist for humans who moonlights at a veterinary office in Vero
Beach, Fla. told the New York Times in 1990, "I do two or three cases
of orthodontia a week" on dogs.
In the U.S. in 2001, pet owners spent $19 billion on pet medical
care.
As you might expect, pet nourishment is big business, too. Bottled
water for pets is booming. At $1.49 per liter ($2.29 for the 2-liter
bottle), your 60-pound dog can drink $400 worth of water in a year's
time.
The latest trend in pet food is "holistic raw feeding" -- raw meat
and vegetables. Holistic diets for pets include all-organically-grown
free-range chickens and additive-free beef (no steroids or
antibiotics) and organic vegetables. A Golden Retriever or Labrador
will eat three pounds of meat per day.
In the U.S., humans spend $14.2 billion per year on pet food. As a
result, somewhere between 25% and 40% of all pets in the U.S. are
obese (right in line with the 30% of U.S. adults who are obese). As
a result, there's a new pet product on the shelves: weight-loss
supplements, which work no better for pets than they do for humans.
"We live in a culture, in which we take better care of our animals
than each other," says Lynne Tillman, an author who sometimes writes
about pets.
Indeed.
In June, 2005, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that, "Increasing
numbers of young American children are showing signs of serious
malnourishment, fueled by a greater prevalence of hunger in the United
States, while, paradoxically, two-thirds of the US population is
either overweight or obese."
AFP went on, "In 2003, 11.2 percent of families in the United States
experienced hunger, compared with 10.1 percent in 1999, according to
most recent available data."
In 2002, the National Association of County and City Health Officials
reported that approximately one out of every six children in the U.S.
(nearly 12 million children) are living in poverty, including 30% of
African-American children, 28% of Hispanic children and 43% of Native
American children.
Chronic ailments are a serious problem among children in the U.S. One
in every three American families has a child with a learning
disability or mental illness.
The New York Times reported recently that an epidemic of diabetes is
sweeping through children in the U.S. According to the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, one in every three 5-year-olds in
the U.S. can now expect to get diabetes as they grow older. Among
Hispanics the trend is worse: one in two can expect to get diabetes.
The Times explained, "Diabetes has no cure. It is progressive and
often fatal, and while the patient lives, the welter of medical
complications it sets off can attack every major organ. As many war
veterans lost lower limbs last year to the disease as American
soldiers did to combat injuries in the entire Vietnam War. Diabetes is
the principal reason adults go blind."
As the Philadelphia Inquirer editorialized Dec. 10, 2005. "Over the
last 20 years, marketing poor quality foods and beverages to children
has spiked dramatically. Children eagerly consume what they see
advertised. Many products are high in added sugar, fat, salt and low
in essential nutrients. Because childhood food preferences often last
a lifetime, poor diet is contributing to health problems, such as
diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, at increasingly
younger ages."
Depression is showing up earlier in children, according to the
National Institute of Mental Health. It reports that as many as 2.5
percent of children up to age 12 and 8.3 percent of adolescents ages
13-21 suffer from depression, an illness of the brain.
The number of children and adolescents taking psychiatric drugs more
than doubled from 1987 to 1996.
The BBC reported in late 2004 that childhood cancers throughout the
industrialized world have been steadily increasing for 30 years.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, based in France,
examined data from 19 European countries. It found cancer rates
increased by around 1% a year for children, and 1.5% a year for
adolescents between the 1970s and 1990s. Some -- but not all -- of the
rise might be explained by better diagnosis of the disease, and better
record keeping.
The increases were recorded for virtually all tumour types in
children.
In adolescents the major changes were seen for:
Carcinomas that develop in tissues covering or lining organs of the
body, such as the skin, the uterus, the lung, or the breast.
Lymphomas that develop in the lymphatic system, such as Hodgkins
disease.
Soft tissue sarcomas that begin in the muscle, fat, fibrous tissue,
blood vessels, or other supporting tissue of the body.
Germ-cell cancers that develop in the testicles or ovaries.
Tumours of the central nervous system.
Reuters reported in July, 2005, that, "Unborn U.S. babies are
soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts
and pesticides, according to a report to be released on Thursday.
"The report by the Environmental Working Group is based on tests of
10 samples of umbilical cord blood taken by the American Red Cross.
They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including
mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA."
"If ever we had proof that our nation's pollution laws aren't working,
it's reading the list of industrial chemicals in the bodies of babies
who have not yet lived outside the womb," said U.S. Representative
Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.).
Cord blood contains chemicals passed from the mother into the baby
through the placenta.
"Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know
that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain
and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal
development in animal tests," the report said.
Six months after this stunning report was released, the Bush
administration announced that it was abolishing the Office of
Children's Health Protection within U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection
Agency).
Established in 1997, the Office of Children's Health Protection is
supposed to ensure that the special vulnerability of children is
safeguarded in environmental standard-setting, enforcement and
prevention efforts. The EPA reorganization moved the functions of the
Office of Children's Health protection into the office of
Environmental Education.
An organization that represents government workers, Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) explained in blunt terms the
meaning of the E.P.A. reorganization:
"[EPA administrator] Stephen Johnson is making it clear that he does
not want to hear another peep out of child health advocates within his
agency," said Jeffrey Ruch, executive director of PEER, noting that
putting child health under environmental education represents a
serious de-emphasis. "This move is only slightly better than putting
children's health in the janitor's closet, given the importance EPA
assigns to environmental education."
In sum, time and again in recent years we have cut taxes for the rich,
which in turn has forced cuts in child-welfare programs of all kinds.
Meanwhile the rich are now spending their tax-cut windfalls on
unnecessary indulgences for their cats and dogs. Maybe we should start
promoting our children as "dogs without fur" -- maybe then the super-
rich would be willing to pay their fair share to help the nation's
most vulnerable citizens -- our children -- get a minimally decent
start in life.
