RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #742

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=======================Electronic Edition==================

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.. RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #742 .

.. ---January 17, 2002--- .

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.. WHAT'S IMPORTANT? .

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WHAT'S IMPORTANT?

 

As we review the events of 2001 from the perspective of

environmental and human health, we have to ask, " What's

important? " These trends seem important: growing inequality, the

corporate drive for global control, the accelerating pace of

innovation, and missed opportunities for building real political

power by linking workers and environmentalists.

 

Probably the largest single cause of ill health throughout the

industrialized world is economic inequality, which has been

growing steadily since 1973. Economic inequality is already

worse in the U.S. than in any other industrialized country, and

is steadily growing.[1]

 

How does inequality cause poor health? Low income forms part of

the picture, but equally important are social exclusion,

feelings of powerlessness, chronic anxiety, insecurity, low self

esteem, social isolation (racism, for example), and the sense

that life is out of control, which contribute significantly to

heart disease, depression and other debilitating and deadly

ailments. Thus fairness and justice are basic -- and eroding --

requirements of public health.[2]

 

The corporate globalization project, which is aiming to relax

controls on corporations worldwide (under the liturgy of " free

trade " ), is contributing to inequality by reducing the capacity

of governments to maintain labor standards and environmental

standards or to provide safety nets for citizens who are down on

their luck. As governments are systematically weakened, the

decisions of unelected corporations replace those of elected

governments, thus eroding democracy.

 

In addition to eroding democracy, the corporate globalization

project has two other effects: increasing inequality within and

between nations,[3] and increasing insecurity among working

people, who can no longer be sure that they or their children

will find decent work paying a living wage with benefits, or

that anyone will help them out if they lose their jobs, get

sick, or grow old. As we saw above, a large and growing body of

literature reveals that these twin effects -- inequality and

insecurity -- are among the leading causes of disease,

disability and death.[2]

 

The accelerating pace of innovation is introducing more powerful

technologies more quickly, with less time for thought

beforehand. The main goal is greater corporate control.

 

Today the most rapid innovation is occurring in genetic

engineering.[4] The future of genetic engineering of food crops

leads down two paths: warfare using bioengineered crop pathogens

to devastate an enemy's crops, and " terminator gene technology. "

The U.S. has developed, and has proposed for use, a

bioengineered pathogen to kill coca plants in Colombia in South

America.[4] That plan has been shelved for now, but the genetic

engineering of pathogens to disrupt an enemy's crops is widely

studied.[5]

 

The " terminator gene " prevents a crop from reproducing itself

unless the gene is unlocked by the application of certain

" protector " chemicals or antibiotics. Thus a farmer raising

crops from terminator seeds becomes reliant upon the supplier of

the protector chemicals that prevent reproductive suicide.

Farmers -- or countries -- that fall out of favor can be denied

the chemicals necessary for next year's crop. In sum, terminator

technology provides total control over any farmer who adopts it.

Pressure to adopt terminator technology could be applied in many

forms, especially by transnational corporations backed by the

power of the U.S. Treasury, the World Trade Organization, and

the Pentagon.[4,pg.40]

 

Furthermore, farmers may adopt terminator technology without

even realizing it. Scientists at Purdue University have patented

a terminator gene that works normally for several crop

generations, but eventually prevents reproduction unless treated

with protector chemicals. Farmers adopting such crops could be

controlled thereafter. Government (or corporations) could simply

disallow the export of the needed chemicals to nations that

engaged in behavior that the U.S. considers unacceptable. Many

variations on this theme are possible, but they all lead to the

same end: control.

 

As another means of control, water supplies are being rapidly

privatized worldwide. Using rules developed by free trade

regimes (chiefly NAFTA and the WTO), transnational corporations

are taking advantage of growing water shortages in dozens of

countries, buying up water in bulk for resale at huge profit. A

byproduct of this lucrative business will be political control

over any country that allows its water to be supplied from

outside its borders.[6]

 

Rapid innovation -- aimed at control -- is also occurring in

space warfare. Some corporations, of course, thrive on war but

many others find their business prospects reduced by

international conflict. Thus the corporate ideal would be to

sell everyone arms but prevent their use. But this would require

total control of the world.

 

The U.S. has three programs with the potential for controlling

the world: genetic engineering of the global food supply with

terminator genes and the privatization of water supplies

(discussed above), and the militarization of space -- providing

an inescapable platform for destroying the enemies of the

" military-industrial complex " (President Eisenhower's phrase).

