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October 7, 1999
COLUMBUS DAY, 1999
This week we take time out from our series on "the meaning of sustainability" -- or perhaps merely extend it in a new direction -- to celebrate Columbus Day. I use "celebrate" in the dictionary sense of "to proclaim or broadcast for the attention of a wide public." Examining the nation's heroes may tell us something fundamental about our goals and values. Christopher Columbus has been a genuine American hero since at least 1792 when the Society of St. Tammany in New York City first held a dinner to honor the man and his deeds.
Columbus Day -- first observed as a U.S. national holiday in 1892 and declared an annual day of national celebration in 1934 -- commemorates the re-discovery of North America, by Christopher Columbus and his band of 90 adventurers, who set out from Palos, Spain just before dawn on August 3, 1492 intending to find Asia by crossing the Atlantic Ocean in three small ships.
Columbus made four voyages to the New World.[1] The initial voyage reveals several important things about the man. First, he had genuine courage because few ship's captains had ever pointed their prow toward the open ocean, the complete unknown. Secondly, from numerous of his letters and reports we learn that his overarching goal was to seize wealth that belonged to others, even his own men, by whatever means necessary.
Columbus's royal sponsors (Ferdinand and Isabella) had promised a lifetime pension to the first man who sighted land. A few hours after midnight on October 12, 1492, Juan Rodriguez Bermeo, a lookout on the Pinta, cried out -- in the bright moonlight, he had spied land ahead. Most likely Bermeo was seeing the white beaches of Watling Island in the Bahamas.
As they waited impatiently for dawn, Columbus let it be known that he had spotted land several hours before Bermeo. According to Columbus's journal of that voyage, his ships were, at the time, traveling 10 miles per hour. To have spotted land several hours before Bermeo, Columbus would have had to see more than 30 miles over the horizon, a physical impossibility. Nevertheless Columbus took the lifetime pension for himself.
Columbus installed himself as Governor of the Caribbean islands, with headquarters on Hispaniola (the large island now shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic). He described the people, the Arawaks (called by some the Tainos) this way:
"The people of this island and of all the other islands which I have found and seen, or have not seen, all go naked, men and women, as their mothers bore them, except that some women cover one place only with the leaf of a plant or with a net of cotton which they make for that purpose. They have no iron or steel or weapons, nor are they capable of using them, although they are well-built people of handsome stature, because they are wondrous timid.... [T]hey are so artless and free with all they possess, that no one would believe it without having seen it. Of anything they have, if you ask them for it, they never say no; rather they invite the person to share it, and show as much love as if they were giving their hearts; and whether the thing be of value or of small price, at once they are content with whatever little thing of whatever kind may be given to them."
After Columbus had surveyed the Caribbean region, he returned to Spain to prepare his invasion of the Americas. From accounts of his second voyage, we can begin to understand what the New World represented to Columbus and his men -- it offered them life without limits, unbridled freedom. Columbus took the title Admiral of the Ocean Sea and proceeded to unleash a reign of terror unlike anything seen before or since. When he was finished, eight million Arawaks -- virtually the entire native population of Hispaniola -- had been exterminated by torture, murder, forced labor, starvation, disease and despair.
A Spanish missionary, Bartolome de las Casas, described first-hand how the Spaniards terrorized the natives.[4] Las Casas gives numerous eye-witness accounts of repeated mass murder and routine sadistic torture. As Barry Lopez has accurately summarized it, "One day, in front of Las Casas, the Spanish dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 people. 'Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight,' he says, 'as no age can parallel....' The Spanish cut off the legs of children who ran from them. They poured people full of boiling soap. They made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. They loosed dogs that 'devoured an Indian like a hog, at first sight, in less than a moment.' They used nursing infants for dog food."[2,pg.4] This was not occasional violence -- it was a systematic, prolonged campaign of brutality and sadism, a policy of torture, mass murder, slavery and forced labor that continued for CENTURIES. "The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world," writes historian David E. Stannard.[3,pg.x] Eventually more than 100 million natives fell under European rule. Their extermination would follow. As the natives died out, they were replaced by slaves brought from Africa.