Return to Table of Contents
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From: The Sun, Dec. 15, 2005
REDNECK FOR WILDERNESS
Earth First! Cofounder Dave Foreman on Being a True Conservative
By Jeremy Lloyd
Before meeting Dave Foreman at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I
spent three days backpacking in the Pecos Wilderness Area, a two-
hundred-thousand-acre tract granted the highest level of federal
protection. Along the way I experienced frost, sunburn, hail, rain,
dehydration, and swollen streams -- and I loved every minute of it.
Clearly, like many other Americans, I have what Foreman calls the
"wilderness gene."
It's thanks to the work of conservationists like Foreman, whom Audubon
magazine named one of the hundred Champions of Conservation of the
Twentieth Century, that places like the Pecos received protection
through the 1964 Wilderness Act. Foreman served for many years as
Southwest regional representative of the Wilderness Society, which
received widespread bipartisan support, as had the conservation
movement as a whole since itsfoundinga century before. Men, in the
1980s, President Ronald Reagan appointed as secretary of the interior
the notorious antienvironmentalist James G. Watt, who once remarked
that our responsibility to the land is to "occupy" it until Jesus
returns. After that, Republicans began to dismiss concerns about the
environment as impediments to economic growth.
As the environmental movement matured, grass-roots organizing was
replaced by more professional and career-minded staffers -- people who
hardly even visited the places they were trying to save. Foreman could
only watch helplessly as millions of acres in his native West -- areas
that were prime candidates for federal wilderness designation -- were
denied protection by the government and instead marked as fair game
for the timber industry. Wilderness lovers had run out of options. The
nonviolence of the civil-rights era was still fresh in the nation's
memory, but the more recent writings of Edward Abbey -- particularly
his novel The Monkeywrench Gang -- lent new appeal to the use of
violence in defense of nature. One of many activists who took Abbey's
message to heart, Foreman cofounded the radical environmental-
protection group Earth First!
In its original manifestation, Earth First! was by no means the
countercultural organization it eventually became. Overtly patriotic
and steeped in cowboy mythology, it announced its goal of returning
"vigor, joy, and enthusiasm to the tired, unimaginative
environmental movement." Its members wanted to dream big, to slow down
the machine of industrial society, and, as Susan Zakin puts it in her
book Coyotes and Town Dogs (an account of the group's origins), to
"ask for more than you can get." Forget a national park here, a
wildlife preserve there, so many of them isolated islands of habitat
surrounded by development. What was needed instead was conservation on
a continental scale -- not primarily for humans, but for the creatures
that had been living here since long before we arrived. Foreman and
his allies envisioned a future when wolves would once again be able to
roam unmolested from Mexico to Alaska.
In the meantime, Earth First! took up the more immediate task of
defending beloved canyons, mesas, and forests by following Abbey's
dictum that "if wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save
wilderness." In Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching (Abbzug
Press) and Confessions of an EcoWarrior (Three Rivers Press) Foreman
vigorously defends tree-spiking -- putting metal spikes in trees to
damage loggers' saws -- and other forms of sabotage, placing them
within the honorable American tradition of resistance exemplified by
the Boston Tea Party. Human life, Foreman said, must always be
respected in such acts; machines, not living beings, were the target.
As for Foreman, he suffered permanent knee damage after being dragged
beneath a truck whose driver was attempting to run him over at a
blockade in Oregon.
'No compromise with slaveholders!" declared nineteenth-century
abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. "No compromise in defense of
Mother Earth!" bellowed Foreman in 1980.
Foreman eventually left Earth First! after less than a decade. The
group was outgrowing its original close-knit character and changing
its focus, he says, due to the influence of Marxist and anarchist
members. To Foreman, these were not changes for the better. Another
sure sign that the game was up for him was the morning in 1989 when he
awoke in bed to find three FBI agents pointing guns in his face. (He
was arrested for conspiracy to sabotage power lines but was later
acquitted of the charges against him.)
Foreman had never intended Earth First! to be revolutionary. If
conservation lay at its heart, he felt, then its intent was ultimately
conservative. But the Right saw it differently. "You dirty communist
bastard! Why don't you go back to Russia!" screamed Les Moore, the
heavy-equipment operator who tried to run Foreman over in 1983. "But,
Les," Foreman replied, "I'm a registered Republican." In Coyotes and
Town Dogs, Zakin describes the incident as "the only documented case
of one-upmanship by an environmentalist lying on his back in the mud,
a fat rubber tire inches from his face."
After his departure from Earth First!, Foreman returned to the hard
work of wilderness preservation, founding the Wildlands Project and
editing and publishing Wild Earth magazine for twelve years, until it
folded earlier this year. According to author Michael Frome, Foreman
has read and digested more books on wilderness and the environment
than perhaps anyone else alive. He's written his fair share, too.
Among his more recent books are The Big Outside (Three Rivers Press),
coauthored with Howie Wolke; The Lobo Outback Funeral Home (Johnson
Books), a novel; and Rewilding North America: A Vision for
Conservation in the 21st Century (Island Press). He currently has two
additional books awaiting publication: The Myth(s) of the
Environmental Movement and The War against Nature.
It is remarkable the degree to which mainstream environmental groups
have caught up with the original goals of Earth First! The removal of
dams has become common policy for achieving ecological restoration of
rivers. And scientists and conservationists alike are taking seriously
the "megalinkage" model ofpreserving wildlife corridors that would
connect volcanoes in Central America to the Brooks Range in Alaska --
thus saving not just individual species but whole ecosystems.
