Here’s a pristine example of acting without caution: A few years ago, while my neighbor and I talked near my strawberry patch, a swarm of ants suddenly appeared. “I have a can of poison on my porch!” my friend cried.
“Okay,” I said, oblivious to potential consequences, focused on the quick solution.
In a blink, the ant swarm died.
The next time I looked, the strawberry patch was gone, too.
When no policy limits manufacturers’ use of toxic chemicals
For eons, physicians have sworn to first, do no harm. Elders have taught youth to not unto others as you would not have them do unto you; to look both ways before crossing a street.
Then, in the 19th century, mass production became possible. Manufacturers threw caution to the wind. We got trains, denim jeans, cast iron pots and treadle sewing machines. Electricity became available around 1900; and factory-made refrigerators, washing machines, radios, TVs, telephones and cars became common. We got pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, pharmaceuticals, PFAs and Teflon-coated pans—and distribution systems for perishable food.
To people who had survived only by what they could hunt, harvest and build themselves, machine-produced goods made life much easier.
But industrialization also brought problems.
Starting in the 1970s, John Raffensperger, a pediatric surgeon, cared for hundreds of children with cancer or birth defects. These children lived near industrial sites, and Dr. Raffensperger was convinced that their cancers and birth defects came from exposure to toxic chemicals—but he couldn’t prove it. Without proof of harm, the chemicals proliferated. So did childhood diseases.
By the mid-1990s, scientific research showed how exposure to chemicals disrupted the endocrine system and other bodily functions. Theo Colburn published Our Stolen Future: Are we threatening our fertility, intelligence and survival? Reports emerged about Love Canal, a New York town built over an industrial dump. The dump’s rotting containers (holding dioxin) leached into the backyards and basements of 100 homes and a public school. (Dioxin comes from burning hazardous waste; from producing paper, iron and steel; from burning chlorinated pesticides, solvents and polyvinyl chloride plastics.) The town’s children were born deaf, with cleft palates, extra teeth, slight retardation and eye defects.
Physicians, environmentalists and parents wanted to prevent the widespread suffering caused by chlorinated compounds.
But internationally, no policy had limited manufacturers’ vast array of chemicals.
The Precautionary Principle
In 1998 Carolyn Raffensperger (Dr. Raffensperger’s daughter), an attorney and director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, co-convened a group of 26 scientists, breast cancer activists, farmers and attorneys. A representative from Greenpeace and a Republican sat side-by-side. Over a weekend, this group drafted the Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle. They identified four guidelines for environmental decision-making even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically:
1. In the face of uncertainty, act preventatively.
2. Shift the burden of proof to a product’s proponents—who must demonstrate that the product or service is safe and does not cause harm.
3. Identify and choose the best environmental alternatives to harmful substances and actions.
4. Engage the public and affected stakeholders in decision-making.
Acting preventively
When Carolyn Raffensperger’s husband was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer, his doctor considered enrolling Fred in a drug trial that would use thalidomide. The couple asked about the drug’s environmental impacts. What would Fred metabolize? What would he excrete? What would be the drug’s environmental fate? The oncologist had never considered these questions. Fred Kirschenmann decided not to use anything that could result in birth defects to frogs, deer, muskrats or others. (Twenty-four years later, he still lives.)
Not everyone considered the Precautionary Principle a wise guideline. Some people said, “If it was up to Carolyn Raffensperger, we would not have fire.” Others criticized the Precautionary Principle because few countries or municipalities have the resources or political will necessary to monitor or enforce corporate behavior.
Enacting the Precautionary Principle
But many communities and international jurisdictions adopted it:
· In 2005, San Francisco enacted a purchasing ordinance that required the city to use safer alternatives when purchasing cleaning products and electronics.
· The European Union formed a policy that requires chemical manufacturers to demonstrate that their products are safe. It gives governments immediate authority to regulate substances that show problems.
· The Cartagena Biosafety Protocol and the Stockholm Treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants invoke the Precautionary Principle to govern genetically modified organisms and some toxic chemicals.