To make a long story short, Columbus established a pattern that held for five centuries -- a "ruthless, angry search for wealth," as Barry Lopez describes it. "It set a tone in the Americas. The quest for personal possessions was to be, from the outset, a series of raids, irresponsible and criminal, a spree, in which an end to it -- the slaves, the timber, the pearls, the fur, the precious ores, and, later, arable land, coal, oil, and iron ore-- was never visible, in which an end to it had no meaning." Indeed, there WAS no end to it, no limit.
As Hans Koning has observed, "There was no real ending to the conquest of Latin America. It continued in remote forests and on far mountainsides. It is still going on in our day when miners and ranchers invade land belonging to the Amazon Indians and armed thugs occupy Indian villages in the backwoods of Central America."[6,pg.46] As recently as the 1980s under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush the U.S. government knowingly gave direct aid to genocidal campaigns that killed tens of thousands Mayan Indian people in Guatemala and elsewhere.[7] The pattern holds.
Unfortunately, Columbus and the Spaniards were not unique. They conquered Mexico and what is now the Southwestern U.S., with forays into Florida, the Carolinas, even into Virginia. From Virginia northward, the land had been taken by the English who, if anything, had even less tolerance for the indigenous people. As Hans Koning says, "From the beginning, the Spaniards saw the native Americans as natural slaves, beasts of burden, part of the loot. When working them to death was more economical than treating them somewhat humanely, they worked them to death. The English, on the other hand, had no use for the native peoples. They saw them as devil worshippers, savages who were beyond salvation by the church, and exterminating them increasingly became accepted policy."
The British arrived in Jamestown in 1607. By 1610 the intentional extermination of the native population was well along. As David E. Stannard has written, "Hundreds of Indians were killed in skirmish after skirmish. Other hundreds were killed in successful plots of mass poisoning. They were hunted down by dogs, 'blood-Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives [mastiffs] to seaze them.' Their canoes and fishing weirs were smashed, their villages and agricultural fields burned to the ground. Indian peace offers were accepted by the English only until their prisoners were returned; then, having lulled the natives into false security, the colonists returned to the attack. It was the colonists' expressed desire that the Indians be exterminated, rooted 'out from being longer a people uppon the face of the earth.' In a single raid the settlers destroyed corn sufficient to feed four thousand people for a year. Starvation and the massacre of non-combatants was becoming the preferred British approach to dealing with the natives."
In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey extermination was officially promoted by a "scalp bounty" on dead Indians. "Indeed, in many areas it [murdering Indians] became an outright business," writes historian Ward Churchill.
Indians were defined as subhumans, lower than animals. George Washington compared them to wolves, "beasts of prey" and called for their total destruction.[3,pgs.119-120] Andrew Jackson -- whose portrait appears on the U.S. $20 bill today -- in 1814 "supervised the mutilation of 800 or more Creek Indian corpses -- the bodies of men, women and children that [his troops] had massacred -- cutting off their noses to count and preserve a record of the dead, slicing long strips of flesh from their bodies to tan and turn into bridle reins."
The English policy of extermination -- another name for genocide -- grew more insistent as settlers pushed westward. In 1851 the Governor of California officially called for the extermination of the Indians in his state.[3,pg.144] On March 24, 1863, the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS in Denver ran an editorial titled, "Exterminate Them." On April 2, 1863, the SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN advocated "extermination of the Indians."[5,pg.228] In 1867, General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the [Lakotas, known to whites as the Sioux] even to their extermination, men, women and children."
In 1891, Frank L. Baum (gentle author of the WIZARD OF OZ) wrote in the ABERDEEN (KANSAS) SATURDAY PIONEER that the army should "finish the job" by the "total annihilation" of the few remaining Indians. The U.S. did not follow through on Baum's macabre demand for there really was no need. By then the native population had been reduced to 2.5% of its original numbers and 97.5% of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated and renamed the land of the free and the home of the brave. Hundreds upon hundreds of native tribes with unique languages, learning, customs, and cultures had simply been erased from the face of the earth, most often without even the pretense of justice or law.