For decades Foreman has helped inject passion, courage, and muscle
into the environmental movement when it needed it most. At fifty-nine,
he is still doing so through the newly formed Rewilding Institute. As
for his former radicalism, Foreman no longer advocates
monkeywrenching, though neither does he disavow what he did. These
days he appears to find it more productive to tap into what he sees as
an existing social consensus favoring conservation.
Lloyd: You're currently finishing a new book called The Myth(s) of the
Environmental Movement. What are some of those myths?
Foreman: The standard myth of the environmental movement is that with
the first Earth Day, in 1970, wilderness conservation broadened its
concern to include issues such as urbanization and the impact of
technology and pollution on human health. I think this is a myth
because I see conservation and environmentalism as two separate
movements. They're sister movements, certainly, and they need to work
together, but I think it's historically and operationally inaccurate
to think of them as a single movement. And trying to cram the two
movements together has led to problems. For example, some leftist,
social justice oriented environmentalists don't know the first thing
about conservation and dismiss wilderness as a bourgeois irrelevancy.
Both movements would be stronger if they were kept separate.
I hate the word environment. You can love a forest. You can love a
mountain. You can love a plant. But how can you love an abstract
concept like the environment? To talk about forests, mountains,
meadows, and rivers has much greater force. You can drill for oil in
"ANWR," but it's a lot harder to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, because the full name has more power. The environmental
movement should have called itself "the human-health movement,"
because that's basically what it cares about: the impact of pollution,
urbanization, and everything else on human health.
The other myth of environmentalism is the stereotype that accompanies
it: that environmentalists are hip, overeducated, vegetarian urbanites
who wear Birkenstocks, don't like guns, and constitute a special-
interest group within the Democratic Party. There are many people out
there who would otherwise support conservation but are turned off by
this stereotype. These are the people we need to reach, and they
include plenty of folks who hunt and fish. The Sierra Club -- 20
percent of whose members hunt or fish -- finally has a hunter-angler
outreach program to bridge this gap. And other groups of conservation-
minded hunters and anglers are forming.
The base of support for both environmentalism and conservation right
now is within the progressive movement and the Democratic Party,
because the Republican Party has been hijacked by nut cases. I mean,
even Barry Goldwater [former U.S. senator and father of the modern
conservative movement] said back in 1989 that the Republican Party had
been taken over by kooks. These people have destroyed the very idea of
conservatism, because they aren't conservative at all; they are
radicals bent on repealing the twentieth century, and they've been
very effective.
Lloyd: Few people today would guess that Republican Senator Trent Lott
supported the Endangered Species Act in the 1970s. At what point did
the environment become such a partisan issue?
Foreman: There are historic ties between real conservatism and
conservation. But in 1980 Ronald Reagan declared himself a "sagebrush
rebel," appointing James Watt as secretary of the interior and Anne
Gorsuch as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The Republican
Party became the corporate party, or the nationalist party, or the
Christian party, depending on which constituency you belonged to. At
the same time, conservationists and environmentalists began to drift
more and more toward the Democratic Party and quit talking to
Republican members of Congress.
I'm working right now to bridge this partisan divide and get
environmentalists and conservationists to start talking to Republican
politicians again. If we could get just a half dozen Republican
senators and a dozen or so Republican representatives to pay attention
to us, we could win some of these narrow votes on environmental
issues. I think the reason these people aren't voting our way is
because nobody talks to them.
Lloyd: What do you see as the prospects for conservation and
environmental protection during the second term of the Bush
administration?
Foreman: I think we could see some truly horrifying things happen. If
President Bush gets his way and appoints these so-called Federalists
to the Supreme Court, they're going to repeal some of the major legal
accomplishments of the last hundred years. They're going to say that
the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which allows the federal
government to regulate interstate commerce, has been overused for
conservation and environmental and social legislation. And they're
going to declare the Endangered Species Act unconstitutional.
Right now we're seeing a breakdown of the very idea of the national
forests. Bush's reversal of the Roadless Area Rule on federal lands
has transferred authority to the states. Ever since we created the
first forest preserve in 1891, these have been federal lands managed
under federal standards. We shouldn't hand them off to the state
governors. As badly as the federal lands are managed, the state lands
are generally managed worse. But the radical Right wanted to give the
national forests and parks to the states because they're more easily
controlled by industry. For all practical purposes, industrial
lobbyists are already in charge of the public lands and our
conservation laws. And we're likely to see more of this in the coming
years.
Lloyd: Do you see a new movement rising up to oppose these
developments?
Foreman: I hope so, but I'm concerned that there is so much pressure
on conservationists, from both the Left and the Right, to compromise.
We're seeing a weakening of the movement at a time when we need it to
be tougher. Groups are being pressed to sit down and "work things out"
with their opponents. But you end up with bad compromises that way.
Lloyd: What special protection does federal wilderness designation
provide?
Foreman: The Wilderness Act, which was enacted after World War ii,
grew out of the realization among citizen conservationists that they
could not trust the forest service and the park service to manage
federal lands properly and protect wilderness values on those lands.
We needed Congress to pass a law establishing a system of national
preserves within which you cannot build roads, cut timber, or set up
resorts -- because the evidence shows that when you build roads for
logging, for example, they bring in all kinds of other development,
which has a destructive impact on wildlife and the integrity of
ecosystems.
Lloyd: Many environmental woes can be traced back to the Industrial
Revolution of two centuries ago, but you place the real beginning ten
thousand years ago.
Foreman: In light of newer evidence, I'd place it even farther back.