· The Los Angeles Unified School District adopted the Precautionary Principle to limit pesticide use on school grounds.
· California EPA required that potential polluters not add to the cumulative impacts of a community already pock-marked by environmental injustice.
· In 2006, San Francisco banned the manufacture, distribution and sale of toys or items intended for children under the age of three that contain toxic chemicals called phthalates and bisphenol-A. When a group of retailers, manufacturers and chemical companies then sued the city, claiming that the ordinance would cause them irreparable harm (lost profits), the City amended the ordinance to ban only specifically-named chemicals. In 2007, California’s state legislature banned the manufacture, sale and distribution of toys made with bisphenol-A; and it limited phthalates in products intended for children under three.
· In February, 2024, an international group of scientists called for governments to apply the Precautionary Principle to wireless technologies and protect children, adults and pregnant women from exposure to microwave radiation.
Nearly three decades after the Precautionary Principle’s release
Corporations continue to market hazardous products and services. Threats to public health and wildlife from manufacturing, operating and discarding pharmaceuticals, pesticides, lead paint, PFAs, plastics, our power grid, electronics, telecom cellular sites and data storage centers…have not decreased. Overshoot threatens life itself. Overshoot occurs when human demands on the planet (for energy, manufactured goods, motorized vehicles, industrially-processed food) exceed what natural ecosystems can regenerate and create waste faster than the Earth can absorb. Overshoot’s consequences include public health hazards, biodiversity loss, extreme weather events and democracy’s collapse.
When I asked Carolyn Raffensperger about the Precautionary Principle’s place in these times, she named several challenges. “First,” she said, “the Precautionary Principle works in a morally mature culture—in a society that acts with restraint as it regulates relationships between people, and between people and nature. Our culture’s regulations do not respect the natural world. Our allegiance to profits and technology makes acting with restraint difficult. It makes realizing how essential birds and bees are to us difficult.” (In Iowa, where Raffensperger lives, the land is covered with pig farms and corn. Less than three percent of native ecosystems remain.)
“Second,” Raffensperger continued, “some environmentalists think that because climate change threatens humanity’s survival, the Precautionary Principle is no longer relevant. They think we don’t have time to address a solution’s complex consequences. Any means justifies the ends. To decrease fossil fuel use, for example, they say we ‘must’ deploy wind turbines and solar facilities—and ignore the consequences for bats and birds and forests.
“The Precautionary Principle doesn’t stand for these actions. While facing planetary emergencies, we need to discuss our underlying ethics and our responsibility to future generations.”
Precautionary questions
What do Precautionary actions look like while we face existential threats?
Perhaps a flood of Precautionary questions.
In 1980, Jerry Mander wrote “78 reasonable questions to ask about any technology.” For examples: “Does (this product or service) break the bond of renewal between humans and nature?”
“How much and what kind of waste does it generate?”
“Does it reduce, deaden or enhance human creativity?”
Here are Precautionary questions for personal products and services:
· Energy. How do solar PV systems impact ecosystems from cradle-to-grave? How do solar PVs increase fire hazards? If panels crack, will their PFAs and other chemicals leach into soil? Given that panels are hazardous waste, can we dispose of them safely at their end-of-life?
· Transportation. Given the energy, extractions, water, hazardous working conditions (including child labor) and toxic emissions involved in manufacturing, is it more ecologically sound to buy a new vehicle, a used one, repair my current one—or get along without a car? How do you minimize an e-vehicle’s fire hazards? Since charging an EV reduces the nearby transformer’s lifespan 30 or 40 years to three years, would it help if users coordinated charging times? What can an EV battery do once it can no longer power a car?
· Phones. Given the energy, extractions, water, hazardous working conditions (including child labor) and toxic emissions involved in manufacturing, operating and discarding mobile phones (and other computers), could you buy one with modular/replaceable parts? Do we keep a landline to maintain communication during power outages? What tools keep children from addictive screen-time?
· Internet access. How do wired systems affect ecosystems? What about wireless systems? How do these systems impact public health? How does wireless access impact health? Can I turn a wireless system off while we sleep?
