One of the surprising themes in the
books we’re read this semester is human rights. Perhaps that shouldn’t be unexpected—or
perhaps it’s indicative of thinking we are detached from our ecological environment
that makes it surprising. Naomi Klein
and Bill McKibben both pointed out that climate change is a social justice and
human rights issue—the poorest and most vulnerable will be most immediately and
most seriously impacted by the ramifications of climate change. Environmental contamination has always had a
social justice component, since, likewise, the poor are more likely to live in
areas where industrial activities can degrade the environment without much
recourse given the limited resources of the population. In Living
Downstream, Sandra Steingraber makes the point (one Rachel Carson made in
1962) that dealing with environmental contaminants “requires a human rights
perspective. Such a view recognizes that the current system of regulating the
use, release, and disposal of known and suspected carcinogens—rather than
preventing their generation in the first place—is intolerable. So is the
decision to allow untested chemicals free access to our bodies, until which
time they are finally assessed for carcinogenic properties. Both practices show reckless disregard for
human life” (p 280). We have a very
limited ability to control our exposure to environmental contaminants given the
pervasiveness of pesticides and industrial contaminants that move through the
air, into our water, and in our food web. Should industry and pesticide
applicators get to make the decision that results in our inevitable exposure??
Steingraber
highlights that cancer pamphlets that you find in the doctor’s office often
focus on individual behaviors that contribute to cancer, often giving little or
no recognition that most cancers have a strong environmental component—that your
fate is in some ways a lottery of where you were born, of the propinquity of
your home to a factory releasing toxic compounds or a farm applying
pesticides. I find this perplexing. Have my loved ones worried that it was
something they’ve done—too much wine, too much food? Have they gone to their deaths thinking this
was a bed they made for themselves and that they should have walked a narrower
path? This is horrifying. She also points out that even if we take the
outdated low estimate for environmentally related deaths from cancer—6%--that
this is approximately 33,600 US people who die from “involuntary exposures to
toxic chemicals.” This is significantly
more who die from hereditary breast cancer and non-smokers who die from lung
cancer from secondhand smoke. It
illustrates our failure to adjust our fear to the proper targets, something
humans are famous for. It may be our
superpower.
Steingraber goes on to say that “In
2007, 834,499,071 pounds of known or suspected carcinogens were released into
our air, water, and soil by reporting industries. In this light, the 33,600 deaths
can be seen as homicides” (p 281). It
sounds kind of extreme, but is it really?
If our regulatory agencies fail to take the available data that suggest or
even indicate the potential harm and continue to allow its release—despite the
presence of alternative methods—then it doesn’t seem extreme at all. It sounds downright realistic (aside from the
fact that the estimate is a gross underestimate). These are problems that we can solve, but the
power that industry either has or is given by our government undermines the
solutions, which is ridiculous.
Steingraber notes that “…cancer organizations in other nations seem far
less bewildered about how to prevent cancer” (p 274) and, therefore, they
regulate sensibly. Something we should
try a little more often here in the US.
Sandra Steingraber is our modern
Rachel Carson and I am so glad to have discovered her. And I am grateful to the graduate students
who read along with me this semester. We
have read six non-fiction books and I would never have made it through all of
them this quickly alone; and I could have never had such interesting
conversations with myself as we’ve had together in our seminar.