We know from the fossil record that there have been five major periods
of extinction in the last 100 million years, and what paleontologists,
ecologists, and other scientists have realized over the last thirty or
forty years is that we're right in the middle of another mass
extinction -- this one caused by human beings. If we examine the
fossil record over the last forty thousand years, we can see that
extinction occurred as human beings spread out across Africa and
around the world, encountering and hunting big animals who had never
before had any experience with something like us. We caused mass
extinctions wherever we went, and plenty of people don't want to face
up to that: that the tribes who came to the Americas caused the
extinction of mammoths, mastodons, and other animals. And I
acknowledge that my ancestors in Europe did the same thing; plus they
probably caused the extinction of the Neanderthals, our closest
relatives. It's not a matter of blaming anybody, but of acknowledging
this reality, the evidence for which is pretty strong.
So first came the Stone Age, when highly skilled hunters began to
spread around the world. Then came the development of agriculture,
which had an impact on nature fundamentally different from anything
that had preceded it, because with agriculture we took ourselves out
of the existing ecosystem and began to create our own ecosystems.
That, in many ways, not only alienated us from nature but freed us
from nature and led to our domesticating nature, in the sense that it
removed us from the food chain to which all other creatures belong.
Suddenly our population took off, since the natural controls were no
longer there. Ten thousand years ago, when we first began to practice
agriculture, there were probably only 5 to 10 million human beings on
the entire planet.
More recent developments have continued to liberate us from the
confines of nature, including the use of fossil fuels,
industrialization, and modern medicine. This began five hundred years
ago, as European countries began to explore and colonize the rest of
the world, and industrialization upped the ante.
Now extinction is being caused by sheer numbers alone. There are 6
billion of us, and more of us are using heightened technology. The
recent growth of the middle class in China and India is accompanied by
expanded greenhouse-gas emissions, both from the industrialization of
those countries and from the exploding use of automobiles there.
Lloyd: To the extent that extinction is rooted in human history and
global culture, it seems a part of our historical trajectory. Is there
any reason to believe, if the Europeans hadn't colonized the globe,
that it wouldn't have happened eventually with, say, Native American
culture?
Foreman: Well, look at what the Aztecs and the Mayans did to their
ecosystems: they flayed the land just as badly as the Assyrians and
the Babylonians did. It's hard to find an example of a sustainable
human society. We always seem to outgrow our way, and over the last
fifty thousand years, it seems that what we've done is convert more
and more of the earth into living space for human beings, leaving less
and less room for other species, and that's what drives extinction.
Nobody is paying much attention to population growth anymore. In 1970,
when I first got involved with conservation, population growth was at
the top of everybody's list. Now there are twice as many people in the
world, and we pretend the problem doesn't exist. Even the Sierra Club
doesn't talk about overpopulation anymore; it's too controversial. If
we're not going to talk about the fundamental cause of ecological
damage, then I'm not sure what can be done to reduce it in the long
term. As important as it is to live more simply, I think we have to
acknowledge that no matter how simply we live, the diversity of life
just can't exist in the presence of too many human beings.
Lloyd: What has the developing field of conservation biology taught
us?
Foreman: About thirty years ago, as field biologists all over the
world began to recognize the incredible rate of extinction, they also
began to ask what we could do about it: specifically, how could we
apply the lessons of ecological research to designing protected areas?
Our national parks and wilderness areas were initially designed to be
nice to look at -- and they were inspiring. But the question now
became: how can we protect the diversity of species within the parks?
That was the genesis of conservation biology, which was really
launched by my friend Michael Soule. For the last twenty-five years
I've been trying to explain conservation biology to conservationists,
from the Sierra Club to local grass-roots groups, to show how we can
use that research to accomplish much more of what we want to do on the
ground.
The concept of "rewilding" was also developed by Michael Soule, about
ten years ago, as research began to accumulate about the important
contribution of large carnivores to the health of entire ecosystems.
The research shows that when you remove large carnivores, you get all
kinds of negative repercussions down through the food chain. For
example, right now in the Appalachian Mountains we're seeing the
disappearance of ginseng. One reason is that deer are overbrowsing it.
Why? Because we've killed off the deer's natural predators, the
cougars and the wolves, allowing the deer population to explode.
We also have the wonderful ecological experiment of Yellowstone
National Park, where the park service exterminated all the wolves and
mountain lions by 1930. After they were gone, willows disappeared from
all the streams in Yellowstone because the elk were browsing the young
willows away. Similarly, for seventy years, no aspen sent up shoots
higher than a couple of feet, because the elk were browsing those
away, too. Without the wolves to manage them, the elk grew big, fat,
and lazy, and they overbrowsed. But since the wolves were reintroduced
in 1995, the elk have had to hide in the tall timber and keep moving,
and now willows and aspens are coming back in along the streams. And
beavers are showing up again, because the waterside trees are
returning.
Lloyd: Yet conservation biology has also shown that Yellowstone, as
large as it is, still is not big enough.
Foreman: This is where continental-scale conservation comes in:
"megalinkages." We don't have large intact habitats anymore, outside
of the Arctic, so we have to explore how to link up protected areas to
allow wildlife to move back and forth between them. This is one of the
most exciting developments in conservation today.
Really, we've got to look at the landscape through the eyes of a wolf
or a cougar and identify what parts of North America are still
suitable for these animals. One thing we're recognizing is the
damaging impact of highways on ecosystem health. We recently had a
workshop in Arizona that looked at the spine of the continent -- the
Rocky Mountains -- from this standpoint. We've gotten highway
departments and rental-car companies involved in identifying which
highways are barriers to lynx, mountain lions, bighorn sheep -- you
name it. The highway engineers Iove this problem; it's a technical
challenge for them: how to design roads that aren't a barrier to
wildlife movement and don't cause roadkills. Florida has already done
some reengineering, putting tunnels under interstates for alligators
and cougars to go through. You have to study each animal to know what
it needs.
Lloyd: Why are highway departments and rental-car companies suddenly
interested in working with conservationists?