· Food. Where was this food grown? Where was it processed? Were GMOs, pesticides or herbicides involved in growing it? Can I buy this food without plastic packaging? Does a local farmer grow it? Could I cook and/or grow it myself? Does this baby bottle have lead paint?
· Birth control. How/does the method impact users’ health? Offspring’s health? How does urinating its residues impact ecosystems? Does the method change users’ relationships? What are the alternatives? (Taking the Pill for two years before age 25 increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer by 85%.)
· Clearing aphids from roses. Since hummingbird babies feed on aphids, what harm comes from leaving them on the plants?
· Dental floss. Does it have PFAs?
Precautionary questions for manufacturers and municipalities:
· Proposed mining sites or factories. How will their water use (including used water) impact farmers’ and community water? How will their use impact wildlife habitats? What particulates will they emit?
· Proposed power plants. For whom will this facility provide power? What energy, extractions, water, concrete, international shipping does manufacturing this facility require? What fire hazards, radiation risks, toxic emissions will the facility carry? Who will monitor these risks? What’s our emergency plan if a battery storage system catches fire? If/when the system fails to provide power, what’s the backup? In the event of fire, what’s the evacuation plan? Is the facility’s waste hazardous? Who will pay to dispose its waste?
· Data storage center. What entities will this storage center serve? From where will it get power and water? Will its electricity and water demands impact local businesses and households?
· Telecom access networks. How/can we legally minimize our community’s risks from access networks’ radiation, fire hazards, failure at power outages, hacking, increased energy consumption?
· E-vehicle charging stations. How can we minimize fire hazards? What new equipment (i.e. lead blankets) and budgetary increases do we need to extinguish EV fires? Since charging EVs reduces nearby transformers’ lifespan, should we budget for new transformers? How can we safely dispose of municipally-owned batteries?
· How/could we teach ourselves and our children to limit our consumption? Could we limit our purchases to products that biodegrade?
Please add your questions to these lists! Mine don’t scratch the surface.
I’m also sobered to realize that no individual or even municipality can adequately research safer alternatives to our current world’s harmful products and services. Most of us don’t learn about hazards from GMOs, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, telecom access networks, power systems, computers, TVs, electric vehicles…until after they’ve been purchased and deployed. Few laws and regulations protect us from their hazards.
Still, precautionary questions encourage minimizing harmful consequences. A few weeks after I gave my neighbor permission to spray that swarm of ants, I asked an old gardener what he’d have done. “Nothing,” he said. “When the sun shines, ants go back underground.”
Next time, may his caution be with me.
RESOURCES & OTHER NEWS
The Precautionary Principle in Action: A Handbook, 1999 by Joel Tickner, Carolyn Raffensperger and Nancy Myers, 1999, for the Science and Environmental Health Network.
How Mining Hurts Communities, by the Protect Thacker Pass Campaign, Feb., 2024.
The Staggering Ecological Impacts of Computation and the Cloud, by Steven Gonzales Monserrate, MIT Press Reader, 2022. Illuminates some of the diverse environmental impacts of data storage.
How to start a mutual aid network, by Aaron Fernando, Shareable, 2.22.24.
“Equinox Balance Act: Addressing Unhealed-Pandemic-Telecom-Dependency,” by Patricia Burke, March 15, 2024.
Manville AM, Levitt BB, Lai HC. Health and environmental effects to wildlife from radio telemetry and tracking devices. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, Vol. 11, 2024. A concerned citizen reports: Around Monterey Bay, CA, agencies are implanting and/or attaching RF devices to animals. 24/7 microwave antennas are also located at nesting or feeding sites. Agencies include the Packard-funded Monterey Bay Aquarium, UCSC, the Ventana Wildlife Society, and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District.
Solar PVs
“How a Solar Revolution in Farming is Depleting World’s Groundwater,” by Fred Pearce, Yale, Feb. 27, 2024.
San Diego County has reviewed an application from AES for a Minor Use Permit to construct up to 400 megawatt hours of battery storage on approximately 22.55 acres. AES has also proposed an 800-acre solar and battery facility in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. See what San Diego County officials require of AES in order to protect public and wildlife health…while Santa Fe County has no emergency plan.