Today we can see the remnant cultural arrogance of Christopher Columbus and Captain John Smith shadowed in the cult of the "global free market" which aims to eradicate indigenous cultures and traditions world-wide, to force all peoples to adopt the ways of the U.S. Global free trade is manifest destiny writ large.
But as Barry Lopez says, "This violent corruption needn't define us.... We can say, yes, this happened, and we are ashamed. We repudiate the greed. We recognize and condemn the evil. And we see how the harm has been perpetuated. But, five hundred years later, we intend to mean something else in the world." If we chose, we could set limits on ourselves for once. We could declare enough is enough. So it is always good to celebrate Columbus on his day.
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS POLICY
A "sustainable" activity is one that you believe you can continue indefinitely into the future. Or at least for seven generations (roughly 200 years).[1]
As we saw last week, leading scientific societies say that the future promises irreversible environmental degradation and continued poverty for much of the world unless we control human population and change patterns of human activity. "The future of our planet is in the balance," said a 1992 statement issued jointly by the Royal Society of London and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. (See REHW #669.) "The next 30 years may be crucial," these scientific societies said 7 years ago.
It is particularly important that the so-called "developed" countries change their ways. As the 1992 joint statement said, "Developed countries, with 85 percent of the world's gross national product and 23 percent of its population, account for the majority of mineral and fossil-fuel consumption. One issue alone, the increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, has the potential for altering global climate with significant consequences for all countries. The prosperity and technology of the developed countries, however, give them the greater possibilities and the greater responsibility for addressing environmental problems."
What kinds of changes are needed? A group of Swedish scientists has described 4 conditions that are essential for sustainable use of the Earth. A worldwide movement, called The Natural Step, is promoting these four conditions, especially among business organizations.[1] The four "system conditions" necessary for sustainability are stated succinctly, so it is worth repeating them, then adding some flesh to the bare bones:
(1) Substances mined from the Earth's crust must not systematically increase in air, water, soil, or living things. This means that fossil fuels and metals must not be produced at a faster pace than their slow redeposit and reintegration into the Earth's crust;
(2) Substances created by humans must not systematically increase in air, water, soil, or living things. This means that substances must not be produced at a faster pace than they can be broken down and integrated back into the cycles of nature;
(3) The physical basis for productivity and diversity of nature must not be systematically diminished. This means that we cannot harvest or manipulate ecosystems in such a way that their productivity and diversity are systematically diminished.
(4) There must be a fair and efficient use of resources in meeting human needs. This means that basic human needs must be met efficiently, effectively, and fairly; it also means that the satisfaction of basic human needs must take precedence over the provision of luxuries.[1]
As we said in REHW #668, we consider condition #4 the most important for two reasons: (1) unfair distribution of resources is morally wrong; and (2) if we can't achieve a fair distribution of resources, we will remain mired in conflict, unable to organize ourselves effectively to achieve the first 3 system conditions. All will be lost. More on condition #4 at a later time.
The first two Natural Step "system conditions" are not difficult to understand. They require humans (1) to refrain from pulling materials like oil and metals out of the Earth faster then natural processes can re-incorporate such materials into the deep earth; and (2) to refrain from creating materials that nature cannot break down and recycle into their natural constituents.
However, to make these two system conditions workable, we need guidelines. Fortunately, useful guidelines have been developed by the Swedish government and others.
A General Duty to Investigate and to Warn
In 1985 the Swedish government passed a law called the Act on Chemical Products.[2] Article 5 of the Act says,
"Anyone handling or importing products hazardous to man or the environment shall take such steps and otherwise observe such precautions as are needed to prevent or minimize damage to man or the environment. Particularly anyone manufacturing or importing such a product must carefully investigate the composition of the product and its properties from the perspective of health and environmental protection. The products shall be clearly labeled with data of importance from the point of view of protecting health and the environment."
Thus we can see that the old excuse, used so often by American industry -- "Gosh, we just didn't know" -- is now a crime in Sweden. In Sweden, anyone using hazardous materials has a duty to investigate and to warn.
