Health Consequences of Industry

Video Summary

To what extent can economic growth be considered appropriate or wise if that growth adversely affects the health and well-being of the people whom it supposedly benefits and the ecological balance of the natural world?

Three local “stories” that prompted the question: 

1.       The city of Sault Ste. Marie has designated “green” areas – small parks and larger conservation area within the city limits.  However, developers who wanted to build a multiplex condominium applied for and received permission to have one such area “de-greened” as it were despite protests and petitions made to the Mayor and City Councillors.  On a larger scale approval was sought to incorporate a motorized ski-doo trail to connect the bridge plaza to a recreational area designed for ski-doo traffic – this for the benefit of promoting tourism.  A bitter battle ensured where citizens, especially those whose property abutted the conservation area, were castigated as obstructing a viable source of income that such a trail would bring to the city.  The problem, apart from the ethics and aesthetics of the issues, is that Sault Ste. Marie has an extremely high rate of cancer cases and deaths.  Why remove a source of natural air filters and add to the pollution?

2.       A driveway entrance to the new hospital has been created within feet of three long-term care homes and a traffic light will be located at this entrance.  As these long-term care homes are situated on one of the major exit road from the city, now the transports, tankers and logging trucks which must enter and exit Sault Ste. Marie to and from the north on their way to the International Bridge Plaza to the U.S.A. or to HWY 17 East to southern Ontario will now be idling their engines directly in the vicinity of the homes.  Given that such homes have air-intake units and that the residents are often susceptible to pulmonary conditions, how wise is it to subject them to such pollutants.  Although the Family Council of one home made a representation outlining the possible negative effects to the planners of the new hospital in January 2007 and the Seniors Health Advisory Committee is bringing the situation to the attention of the City Council, to date no resolution seems to be forthcoming.

3.       On a daily basis dozens of logging trucks enter Sault Ste. Marie carrying raw timber away.  If such timber is removed from private property, there are no regulations in place to ensure that trees are harvested responsibly, that loggers replant the trees they have cut and clean-up the mess on the forest floor.  And, if the cutting occurs on Crown Land, who is ensuring that the regulations are being enforced?  Not only is the eco-system jeopardized, the wildlife habitats disturbed, but the natural beauty of the wilderness is marred.  Forests are supposedly are renewable resource.  Who is ensuring that they will be renewed for the next generation?

Simple images of the future courtesy of Jim Dator, Director of Hawaii Research Centre for Future Studies:

1.       A straight line: nothing ever changes.  As yesterday, so today, so tomorrow.  The hunter-gatherer society.

2.       The undulating line:  cycles--seven good years, seven bad years.  The agricultural society.

3.       The end of the world:  nuclear holocaust.

4.       The upward spiral: unlimited economic and social growth.  The industrial revolution.

5.       The conserver society:  no further growth.  Keep everything as it is.

6.       The return to the pre-industrial mechanical age society:  horses and buggies, candles, self-sufficient life-style.

7.       The humanitarian society:  because nothing we ever do does not impact on the lives and values of others, we must be careful and considerate in our choices not to cause harm or discomfort to fellow humans . Case in point the infliction of European values, technologies and tools on the indigenous peoples of North America.

Which of these images seems to be driving the choices and decisions that reflect the values of society?

Does the “greater good” mean only the economic health of the country, the province, the towns?

Thoughts generated in group discussion:

·         I ask everyone to reconsider how they use the words "economic growth".  To me, an economy needs income (wealth) from external sources to exist.  This income supports the community - jobs, businesses, social programs, cultural amenities, etc.  A healthy economy needs growth in some areas to counter a natural decline in another.  Therefore, I don't think we should see economic growth as a negative.

·         I think people oppose "unchecked" growth and we should be establishing a framework for managing change and growth.

·         I also want to say that we can't live at the extremes of a development perspective.  We can't go back to a totally basic lifestyle where we farm, hunt and trade.  Nor can we continue to abuse our environment and live beyond our means.

·         As for health, safety and protection of the environment, advances have been made, in terms of laws, government regulations/controls, over the last 25 years and should continue as we learn more about cause, effect and alternatives.

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·         There are three barriers (to unlimited economic growth): source (in terms of peak oil primarily); sink (for example climate change); and social/economic myths (such as efficiency and substitutability).

Taking each of these in turn...

·         Source barriers: The key source barrier I drew upon is that of Peak Oil.  More recently, people have begun speaking about peak food and peak energy, all drawing on the same principle argument.  Peak Oil is a theory postulated by M. King Hubert which describes the production of fossil fuels (from a well or global production) as a bell shaped curve.  The key is not that we are running out of fossil reserves, but that after the peak is reached, reserves invariably produce a diminishing quantity of fuels.  Yet economic growth (based on thermodynamic principles and global economic structures) will always be demanding more – i.e., capital must grow at an ever increasing rate (see arguments by Allen Schnaiberg, for example).  Clearly, if we are producing less energy yet demanding more, there will emerge a widening gap between demand and supply.  The key point is that we anticipate peak oil is presently occurring.  To continue with current levels of economic growth, we would need another oil field discovery the equivalent of Saudi Arabia each year.  This is quite unlikely.  Thus we have an energy, or source, barrier to continued economic growth. 