Landlines and mobile phones
San Mateo County raises concerns over AT&T’s efforts to eliminate landlines.
Norway's government has made a concerted push to ban smartphones and tablets from classrooms nationwide. This move reflects a broader effort in Norway to prioritize community well-being and address the effects of digitalization on children's development, including declining reading abilities.
A French village has voted to ban scrolling in public.
E-vehicles
Mercedes Benz ditches plan to sell only EVs by 2030.
Why Car Dealers are Rejecting Second-Hand Electric Vehicle Trade-Ins, G. Edward Griffin’s Need to Know, March 1, 2024.
Repeated fires at a GM EV plant have Detroit fire officials demanding changes, Detroit Free Press, March 1, 2024.
Reiterating for the sake of newbies and to support this post.
I have a landline and a wired laptop and a wired monitor screen, all the tech anyone should ever want or need. I never had and refuse to ever have one of those infernal mobile devices that are designed to enslave you.
THEY want you dead or a slave every which way from Sunday and AI, wireless gadgets and 5G/6G are major components in THEIR arsenal.
A vast majority of so-called leaders and Public 'Serpents' around the world have been bribed, blackmailed/coerced into serving the interests of their technocratic New World Ordure parasite masters and not We the People.
GREED is behind every evil assailing us in the world!
We the People must try harder to live by The Golden Rule, doing so would solve most problems!
Everything is much worse and certainly including 'deaths of despair', all by malicious calculated design.
The demonic despots of Davos at it again! They are behind everything bad! At it for decades and cronies like The Rothschilds and the Black Nobility and The Khazarian Mafia have been plotting planetary domination for centuries! ALL BECAUSE OF AVARICE!
Apoplectic livid rage hardly describes the intensity of emotions I have had and am having over what these malignant parasites are perpetrating!
There is no noxious crime that the evildoers desiring to lord it over us won't commit to maintain their stranglehold on power. A groundswell critical mass resistance to their murderous enslavement plans is needed urgently!
THEY can't get rid of the 'useless eaters' fast enough! Mistakes were not made, it was always malice aforethought.
CLIMATE CHANGE IS AN EVEN WORSE FRAUD THAN THE PLANSCAMDEMIC! SO-CALLED GREEN TECH IS A GIGANTIC SCAM! MINING AND MANUFACTURING 'GREEN' PRODUCTS NEEDS COAL, GAS AND OIL AND MINING RARE MINERALS IS MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY TOXIC AND DESTRUCTIVE THAN LEGACY PRODUCTS. SCREW YOUR DAMNED AGENDA! https://climateviewer.com
Too many 'sheeple' are brainwashed to blindly obey authority figures on the media or in daily life in corrupt system ruled by control freak psychopaths who use propaganda lies to enslave their subjects and they are dumbed down to be obedient by 'education' institutions. Fortunately I was raised to question everything. This transcends party lines. We need a system that punishes psychopaths and rewards compassion and sharing, we need a system that actually follows The Constitution in reality.
I DO NOT COMPLY! NEVER HAVE, NEVER WILL!
My loathing of AI and all things NANO and digital knows no bounds!
There is no noxious crime that the evildoers desiring to lord it over us won't commit to maintain their stranglehold on power. A groundswell critical mass resistance to their murderous enslavement plans is needed urgently!
Kudos to Katie Singer's heroic efforts and success in the struggle. We the People must always be aware of the existential threats lurking behind this fight!
There is a fate worse than death - I would rather die than be a robotized slave of technocratic overlords! This is my hill to die on!
How I stick my thumb in the eyes of the grotesque billionaire bastards pushing their enslavement agenda and how I embrace being fully human.
Fighting the globalist predator technocrat psychopath megalomaniac TOTAL SLAVERY AGENDA one performance at a time!
Amazing Amy: Eccentric Yoga Entertainer!