 

U.S. plans for the full militarization of space have generally

been kept out of public view, except for the " star wars " missile

defense system, initially proposed by President Reagan to

protect the U.S. against Soviet missile attacks. Even though the

Soviet threat has vanished, the star wars program remains alive.

During 2001, the NEW YORK TIMES explained why: the star wars

program is a " Trojan horse " with a " larger purpose " the

full-scale militarization of space.[7]

 

Space warfare is already a huge, secret industry based on exotic

technologies, but the goals are quite traditional: control.

 

The Pentagon has its hopes set on a space-based laser, " the Buck

Rogers kind of thing, " says Colonel Doug Beason at Kirtland Air

Force Base in Albuquerque. He hopes to be testing a laser weapon

in space by 2008 -- 6 years from now.

 

Other exotic weapons are even further along. " I'm particularly

excited about high-power microwaves, " says Colonel Beason. A

ground-based microwave weapon already exists. " We're testing it

on humans now, " Colonel Beason told the NEW YORK TIMES in

August.

 

The U.S. intends to be first to militarize space. " Space is our

next manifest destiny, " says Senator Bob Smith, Republican of

New Hampshire. And so President Bush in 2001 reneged on the 1972

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a necessary step in U.S. plans to

turn the starry firmament into an inescapable platform for

raining destruction down upon anyone who imperils our manifest

destiny of global corporate control.

 

Militarizing space will start a new arms race, which will divert

hundreds of billions of tax dollars into the bank accounts of

corporate elites. Thus even if no Buck Rogers weapons are ever

fired, merely building them will increase inequality and degrade

public health.

 

We environmentalists are failing to recognize and support the

major force that has held inequality in check for the past 150

years, namely labor unions. Even today when the union movement

is relatively weak, unionized workers earn 21% more per hour

than non-union workers. But more than that, it was organized

working people who compelled employers to abide by the standards

that we now take for granted in all civilized societies: a

40-hour work week; weekends off; paid vacations; sick leave;

family leave; retirement (private pensions and social security);

health insurance; limits on child labor; workplace safety and

health standards; legal protections against discrimination based

on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, or

physical disability; protection against sexual harassment,

arbitrary firing; and so on. These standards and norms are not

perfect, and too often they are not effectively enforced, but

they are fundamental and essential to civilized life, and we

would not have them without unions.

 

Since 1980 the U.S. has been openly hostile to working people

and unions. The situation has grown so bad that Human Rights

Watch published a report in summer, 2000, documenting how the

U.S. routinely violates the three universally-recognized human

rights of workers: the right to join a union, the right to

bargain collectively, and the right, if all else fails, to

strike.[8]

 

Unions are not perfect. In the past many have been racist,

sexist, jingoist, and, some of them, corrupt. Many have been

undemocratic, top-down organizations (mimicking corporations).

Still, in our reading of American history, the one group that

has had the greatest and most lasting success in curbing the

power of the corporate elite is organized working people. In

fact, no other group even comes close. Furthermore, the new

union movement is now reaching out to everyone (including

environmentalists, who have, so far, largely turned a deaf ear).

 

As counter-intuitive as it may seem at first, probably the

single most important thing that environmentalists could do to

protect the environment would be a multi-year campaign to change

U.S. labor law, to allow workers to form and join unions, in

accord with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

Why shouldn't it be as easy to form a union as it is to form a

corporation? Declare your intention, pay your $50 fee, end of

story.[9] If labor law reform became a top priority of

environmentalists, in a decade or perhaps less, this one

legislative change could move environmental concerns from the

political fringe into the mainstream with powerful new allies:

the 34 million U.S. working people now denied union membership,

who are bearing the brunt of widening inequalities (worldwide)

caused by growing corporate control.

 

The environmental movement's failure to appreciate and support

the needs of working people is merely a symptom of an even

larger problem: Because we have all pursued single-issue

politics for three decades, natural allies are failing to learn

about each other's struggles, much less work together.

 

The base of citizen activism at the local level in the U.S. is

astonishingly large and vibrant. Social movements abound: the

environmental justice movement, the toxics movement, the

movements for clean production and zero waste, the movement to

protect and empower people with disabilities and chemical

sensitivities, the community (neighborhood) development

movement, the anti-globalization movement, the democratic labor

movement, the civil rights movement, the faith-based movement

for justice, the sustainable agriculture movement, the animal

rights movement, the peace movement, the women's movement, the

gay rights movement -- together they could create a massive

counterforce that could take us off the earth-destroying path

that our unelected leaders have chosen.