·         But since we use fossil fuels for far more than just energy, there are other demands modern life places on this invaluable commodity.  Food uses transportation fuels, fertilizers and pesticides, refrigeration, machinery and other fossil inputs, for example.  Thus the shift to thinking about peak food.  But almost everything from plastics to clothing to computers uses fossil fuels not only for their production for energy and material inputs, but also for operation and disposal.  We are indeed addicted to fossil fuels, despite the fact that we will now be producing less and less of them.

For more info on peak oil here are two web sites:

The oil drum.
 

The Energy bulletin
 

·         But there are many other similar source barriers, such as clean water, clean air, resilient and integral ecological systems, etc.  This is very well illustrated in the ecological footprint analyses work, developed by William Rees and Mathias Wackernagel. (see globalfootprint.org) 

·         Sink barriers: I use climate change and the atmosphere as an example, but oceans, soil (for example, nitrogen fixation), and other sinks used as repositories of economic byproducts have exceeded their assimilative capacities.

·         You might include human health as a sink barrier too, as virtually every person now contains a long list of toxic contaminants in our bodies.

·         Myths: Efficiency - I used the standard argument of Stanley Jevons in his "Coal Question" book.  It's been adopted by ecological economists (ecoeco.org) to argue for a more coherent dialogue on sustainability.  In simple terms, this argument posits that as a process becomes more efficient, prices drop, allowing increased consumption - economic growth.  In this sense, efficiency does not reduce demand, but instead stimulates demand and physical material growth.  I, personally, become very frustrated when authorities talk about conservation and then launch into a long discussion about how they will make the economy or technologies more efficient.

·         The other myth I alluded to was substitutability.  Standard economic theories suggest that as scarcity increases in one material, other materials will become a viable substitute.  The problem is there has never been such a thing as perfect substitutability, and more often than not, materials and technologies become layered upon each other to extend their contribution to growth.  There's also an important omission by almost all economists: thermodynamics.  Georgescu-Roegens' argument follows from the First Law of Thermodynamics.

·         There are many other market myths.  I reviewed some of these for a report I prepared in 2001.  The summary of that report and the table of contents (which lists those I reviewed) can be found here

Putting these three barriers together, one can envision many serious emerging challenges.  As climate changes, for instance, we will need more energy to operate air conditioners just as we are running out of that energy.  Current policies to mitigate climate change focus on efficiency improvements and new energy sources.  Even where those new energy supplies are 'green', their manufacture, construction, transportation, operation, maintenance, and eventual replacement will all require fossil inputs. Going back to the mining activities that extract the minerals for their construction, you can't avoid fossil inputs.

While I didn't get this far during the session, many now argue that growth must be replaced by de-growth  and/or economic stability, or as some call it, an economic steady state (see Herman Daly or Brian Czech for instance).

Either way, dramatic lifestyle changes will occur, and it's probably best if we're prepared for these coming changes.

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More Questions:

·         How best do we prepare for coming changes?

·         Who will be the instruments to implement and support such changes (or will they just happen anyway regardless)?

A Thought About Water:

·         My scientist friends tell me that there is no more or less water in the world today than was originally created when Earth came into being: the water the dinosaurs drank is the water we drink today.  Now a friend who lives in Edmonton tells me that to produce one barrel of oil from the tar sands, 40 barrels of water is used and that water is not reclaimable.  We are not only damaging the atmosphere by cutting forests and producing air-borne contaminants, we are capable, it seems, of interfering with the integrity of water – not only polluting it, but by removing it from existence.

A Thought About Nuclear Waste:

·         Once uranium has been used in a reactor it can be “recycled” although with less efficiency are re-used so that what remains is not considerably less toxic than the original nuclear waste.

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A Recurring Theme:

We have developed an addiction to technology, availability of personal transportation (cars, etc.,) to consumerism.  We believe that our addiction is a good thing because we can connect immediately and currently, because we have personal freedom and convenience of movement and we support the economy which in turns provides us with all aspects of the “good” life.  This addiction has been fed by government policies, interest rates, manufacturers and advertisers.  The fact that we are addicted is contradictory to our image of freedom.

David Suzuki said, decades ago, that Canada is a Third World Country deluding itself that it is a First World Country.  In fact, we sell our natural resources to countries who provide us with the technologies and goods that we do not invent or manufacture ourselves.  Canadians are not good at investing in themselves.  And, we, as consumers, buy into this notion because goods made often in unregulated conditions are cheaper than those made domestically.  While it can be argued that we are providing better economies for foreign countries which do not, necessarily, pass on those benefits to the workers, and so justify this cycle, what will we do when our natural resources are depleted and we have nothing of value to trade?