As an entertainer, I have been devastated and practically destroyed by the closure of all performance venues and then when they reopened, because MY BODY, MY CHOICE - being made a total untermenschen pariah outcast in NAZI NIGHTMARE LAWLESS 'SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS' JAB CROW APARTHEID/DISCRIMINATION/SEGREGATION HELL NYC WHERE THE MAD/DRUNK WITH POWER TYRANT POLS DOUBLE DOWN ON THEIR ILLEGAL MANDATES. I am trapped here with zero financial resources to leave or do anything else about this 'wish I were dead' endless misery life has become. The tragic irony is that my SPREAD THE YOGA LOVE performances are all about health, miraculously overcoming age (68) and injury to achieve feats of flexibility few can attain at any age. So BIG PHARMA who wants to addict every person on the planet to their toxic products hate people like me who prove that we do not need them if we eat healthy organic food and exercise daily!
https://www.reverbnation.com/artist/amazingamycontortionistuniqueyogadancer
I try and live and embody the creative performing artistic world and life I so fervently want existence to be about.
They can stick their f*cking damned NANO, Digital IDs, AI, jabs and chips up their asses where the sun don't shine!
All manner of lies and propaganda spew forth from the upper echelons in governments worldwide who are completely intertwined with the global criminal ruling class that wants to commit the worst atrocities imaginable and suffer no consequences. And their corruption slithers down the chain of command creating petty tyrants everywhere.
Supporting this excellent post with a statement and useful links. https://virustruth.net
We the People are facing HORRIFYING TECHNOCRATIC PSYCHOPATHY TO DESTROY HUMANITY AND ALL NATURAL LIFE!
It was NEVER about health! The Powers That Should Not Be were ALWAYS about they want you DEAD or a SLAVE! This is a painful truth to accept but we the people must wake up and fight back!
We must never lose sight of the larger picture of the vile malignance we are fighting against.
CLIMATE CHANGE IS AN EVEN WORSE FRAUD THAN THE PLANSCAMDEMIC! SO-CALLED GREEN TECH IS A GIGANTIC SCAM! MINING AND MANUFACTURING 'GREEN' PRODUCTS NEEDS COAL, GAS AND OIL AND MINING RARE MINERALS IS MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY TOXIC AND DESTRUCTIVE THAN LEGACY PRODUCTS. SCREW YOUR DAMNED AGENDA!
There is an insidious global ruling class plot to enslave all life on earth behind all the madness and suffering inflicted on We the People.
How to fight back against this TOTAL SLAVERY!
RESIST! DO NOT COMPLY! DITCH THE DAMNED 'SMART' PHONES AND THE DAMNED QR CODES AND GO BACK TO LANDLINES OR FLIP PHONES AND USE CASH AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE! INSIST ON CASH! CBDC IS TOTAL SLAVERY!
Other than getting rid of nuclear weapons which I support 100% the rest of the anti-nuclear peace movement and CLIMATE CRISIS propaganda is parroting UN utter GARBAGE, a complete surrender to the ENSLAVEMENT AGENDA by the diabolical despots of Davos - ruling class criminals who lust for total power and control and all of whom should be tried and jailed for life and their malign organizations dismantled: the UN, the WEF, the IMF, the WHO, the BIS, NATO, Blackrock, Vanguard, The Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, The Bilderbergers, the CFR et al.
There is an evil predator globalist technocratic elite agenda of eugenics/depopulation/genocide using bioweapon poison jabs, war, geoengineering, EMF radiation, starvation and economic collapse - THE GREAT RESET/AGENDA 2030/4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION to get rid of billions of 'useless eaters' and to use nano tech to turn the survivors into ROBOTIZED COMPLIANT SLAVES! WAKE UP AND RESIST! DO NOT COMPLY! These are psychopath megalomaniacs who want to play god by turning all life into digitized metaverse mechanistic synthetic biology to be manipulated by their AI algorithms. A more demonic sickening idea is nearly impossible to imagine!
APPALLED AND HORRIFIED AT INSANE TYRANNICAL PROTOCOLS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH HEALTH AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH TOTALITARIAN CONTROL! REVERSE THIS NOW!
MAKE THE WORLD AND AMERICA 2019 (comparatively speaking), AND FREE AGAIN!