Foreman: If you look at the number of people killed every year in
collisions with wildlife, and at the insurance cost of damaged
vehicles, you'll understand why. Also, people who work for a highway
department don't like having to drag dead animals off the road all the
time; it gets to you.
Lloyd: Your real reason for removing highway barriers to wildlife
movement is to protect the ecosystem, but the motives of the groups
you just mentioned are more human-centered.
Foreman: You're right, and that illustrates one of my main concerns
about what's happened to the conservation movement: there's too much
pressure to talk about things solely in terms of people. A long time
ago the great conservationist Aldo Leopold warned against trying to
come up with economic arguments for protecting nature, because when
you do that, you basically accept the premise that nature doesn't have
any value in and of itself -- that only things that are economically
valuable should be protected.
Lloyd: You got into trouble once, a long time ago, when you said that
a grizzly bear is just as valuable as a human being. Obviously that
statement isn't going to go over well with many people.
Foreman: No, it's not. But a grizzly bear isn't here for our benefit.
She's here for herself, and I think we need to recognize that. For
that reason, when I go into grizzly-bear country, I don't carry a gun,
because I don't want to have to deal with the possibility of shooting
a bear.
I think it's ok to use economic arguments to a certain degree, but at
the same time, conservationists need to make it clear that the reason
we do what we do is because we love nature. I think that nature
appeals to an awful lot of people. After all, why do people watch
nature shows on television? Why do they buy wildlife calendars? It's
not because animals are worth money. We're just fascinated by them.
And so I've taken on the task, as I travel around the country, of
telling conservationists: Don't apologize for loving nature. Don't
apologize for caring about other species. Celebrate that. Make your
motive clear even while you show how protecting nature also has other
benefits.
Lloyd: You've helped reintroduce endangered black-footed ferrets to
northern Chihuahua, Mexico.
Foreman: That was a huge success. The black-footed ferret, just like
the ivory-billed woodpecker, had been given up as extinct. After a few
were found, we were able to bring them back to zoos and do captive
breeding until there were enough to release back into the wild. That
doesn't mean we've saved the black-footed ferret by any means, but it
does give me hope, to have actually been there and helped release
them. I didn't touch a ferret, because it probably would have bitten
my finger off, but just being there was really quite exhilarating.
The anticonservationists try to use our successes as evidence that
there's not a problem, but the only reason that we've been able to
reintroduce the black-footed ferret, the whooping crane, the
California condor, and others is because we've worked so hard for it.
Why did any of us do that? Why were people enthusiastic about it?
Because there is some part of people that does care about wild
creatures, and conservationists can appeal to that part. We don't have
to appeal to short-term self-interest. If we do it right, these
critters are going to make the argument for us.
Lloyd: Faced with the difficult task of preserving wilderness, though,
aren't people ultimately going to ask what's in it for them?
Foreman: Yes, to a certain extent, but I think we can also challenge
people with questions like "Do we have the generosity of spirit and
the greatness of heart to share the earth with other species?" That
appeals to something deep in us. And that's the way religions have
always approached problems: by appealing to something beyond self-
interest. I think conservationists used to do that more. That's part
of the problem with the environmental movement today: the Left is
afraid to talk about values and standards, to encourage people to
practice good behavior -- which, ultimately, is a form of long-term
self-interest anyway. After all, what kind of legacy do we want to
leave for our grandkids? How do we want to be remembered?
Lloyd: Have your attempts at bipartisan appeal suffered at all because
of your earlier involvement in Earth First!?
Foreman: Probably to some degree, but that connection comes up much
less frequently now. It's also a serious misunderstanding of Earth
First!, because we were really rednecks for wilderness. I've been a
registered Republican all my life. As a college student in the sixties
I was the New Mexico chairman of Young Americans for Freedom and
worked on Barry Goldwater's campaign for president. I consider myself
a true conservative. But true conservatism is dead in America. I hate
the current Republican Party, but I'm equally disappointed with the
Democrats.
Lloyd: You come from a ranching family.
Foreman: Well, a farming family. We were dry-land, pinto-bean farmers
out in eastern New Mexico, not ranchers. George Bush was born with a
silver spoon in his mouth; I was born with a dirt clod in mine.
[Laughter.]
Lloyd: The urban/rural split that has long infected the environmental
movement seems to be as bad as ever. How would you, as an activist
with a rural upbringing, go about amending this?
Foreman: Well, for one thing, by combatting the stereotype -- by
calling ourselves "conservationists" instead of "environmentalists,"
and by encouraging rural groups, like the ones in West Virginia that
are fighting mountaintop removal, to stand at the front of the
movement.
I also think urban environmentalists and Sierra Club people need to
try harder to understand rural, small-town America. That doesn't mean
we compromise or make deals with the radicals. Rather, it means that
we find our friends on the other side and work with them. This is easy
for me to do, because most of my extended family live in mobile homes
out in the sticks. That's where I come from. But because so many urban
environmentalists don't understand rural America, they don't
understand that there are people out there who love nature and share
some of their values. We don't have to give in to our opponents to
reach those people.
Lloyd: Where I live, in rural east Tennessee, a lot of hunters and
anglers have "Sportsmen for Bush" bumper stickers.
Foreman: Bush is a phony redneck, but he takes in the real rednecks,
because the Right has been able to stereo-type the environmental
movement as being pro-gun control. "They're going to take away your
guns," the right-wingers cry, and a lot of hunters fall for it. But a
lot of other hunters who voted for Bush the first time around didn't
vote for him this time. "What good are the guns," they said, "if we
don't have any places to hunt?"
