=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #297
—August 5, 1992—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
==========
The Back issues and Index
are available
here.
The official RACHEL archive is here.
It’s updated constantly.
To subscribe, send E-mail to rachel-
weekly-
request@world.std.com
with the single word SUBSCRIBE in the message. It’s free.
===Previous Issue==========================================Next Issue===
WHAT WORKS–PART 2: HOW TO TERMINATE BUSINESS AS USUAL
In a very real sense, the system cannot reform itself. The
business organizations that are destroying the planet as a place
suitable for human habitation cannot do the right thing EVEN WHEN
A MAJORITY OF THEIR MEMBERS WANT TO. These organizations have
narrowly-defined goals, which are embedded in the corporate
charter (the legal document that creates a corporation and gives
it legal standing in the community). Chiefly, business
organizations exist to return a profit to their investors and
managers, and this goal eclipses all others. As the Business
Council for Sustainable Development said recently, “Business
enterprises exist to generate wealth by adding value,” and “The
basic goal of business must remain economic growth.”[1]
It is ironic that even the leaders of the world’s largest
business organizations no longer believe that “business as usual”
is sustainable. In a joint declaration earlier this year, the
presidents of Dow Chemical, Du Pont, BFI and about 50 other large
companies said, “Continued economic development now depends on
radical improvements in the interactions between business and the
environment. This can only be achieved by a break with ‘business
as usual’ mentalities and conventional wisdom, which sideline
environment and human concerns.”[2]
In sum, the planet is being destroyed as a place suitable for
human habitation by individuals who do not want to destroy it but
who cannot help themselves because they are caught up in
organizations whose narrow goals take precedence over their own
personal ethics and aspirations. Furthermore, even the leaders of
these organizations don’t believe they can continue their usual
patterns of behavior for long. They explicitly recognize that the
world industrial system is not sustainable.
Thus a key question emerges: How can the self-propelling,
destructive behavior of these organizations be changed? The lives
and the well being of our children depend upon finding an answer,
and fairly soon.
For at least two decades now, the environmental movement has been
working to reform the behavior of business people, particularly
“big business” people. (This focus on corporate reform has not
always been explicit, but since pollution largely stems from
corporate decisions, anti-pollution activism is, at bottom,
always an attempt at corporate reform.) The question is, what
works? As we look back on two decades of our labors, what
successes can we point to? What strategies have shown promise,
and what tactics have borne fruit?
A new organization, the Environmental Exchange, just 18 months
old, has begun to catalog the successes of the environmental
movement, and their first report is just out. WHAT WORKS REPORT
NO. 1; AIR POLLUTION SOLUTIONS examines a broad range of ideas
and projects that are are succeeding.[3]
The authors have broken the subject into the following categories:
Fighting Smog
- transforming transit
- curbing cars
- boosting bikes
- controlling smog from stationary sources
Tackling Air Toxics
- reducing industrial toxic emissions
- local laws attack toxics
Saving the ozone layer
- phasing out ozone depleters
- local laws ban CFCs
Air pollution education
- hands-on activities
- curriculum development
The report offers a series of stories about communities that have
forced change to happen. “Rather than waiting for government
directives, people are directing their own efforts to save the
earth.” In this, “…they reflect the common sense spirit of
initiative that is essential to solving our environmental
problems.”
Take Portland, Oregon. In the 1970s, Portland violated clean air
standards one day out of every three. Local government began by
placing a cap on downtown parking; then they stopped putting
money into widening or building roads into downtown Portland,
putting the money instead into mass transit. They built a
light-rail system now known as Max. Result: downtown employment
has increased from 60,000 to 90,000 since the early 1970s, and
43% of all commuters now use mass transit. Air pollution
violations are near zero, urban sprawl has diminished, and more
than $400 million has been invested in new developments near the
transit line.
In addition to success stories, WHAT WORKS REPORT NO. 1 offers
useful facts, such as these: light rail costs $10-$20 million per
mile to build; a highway costs $100 million per mile to build;
one rail track can move as many people as an 18-lane highway;
since 1971, 750,000 Americans have been killed in automobile
accidents; train wrecks have killed 63 passengers during the same
period.