NO, I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE MORONIC SCARIANT SHMARIANT MONKEYSHINES! WAKE UP ALREADY!
TOTALLY CONDEMN BIDEN AND ALL OTHER POLS WHO HAVE NO POWER TO LAWLESSLY ACT LIKE AN EMPEROR OR DICTATOR AND DECREE JAB CROW 'SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS' FASCIST SEGREGATION/DISCRIMINATION/APARTHEID VIOLATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION, THE NUREMBERG CODES AND EVERY CIVIL RIGHT IMAGINABLE.
NO GREEN NEW DEALS OR BUILD BACK BETTER FROM THE CRIMINAL TECHNOCRAT TYRANTS KLAUS SCHWAB AND HIS CRONIES FROM THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM.
STOP THE TERRIBLE TYRANNY OF THE TECHNOCRATS GLOBAL AGENDA OF TOTAL SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL USING THE VIRUS AS EXCUSE AND PROPAGANDA TOOL!
NO MUZZLING STIFLING MASK MANDATES! NO FORCED VACCINES! END TORTUROUS DEVASTATING LOCK DOWNS NOW! I WANT MY LIFE BACK.
https://wrenchinthegears.com
https://www.stopworldcontrol.com/
https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com
https://pandemicfacts.info
https://wearehumanwearefree.org/7-days-campaign/
https://sonsoflibertymedia.com/covid-19-roadmap-12-step-plan-to-create-a-totalitarian-new-world-order-were-on-number-8-headed-towards-number-9/
https://questioningcovid.com
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1581-james-corbett-breaks-down-the-great-reset/
http://www.stopcp.com/GlobalResetPSYOP/GlobalResetPSYOPMindMap.html
https://everydayconcerned.net/2020/09/04/breaking-major-investigative-report-by-association-of-french-reserve-army-officers-finds-covid-19-pandemic-to-have-a-hidden-agenda-for-global-totalitarianism-nanotech-chipping-of-all-5g-irradia/
Pam Popper: https://makeamericansfreeagain.com
Del Bigtree: https://www.brighteon.com/channels/highwire
https://www.technocracy.news
Naomi Wolf: https://dailyclout.io
www.nojabforme.info
https://www.globalresearch.ca/we-must-awaken-from-corona-coma-reject-great-reset-robotic-technocracy-assert-common-humanity/5745213
As things are now, the Precautionary Principle is inverted, forcing consumers to prove or disprove a product's safety before it can be taken off the market. This has to change. The onus must be on the manufacturer to prove its safety since they will be the ones profiting from it. The problem seems to be the outsized influence of industry lobbyists bribing our legislators to favour industry and keep this scam going. So before Precautionary Principle legislation can be enacted, the lobbyist industry must first be tackled and taken down. Good luck with that!
I would even favour "longevity legislation" that required manufacturers to create consumer products, such as electronics, that can last a lifetime of the owner. A cell phone could be bought just once, with upgrades swapped in by compact computer chips, reducing waste by a huge amount. (Though actually studies prove the many potential health and environmental harms that come from the use of 3G, 4G and 5G enabled devices.) I use only an old flip-phone and then only while travelling or in emergencies.
We've already proven it's possible to design and build long-lasting products—I once lived in an apartment that had a 50-year-old fridge still in working order. Now they are built to last 5 years and cost ten times as much. I still have stereo equipment that was built in the mid-70s and provides me beautiful sound to this day. A clear decision was taken by industry in the 1980s to shift to more cheaply built equipment that would have to be replaced every 5 years or so.
Thank you for your ongoing public service raising awareness about EMF pollution. Here too, industry rules the roost. I organized a protest against the installation of a cell tower in 2007. We were met with a lawyer's letter threatening to personally sue every protestor if they blocked the road that led to the tower on the day of installation. In a local community poll, a narrow majority had said they did not want the tower, but the Canadian regulatory agency at the time, Industry Canada (note the title), ruled in favour of Telus.
The harsh reality is what history teaches us is the Golden Rule: Those with the gold make the rules.