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Task Force Members:
Michele Liu (San Mateo, CA)
Rachel May (Syracuse, NY)
Mervis Reissig (Santa Rosa, CA)
Robert Walling (Albuquerque, NM)
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Working Groups and Focus Areas:
Biodiversity and Habitat Protection
Economic/Equity Issues
Food/Ag and GMOs
Land Use/Livable Cities
Energy Policy/Global Warming
Waste and Pollution
Environment & Sustainability Task Force
Policy Task Forces - Main Directory
Overview | Position Papers | Action | Resources | News
Environmental justice: The wealthiest in America are generally able to shield themselves from the impact of environmental degradation while they reap the benefits of our toxic economic practices. Those who cannot choose to live upstream or upwind of polluting industries, who cannot buy bottled water and organic foods or afford long sojourns in unspoiled resorts, bear the brunt of public health problems like smog-induced asthma, carcinogens in well water, pesticide residues, and effluents from factory farms. Poor neighborhoods with low land prices are preferred sites for toxic industries and waste treatment plants. PDA supports policies to promote environmental justice through stakeholder review, aggressive prosecution of polluters, and limits on emissions trading plans that take into account their effect on public health.
Consumerism: Over the last half-century America has seen a seismic cultural shift: from being a nation of workers and citizens, we have become a nation of consumers. Advertising permeates our lives and targets the most impressionable, particularly children. Americans now spend far beyond our means and consume more materials per capita than any other nation on earth. Politicians have encouraged the consumerist trend as a way to keep the economic engine running, but in doing so they have neglected their proper role as guardians of the public trust and promoters of our common interests. At PDA we believe that it is the primary role of government to safeguard the public interest and only the secondary role to promote business interests, which are very adept at promoting themselves. We believe that government should promote the non-commercial values that serve us all, such as reducing the volume of materials we consume and discard, reducing our impact on animal habitats, spending time with family and community, and active outdoor recreation in place of passive entertainment. We advocate rewards and incentives for positive behaviors (like composting, bicycling to work, using efficient appliances, and organic yard and garden care) and user fees that discourage wasteful or destructive behavior, including fees for packaging, requirements that retailers take back and recycle any packaging they distribute, and high taxes and neighbor-notification rules applied to toxic substances like pesticides or herbicides. Examples around the world demonstrate that low-consumption lifestyles need not be bad for business, and can greatly improve quality of life.
Economic policy: The field of ecological economicsseeks to promote understanding between ecologists and economics and to develop holistic approaches to measuring and evaluating the choices we make as consumers, producers, and citizens. PDA supports efforts to develop and promote new indicators of quality of life that take into account environmental values, equity, and sustainability and that can replace the raw, market-based indicators like GNP that reward wasteful behaviors and destructive choices. PDA supports tax and accounting policies that help resource users understand the full value of those resources.
(No papers available at this time. Drafts are in progress)
Our task force recommends the following actions for individuals and groups. Follow the links for tips, tools, and suggestions.
Environmental Justice
Dumping
in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Justice. by Robert
Bullard, Westview Press, 1990. Chapter one: Environmentalism and
social justice.
New routes to transportation equity, by Robert Bullard, Transportation Equity newsletter, 2003.
Race, Waste, and Class: New Perspectives on Environmental Justice, by Michael Heiman, Antipode, April, 1996.
Economic Policy
Envisioning a
Sustainable and Desirable America, Gund Institute for Ecological
Economics.
Lays out the scenario fora sustainable economy in 2100.
Full cost
accounting in environmental decision-making, by David W. Carter,
Larry Perruso, and Donna J.Lee.
A fact sheet that explains the
concepts and procedures of full cost accounting, which allows
businesses and stakeholder groups to determine the true costs of
different choices.
Measuring the
quality of life (Natural Life Magazine #58)
On replacing
outmoded economic indicators like the GNP.
"Environmental
Protection and the States: 'Race to the Bottom' or 'Race to the
Bottom Line'?" by Mary Graham, The Brookings Review, Winter,
1998 Vol. 16, No. 1.
Argues for more flexible and creative ways
of achieving national environmental goals
Consumerism
Two companies' experiences with reducing packaging and
saving money:
http://www.baxter.com/about_baxter/sustainability/our_environment/environmental_impacts/sub/packaging.html
About Baxter Corp.
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?contentid=1151
On partnership between Environmental Defense and McDonald's
Corporation.
Informative Web Sites
Gund Institute for
Ecological Economics, U. of Vermont
Adbusters has a wealth of resources about economic issues. See http://www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/truecosteconomics/true_cost.html for synopses of numerous studies about the deficiencies of our current “neoclassical” economic model.
3/20/05 Behind consumption and consumerism, by Anup Shah, Global Issues. Statistics on global inequality in consumption, showing that 20% of world's population in wealthiest countries account for 86% of private consumption.