The Sierra Club does not support gun control, and we've got to let
hunters know that. Unfortunately it does do other things that play
into the Right's stereotypes. For example, the Sierra Club's anti-suv
campaign in the late nineties smacked of elitism. When the Sierra Club
launched its campaign, I was at a meeting of the New Mexico Wilderness
Alliance board of directors. We were camping out, and every one of us
had an suv. How else am I going to haul my gear to the river or get
back to trail heads? I've always wanted to start a group called "Four-
Wheelers for Wilderness," because there are a lot of responsible four-
wheelers. Sure, I wish suvs got thirty miles to the gallon, and they
could if we pressured the car companies, but we won't get there by
attacking the cultural idea of an suv or pickup truck.
Lloyd: Edward Abbey seemed to be able to bridge the divide between
conservationists and sportsmen.
Foreman: Abbey appealed to a lot of people who did not like the Sierra
Club and did not think of themselves as environmentalists. In Earth
First! it was the right-wing Republicans who monkeywrenched and the
leftists who chose civil disobedience. The right-wingers were the
Edward Abbey crowd.
It's sort of a split between individualism and communitarianism. My
Scotch-Irish ancestors were very individualistic and believed that
sometimes you just have to take the law into your own hands. Earth
First! was sort of a rural redneck vigilante movement to protect
nature. But we always distinguished between destruction of property
and harming other people.
Lloyd: Many noteworthy conservationists -- such as David Brower, John
Muir, and Aldo Leopold -- grew up with deep religious roots. Your own
upbringing was Christian fundamentalist. What good did it afford you?
Foreman: Well, it gave me my evangelical public-speaking style.
[Laughter.] I think it also made me comfortable talking about values
and encouraging people to practice good behavior, to think about
something besides themselves. I think the belief in our inherent
tendency to sin also gave me a realistic view of human nature. I don't
expect people to be good, the way a lot of progressives do, so I'm not
disappointed as often.
My upbringing also taught me something about personal responsibility.
Protestant fundamentalism proposes a direct relationship between the
individual and the higher powers: no intermediaries. You figure it out
for yourself. That early training taught me always to question what I
was told and to rely on myself.
Lloyd: Some fundamentalists believe the Bible says that we humans are
here to subdue the earth. On the other hand, some conservative
congregations are beginning to talk about "environmental stewardship."
Foreman: The Evangelical Environmental Network and other groups have
come to the defense of the Endangered Species Act and are in favor of
protecting endangered species from a purely moral standpoint: they say
it's a sin to destroy God's creation. Meanwhile, secular conservation
groups are backing away from ethical arguments for saving endangered
species, making economic arguments or saying that we may find a cure
for cancer in the Amazon.
Some national evangelical leaders are even talking about global
warming. I think they're terrific allies to have. This underscores the
need to promote conservation without handcuffing it to other issues,
so that we can work with any allies who come along.
Lloyd: Let's say that the dream of a continent-wide linkage among
national parks, national forests, preserves, and private wilderness
lands becomes a reality. A hundred years from now, how do you envision
humankind's relationship with that environment?
Foreman: I think that civilization and real wilderness can coexist in
North America and elsewhere, but we've got to allow room for
wilderness and wild creatures. A favorite word of mine is wildeor,
which goes back to the time of Beowulf and the origins of the English
language. It means the "self-willed beast." From the very beginning,
civilization has tried to domesticate the beasts, and if we can't
domesticate them, then we destroy them. We've got to allow land to be
wilderness, which means, in Old English, "self-willed land." Letting
some things have a will of their own, not trying to control everything
-- that is the challenge.
Lloyd: The United States is a relatively young country compared with
the rest of the world. A number of conservation-minded observers have
argued that it's time for us to grow up and out of the early
pioneering-and-conquering stage of our history.
Foreman: Well, the whole world needs to outgrow that stage. It's not
fair to single out the U.S. Just as America has led the world in the
destruction of nature, it has also led the world in the conservation
of nature. We have a kind of split-personality heritage. Progressives
are much quicker to criticize the U.S. than they are to criticize
other countries, but I think we can be proud of the good things the
United States has done: the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of
Independence, the Wilderness Act, and the Endangered Species Act are
all high points of Western civilization. But pride in our achievements
is different from the kind of nationalism that George Bush and the
neoconservatives are pushing now.
Lloyd: I was surprised to learn that you received your first death
threat in 1973, long before you cofounded Earth First!
Foreman: The only death threats I've ever been sent came when I worked
with the Wilderness Society in the seventies.
Lloyd: Why do you think that is? Is it perhaps due in part to Earth
First!'s own show of force -- at least against inanimate objects?
Foreman: I think so. When you show that you aren't going to back down,
that you're going to defend yourself, your opponents are going to
respect you more. Another stereotype of the environmentalists is that
they're wimps, and the Right doesn't respect that.
In some ways my fight with the anticonservationists -- and
particularly with the redneck anticonservationists -- is like a feud
between two clans of Scots.
Lloyd: President Bush wants to allow oil drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. If it comes down to it, do you support using
Earth First!-type tactics to prevent this?
Foreman: Well, I think civil disobedience would certainly be called
for to block oil-exploration groups from going into the refuge. But as
far as I'm concerned, Earth First! doesn't really exist anymore.
People who call themselves members of Earth First! are basically part
of the international anarchist animal-rights movement -- though there
are people sitting in trees in the Pacific Northwest, and even in the
East, trying to prevent logging, and I honor them for what they're
doing. To put yourself on the line like that is still appropriate.
Lloyd: What would it take to make more environmentalists defend
natural resources by whatever means necessary, short of hurting
people?
Foreman: I think that when the shit hits the fan with climate change,
it's going to wake a lot of people up. Some of the more recent
findings on the consequences of the greenhouse effect indicate that it
could hit fairly soon.