Principle of Precautionary Action
Of course Sweden is not alone in adopting the precautionary principle, which says, "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." In other words, if you have reason to believe something bad might be about to happen, you have a duty to take action to prevent it from happening. This simple idea is forming the basis of a new approach to hazardous technologies world-wide. Eventually even U.S. corporations will be affected.
The Substitution Principle
In 1990 the Act on Chemical Products was amended to include the Substitution Principle, which reads:
"Anyone handling or importing a chemical product must take such steps and otherwise observe such precautions as are needed to prevent or minimize harm to man or the environment. This includes avoiding chemical products for which less hazardous substitutes are available." Thus anyone using hazardous materials has an obligation to search for -- or produce -- less harmful alternatives and to adopt those alternatives. Failure to apply the substitution principle is a violation of law in Sweden. In some instances, the substitution principle is automatic. For example, under Swedish law, if a new pesticide is registered that is safer than an older one, the older one automatically loses its registration.
Principle of Reverse Onus
What if there is doubt about the hazardous nature of a material? In situations where there are scientifically-based suspicions of harm about a chemical or product, the Principle of Reverse Onus (or Reverse Burden of Proof) holds: the burden is on the user or producer of a hazardous chemical or product to convince government authorities, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the product does not deserve to be restricted and that it is the least-damaging alternative available. The burden is not on the public (or the government) to prove harm -- at least not in Sweden.
The Polluter Pays Principle
This simple, clear idea places the financial burden for pollution squarely on those who pollute. (So far as I know, Sweden has not formally adopted this principle.) To avoid the situation, common in the U.S., in which the polluter declares bankruptcy (though, often, continues to do business, thus effectively evading liability), a "flexible assurance bond" could be required before a new technology or product is introduced.
The flexible assurance bond originated with Robert Costanza at University of Maryland. The idea is similar to performance bonds that are common today in the construction industry.
Under the flexible assurance bond plan, anyone introducing a new product or technology would have to do a "worst case analysis" to estimate the possible consequences, then post a bond to cover the costs of the worst case. As time passes, if the worst case seems less and less likely, part of the bond will be returned (with interest). This creates an incentive to monitor outcomes carefully. And it properly places the burden of proof on the proponents of new technology, not on the public.
Additional practical measures have been defined by the Swedish government. In a 1997 report (in English) titled TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE CHEMICALS POLICY, the Chemicals Policy Committee of the Swedish Ministry of the Environment outlined specific goals, as follows:
Ban Chemicals that Persist or Bioaccumulate
The Chemicals Policy Committee argues that substances that are persistent and liable to bioaccumulate should be banned, even if they are not now known to have toxic effects. (The Committee provides quantitative definitions of persistence and bioaccumulation.) "Experience tells us that new unexpected forms of toxicity may be uncovered in the future," the Committee says. "For substances that are persistent and liable to bioaccumulate that knowledge will come too late. To act only when the knowledge [of a hazard] becomes available is not prevention. We therefore conclude that known or suspected toxicity is not a necessary criterion for measures against organic man-made substances that are persistent and liable to bioaccumulate. Such substances should in the future not be used at all."[3]
The Committee recommends other specific guidelines to Swedish industry:
** By the year 2007, all products on the market are to be free from
1. Substances that are persistent and liable to bioaccumulate;
2. Lead, mercury and cadmium;
3. Substances that give rise to serious or irreversible effects on health or the environment.
** By the year 2012 production processes should have developed to the extent that
1. They are free from the deliberate use of persistent and bioaccumulating substances, or lead, cadmium, or mercury;
2. Releases from production processes should be free from substances that cause serious or chronic health effects.
** By the year 2012 metals other than lead, cadmium and mercury are to be used only in applications where
1. The metals are mainly kept intact during use;
2. They are collected after use for reuse, recycling, or deposition.
** Do not use chemicals that are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproductive or endocrine systems.
** By the year 2000, every company should have a written plan, to be updated annually, for meeting these goals.
What we have here is a group of principles and proposals that go a long way toward defining sustainable use of materials that are, or may be, hazardous. Any level of government could adopt these principles, from municipal to national. Individual businesses could adopt them as well. More next week.
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