Now we move to Cloverleaf, Texas. In 1990, LaRoche Industries
proposed to put a 105,000-gallon ammonia storage facility in
Cloverleaf. Just a few months earlier, a 3000-gallon tank truck
of ammonia had crashed and ruptured on a Houston freeway, killing
seven people, hospitalizing 50, and requiring evacuation of 1000
others. The company’s application for an air pollution permit
argued that Cloverleaf was a good spot for their tank because the
community consisted mainly of “small poorly maintained houses…
small junky businesses… and very low quality housing.”
Community residents wanted to know why LaRoche considered it more
“appropriate” for them to bear the risks than their
higher-salaried neighbors. Community residents and members of the
group Texans United attended the first meeting of the Texas Air
Control Board armed with posters showing enlarged reproductions
of the offensive language in the application. “The Air Control
Board officials flew into our first meeting expecting to smooth
things over with a few fearful homeowners,” says community
leader Karla Land. “But when they looked around the hall and saw
those posters, they knew they’d walked into a hornet’s nest of
organized opposition. The Board seemed a little stunned, promised
to consider our objections, and headed back to Austin.” The Air
Board subsequently denied the application, the first denial in
the Board’s history.
As you read WHAT WORKS REPORT NO. 1, you will see that what works
is:
** angry, ORGANIZED communities;
** constant watchdogging by citizens of permit applications and
compliance records;
** bad publicity for polluters;
** a growing awareness among business people that waste reduction
saves money;
** lawsuits to recover damages, or the threat of such lawsuits
or, in some cases, the mere POSSIBILITY of such lawsuits;
** evidence of pollution, especially evidence on video tape;
** someone to raise the initial question, why should we take this
anymore?
** local laws stricter than state or federal laws;
** laws (local, state and federal) that require companies to
produce data about their pollution, so they no longer operate on
an honor system but are publicly accountable to the community;
** relentless citizen pressure, which can topple the most
recalcitrant corporate or government adversary.
These are what works.
It is interesting to compare this list to a similar list drawn up
by the Business Council for Sustainable Development. What does
the Business Council say works?
** The threat of government regulation. (But they say this
doesn’t work well: As the Business Council notes, “Business has
favored regulation in the past because it also is more familiar
with this approach, and feels it can influence it through
negotiation. In addition, in many nations regulations are passed
but rarely enforced.”)
** Solicited voluntary initiatives. President Bush has used this
tactic, asking America’s largest polluters to voluntarily reduce
the quantities of poison they release. Unfortunately, the
effectiveness of this request cannot be evaluated objectively
because the U.S. government collects no data on its own but,
instead, relies entirely on self-reporting by industry.
** Required disclosure of environmental effects; for example, in
the U.S., the Toxics Release Inventory requires certain
industries to disclose the nature and amount of their emissions;
this works because it “allows the public to see the records and
act accordingly; it ranks companies; and it demonstrates waste to
boards of directors.”
** Public pressure or public esteem: industries operate with an
implied contract with the public and “loss of confidence cannot
long be tolerated.”
** Peer pressure: “Leading companies are adopting sustainable
development charters, which puts pressure on others to do
likewise.”
** A common view of common threats: business people inhabit the
same planet as everyone else and don’t want to wreck it.
** Consistency of behavior by multinational corporations–cleanup
of a U.S. facility forces cleanup of a subsidiary in El Salvador
or South Asia, the Business Council says. (pgs. 20-21)
What’s missing from the Business Council’s list is direct
confrontation with angry, ORGANIZED communities; local laws
stricter than state or national laws; lawsuits for money damages
or the threat of such lawsuits; and restrictions written into the
corporate charter. These are what REALLY works.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
[2] Schmidheiny, cited above, pg. 82.
Descriptor terms: business council for sustainable development;
sustainable development; environmental exchange; environmental
laws; portland; mass-transit; cloverleaf, texas; Laroche;
ammonia; air control board; or; tx; air pollution;