What is it about humans that we don't think very long term? A problem
really has to hit us over the head before we'll deal with it. What
helped drive enthusiasm for Earth Day in 1970 was that people were
actually feeling the effects of pollution. It was right there in the
air and water. Unfortunately, I think people will have to feel the
catastrophic effects of climate change before they do something
about it.
The neocons and the radical libertarians and the corporatists might
never wake up. Their theory is that Earth is totally resilient, an
endless storehouse of resources. They don't believe in ecology. They
don't believe we can affect the global climate. They have to pooh-pooh
all of the damage that we're doing to Earth, because it doesn't fit
their theory.
Lloyd: The fallenness of all humanity and all human institutions is a
core tenet of conservative Protestant theology, but in the eyes of the
neocons, the market we've created is infallible.
Foreman: The radical Right is deeply divided when it comes to views of
human nature. I think traditional conservatives have been very much
manipulated by corporate and neoconservative interests. The Right has
been very effective at fighting a "culture war," whereas many in the
progressive community for a Iong time didn't realize there was a
culture war. They just kept doing things that reinforced the
stereotype that the corporatists were feeding to the populace.
Lloyd: If we can't trust government agencies to protect our wild
lands, and recycling and hybrid cars are not enough, what do you
propose the average citizen do to conserve the environment?
Foreman: Conservation works best when conservationists know and love
specific places and specific critters, because then they'll work their
hearts out for them and make sure that the politicians do something.
So we've got to know our natural areas, and then get involved with
conservation groups and make our voices heard. George Bush isn't going
to listen to us, and his political appointees aren't going to listen
to us, but I'm convinced there are Republican members of Congress who,
if they hear enough from their constituents, will make some changes.
My friend Brian O'Donnell was with the Alaska Wilderness League back
in the late nineties, when Alaska Senator Ted Stevens put in a rider
that would have allowed tourism companies to land helicopters in
wilderness areas in Alaska. Stevens was the chair of the Senate
transportation committee and a really vindictive guy. All of the
conservation groups said, "Well, we've lost this one." But Brian had a
strategy. Congressmen Frank Wolf of Virginia and Ralph Regula of Ohio
were the Republican chairs of the transportation committee in the
House. Brian convinced hunters and anglers in their districts, groups
affiliated with the NRA, to write to Regula and Wolf and say this
rider was an outrage and would spoil the hunting experience in Alaska.
When Stevens's bill came through the House for approval, Regula and
Wolf led the fight to defeat it.
That's the kind of strategy we need nationally right now, to convince
Republican senators and representatives to vote for conservation. To
do this, we need to go outside the circle of people that urban
environmentalists feel comfortable with and talk to those who are
turned off by the environmentalist stereotype, but who agree with us
on protecting wilderness and wildlife.
Lloyd: In the conclusion of Rewilding North America you say that you
are not optimistic, but you are hopeful. How do you make that
distinction?
Foreman: I think hope is much more realistic than optimism. People who
are optimistic just aren't paying attention. But we human beings need
a glimmer of hope out there. And so my task, as I see it, is to create
an achievable vision of how civilization and wilderness can coexist.
That doesn't mean it's going to be easy, or even that it will happen,
but it allows me to have hope.
Both liberals and libertarians, who really occupy opposite ends of the
same spectrum, have an optimistic view of human nature. They think
that human institutions are perfectible and will work in the long run.
One of my favorite books is David Ehrenfeld's The Arrogance of
Humanism. He defines humanism as the belief that humans can solve all
their problems; that if there's not a technological solution, there's
a social or political solution; that all resources are either infinite
or replaceable; that we will muddle through, and civilization will
continue forever. And I'm here to say that it won't. We won't.
People call me a Cassandra, after the Trojan prophetess whose dire
predictions no one believed. But I don't mind. After all, Cassandra
was right; it's just that nobody believed her. The hope I have is that
people will pay attention to the Cassandras in their midst.
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From: The Times (London, UK), Jan. 17, 2006
HOUSEHOLD CHEMICALS COULD DOUBLE CHILD LEUKAEMIA RISK
By Sam Lister
Children frequently exposed to household insecticides used on plants,
lawns and in head lice shampoos appear to run double the risk of
developing childhood leukaemia, research suggests.
A study by French doctors, published today in the journal Occupational
and Environmental Medicine, supports concerns raised in recent years
about the use of toxic insecticides around the home and garden —
including plant sprays, medication shampoos and mosquito repellents —
and a possible correlation with increased rates of acute leukaemia in
children.
The latest study by Inserm, France’s national institute for medical
research, was based on 280 children who had acute leukaemia, newly
diagnosed and 288 children matched for sex and age but disease free.
Detailed interviews were carried out with each mother. These included
questions about the employment history of both parents, the use of
insecticides in the home and garden and the use of insecticidal
shampoos against head lice.
It showed that the risk of developing acute leukaemia was almost twice
as likely in children whose mothers said that they had used
insecticides in the home while pregnant and long after the birth.
Exposure to garden insecticides and fungicides as a child was
associated with a more than doubling of disease occurrence. The use of
insecticidal shampoos for head lice was associated with almost twice
the risk.
Describing the links as “significant”, the authors said that
preventive action should be considered to ensure that the health risks
to children were as small as possible. A group of pesticides known as
carbamates, which are present in plant treatments, lice shampoos and
insect sprays, are most commonly linked to cases of leukaemia.
There are three main carbamates used in the UK — carbaryl, carbofuran
and carbosulfan.
Head lice products containing carbaryl are now restricted to
prescription after a report by a government committee that gave
warning of potential carcinogenic properties.
Florence Menegaux, the lead researcher based at the Paris
headquarters, and her fellow authors said that no one agent could be
singled out and a causal relation between insecticides and the
development of acute childhood leukaemia “remains questionable”. But
they said that the patterns revealed suggested that the results should
be acted on and “preventative action” considered.