 

Traditionally, political parties have provided the big tents to

hold people with similar beliefs. Now, however, the Democrats

and Republicans have both embraced the corporate agenda, leaving

the vast majority of people unrepresented. What an opportunity!

 

Our failure to seek -- much less achieve -- political unity

remains our most pressing problem. We are divided, and so long

as we remain that way, we will be conquered.

 

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

 

[1] Alexander Stille, " Grounded by an Income Gap, " NEW YORK

TIMES Dec. 15, 2001, pgs. A15, A17.

 

[2] See REHN #497, #584 AND #654. And see the bibliography in D.

Raphael, INEQUALITY IS BAD FOR OUR HEARTS: WHY LOW INCOME AND

SOCIAL EXCLUSION ARE MAJOR CAUSES OF HEART DISEASE IN CANADA

(Toronto: North York Heart Health Network, 2001). And see, for

example: Ana V. Diez Roux and others, " Neighborhood of Residence

and Incidence of Coronary Heart Disease, " NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF

MEDICINE Vol. 345, No. 2 (July 12, 2001), pgs. 99-106. And:

Michael Marmot, " Inequalities in Health, " NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF

MEDICINE Vol. 345, No. 2 (July 12, 2001), pgs. 134-136. And see

the extensive bibliographies in the following: M. G. Marmot and

Richard G. Wilkinson, editors, SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

(Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; ISBN

0192630695); David A. Leon, editor and others, POVERTY,

INEQUALITY AND HEALTH: AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE (Oxford and

New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; ISBN 0192631969);

Richard Wilkinson, UNHEALTHY SOCIETIES: THE AFFLICTIONS OF

INEQUALITY (New York: Routledge, 1997; ISBN: 0415092353); Norman

Daniels and others, IS INEQUALITY BAD FOR OUR HEALTH? (Boston:

Beacon Press, 2000; ISBN: 0807004472); Ichiro Kawachi, and

others, THE SOCIETY AND POPULATION HEALTH READER: INCOME

INEQUALITY AND HEALTH (New York: New Press, 1999; ISBN:

1565845714); Alvin R. Tarlov, editor, THE SOCIETY AND POPULATION

HEALTH READER, VOLUME 2: A STATE PERSPECTIVE (New York: New

Press, 2000; ISBN 1565845579).

 

[3] Bruce R. Scott, " The Great Divide in the Global Village, "

FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Feb. 12, 2001), pages unknown; available at

http://63.236.1.211/articles/scott0102.html.

 

[4] Pat Roy Mooney, THE ETC CENTURY; EROSION, TECHNOLOGICAL

TRANSFORMATION, AND CORPORATE CONCENTRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

(Winnipeg, Canada: The ETC Group, 2001); available in PDF: http://-

www.rafi.org/documents/other_etccentury.pdf. The ETC Group

(formerly RAFI, the Rural Advancement Foundation International)

can be reached at 478 River Avenue, Suite 200, Winnipeg, MB R3L

0C8 Canada; Tel: (204) 453-5259, Fax: (204) 284-7871. This

report is " MUST READ " for all activists.

 

[5] Paul Rogers and others, " Biological Warfare Against Crops, "

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (June 1999), pgs. 70-75.

 

[6] Maude Barlow, BLUE GOLD:THE GLOBAL WATER CRTISIS AND THE

COMMODIFICATION OF THE WORLD'S WATER SUPPLY, Revised edition.

(San Francisco: International Forum on Globalization, Spring

2001). See http://www.canadians.org/blueplanet/publications/-

eng_bluegold-intro.html.

 

[7] Jack Hitt, " Battlefield: Space, " NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

August 5, 2001, pgs. 30-36, 55-56, 62-63.

 

[8] Lance Compa, UNFAIR ADVANTAGE: WORKERS' FREEDOM OF

ASSOCIATION IN THE UNITED STATES UNDER INTERNATIONAL HUMAN

RIGHTS STANDARDS (New York: Human Rights Watch, August 2000).

ISBN 1-56432-251-3.

 

[9] Peter Kellman, BUILDING UNIONS (Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Apex

Press, 2001). ISBN 1-891843-09-5. Apex Press, P.O. Box 377,

Croton-On-Hudson, NY 10520; or phone POCLAD at 518-398-1145, or

E-mail people. See also REHN #697, #698, #699, #700,