Leukaemia is the term used to describe a number of cancers of the
blood cells. In children about 85 per cent of these are acute
lymphoblastic leukaemia, and acute myeloid leukaemia accounts for most
of the rest.
Leukaemia makes up about a third of all cancers in children and
currently kills more than any other disease in the UK. Of the 500
children under the age of 15 who have the disease diagnosed each year,
about 100 die. Research has shown that boys are 10 per cent more
likely than girls to suffer the disease.
In the late 1960s, the mortality rate for leukaemia among children was
about 26 deaths per million of the population in England and Wales.
This dropped to about 10 by the late 1990s. But the incidence rate
increased — from about 40 to 45 cases per million — over the same
period.
The number of new cases being diagnosed has been rising for at least
40 years, particularly in the under-5s.
Scientists believe that the cancer starts in the womb, with a second
event triggering the disease’s development in childhood. Studies are
continuing to determine whether this trigger is genetic,
environmental, dietary or related to other factors.
The possible link to pesticides remains hotly debated, with many
scientists disputing the suggestion that it is a significant factor.
Some have drawn attention to a potential “cocktail effect”, when
apparently safe chemicals cause problems if combined with others.
Although products sold for use in homes and gardens are tested,
mixtures of pesticides are not generally tested because of the number
of permutations involved.
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From: Corporate Watchdog Radio, Jan. 18, 2006
CORPORATE WATCHDOG RADIO LAUNCHES PODCAST
Already broadcast on radio stations from Alaska to Vermont, Corporate
Watchdog Radio holds companies accountable for their social,
environmental, and economic impact
Corporate Watchdog Radio (CWR), a half-hour show broadcast twice
monthly, is a new hybrid radio show and podcast launched using both
platforms simultaneously.
Freely accessible on the internet, on broadcast radio, and through the
iTunes Music Store, Corporate Watchdog Radio is designed for financial
professionals, corporate social responsibility activists, and
investors concerned about the social ethics and environmental impact
of the corporations in their portfolios.
CWR exposes corporate wrongdoing and applauds businesses that do the
right thing. The program investigates how corporate malfeasance can
adversely impact the well-being of people and the planet, and commends
companies making healthy financial returns by supporting social and
environmental progress.
With its lively dialogue and interview format, CWR teams journalist
Bill Baue with environmental attorney and filmmaker Sanford Lewis.
Baue and Lewis bring a wealth of investigative, legal, and reporting
experience to the matter at hand. Lewis, a leading national expert on
corporate disclosure to investors on environmental and social
liabilities, has represented shareowners and activists for over 23
years, and has produced films on corporate accountability issues. Baue
has covered socially responsible investing (SRI) and corporate social
responsibility (CSR) for SocialFunds for half a decade. Together, they
analyze hot topics and breaking stories, and interview experts who are
holding corporations accountable in traditional and innovative ways.
On the latest show (available January 18) Lewis interviews Glenn
Evers, a former DuPont scientist, and Attorney Alan Kluger, who is
suing DuPont regarding Teflon. Evers, who worked for DuPont for more
than 20 years, recently flagged concerns regarding health and
environmental impacts of Dupont products used to coat fast food
wrappers. Kluger has filed a $5 billion lawsuit against Dupont over
the alleged toxicity of Teflon coated cookware. While the Wall Street
Journal, MSNBC, and other mainstream media outlets have only skimmed
the surface of this story, CWR distinguishes itself by offering in-
depth exploration of impacts and implications--including the potential
public health hazards the chemical PFOA poses in ubiquitous products
such as paper wrapping for microwave popcorn, fast food, and pizza.
Lewis is himself a representative of DuPont Shareholders for Fair
Value, a group of DuPont shareholders including Amalgamated Bank,
United Steelworkers and others concerned about the financial impacts
of PFOA on DuPont.
Recent editions of CWR include interviews with Cristobal Bonifaz, lead
lawyer in the ongoing lawsuit against ChevronTexaco for the
environmental destruction of the Ecuadorian rainforest, and reports
from Dow Chemical activist Diane Wilson, author of An Unreasonable
Woman, just prior to her arrest at a Tom Delay fundraiser in Houston.
Corporate Watchdog Radio is produced for broadcast on Valley Free
Radio, a low power FM station in Northampton, Massachusetts, a
Pacifica network affiliate. Other radio stations broadcasting CWR
include The Journey Radio webcasting from St. Louis, Missouri; WOOL-LP
in Southern Vermont; WRCT in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; KWMD in
Anchorage, Alaska; and WRFU in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. Additional
radio stations can pick up CWR from the Pacifica Audioport website
or from the CWR website. The webcast and audio archive is available
through the website, or as a podcast feed and by searching
Corporate Watchdog Media on the iTunes music store.
Additional Information:
Sanford Lewis (413) 549-7333
Bill Baue (413) 665-3088
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Rachel's Democracy & Health News (formerly Rachel's Environment &
Health News) highlights the connections between issues that are
often considered separately or not at all.
The natural world is deteriorating and human health is declining
because those who make the important decisions aren't the ones who
bear the brunt. Our purpose is to connect the dots between human
health, the destruction of nature, the decline of community, the
rise of economic insecurity and inequalities, growing stress among
workers and families, and the crippling legacies of patriarchy,
intolerance, and racial injustice that allow us to be divided and
therefore ruled by the few.
In a democracy, there are no more fundamental questions than, "Who
gets to decide?" And, "How do the few control the many, and what
might be done about it?"
As you come across stories that might help people connect the dots,
please Email them to us at dhn@rachel.org.
Rachel's Democracy & Health News is published as often as
necessary to provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the
subject.
Editors:
Peter Montague - peter@rachel.org
Tim Montague - tim@rachel.org
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