The Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN) and Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) have launched a new website focused on cumulative impacts, www.cumulativeimpacts.org. The site assembles the latest science, emerging best practices, analytical tools, and legal shifts that can reduce cumulative harm to the planet, communities, and people. It features a unique search system meant to facilitate self-education on the range of topics related to cumulative impacts.
Cumulative impacts analysis represents a new way of moving forward and finding solutions to the problems of environmental harm. It is a novel organizing framework for thinking about disparate issues such as ecosystem health, individual health, and environmental justice in communities.
The site is a centerpiece of a collaborative project to develop new policy solutions to cumulative impacts. The project focuses on the cumulative effects on public health and ecosystems of many environmental hazards, taking into account other factors such as poverty and stress that increase vulnerability.
Center for Industrial Competitiveness
Environmental Threats to Health: An Ecological Approach Throughout the Lifespan
October 24, 2011
Ted Schettler, Science Director
Watch the talk here.
Join moms in your state to show support for a toxic-free future! Moms across the country will participate in local events to ask their Senators to be leaders in protecting American families from toxic chemicals.
Kids and Moms Rally for Safer Chemical Bill ecoRI.org News
Carolyn Raffensperger talks with On The Issues about women and environmental health.
The spring 2011 edition of On The Issues magazine is called The Ecology of Women and looks at how women in particular are affected by environmental toxins and it also looks at what women are doing about it.
The interview includes three noted environmental activists including Carolyn Raffensperger.
Short video by Carloyn Raffensperger
Environmental Law or the Precautionary Principle
Toxic Chemicals: The Safety of Synthetic Fields and How Environmental Laws Are Failing Our Children Part 1 Part 2
Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging This report primarily examines the lifetime influences of environmental factors on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and their underlying pathologic mechanisms. Our close look at the science of these diseases shows they are related to a number of features of modern society and that Alzheimer’s disease especially is linked to other serious health problems of modern times, which we call the "western disease cluster."
Comments to EPA on pesticide inert ingredient disclosure
Joseph H. Guth JD PhD, April 2010.
Pesticide ingredients are a perfect example of why we need a new definition of "unreasonable risk" that reflects the state of the Earth in 2010. Full disclosure can engage market forces—both the public and industry—in reducing harmful impacts.
Cumulative Impacts: Death-Knell for Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Decisions
Joseph H. Guth, J.D., Ph.D.
In a new article published in the Barry Law Review, SEHN Legal Director Joe Guth argues that we have long assumed we can tolerate the endless growth of small increments of environmental damage in the pursuit of economic growth. But now, the mounting cumulative impact of the human enterprise is threatening the long-term habitability of the biosphere. The law will have to abandon its use of cost-benefit analysis to justify individual environmental impacts and instead adopt the goal of maintaining the functioning ecological systems that we are so dependent upon.
Speaker's Bureau
SEHN staff members, including Carolyn Raffensperger, Ted Schettler, and Joe Guth, are available for speaking engagements, workshops, media contacts, or other collaborations with local groups. Please see Speaker's Bureau for more information.
Advancing The Precautionary Agenda SEHN is pleased to release a new report, "Advancing The Precautionary Agenda," examining the role of the precautionary principle across sectors. The report draws a picture of shared ideas, challenges, and hopes for integrating precaution in a broad-based fashion.
How Lobbyists Are Spinning Weak Science to Defend BPA
They're arguing that a new study shows canned foods to be safe, even when lined with BPA. The problem? That's not what the study says.
The article quotes Ted Schettler.
"Now the Science and Environmental Health Network - a nonprofit that promotes a more precautionary
approach for environmental and public health policy - and the Collaborative on Health and the Environment
- an international partnership to address environmental health issues - have launched a national project
to address the problem of multiple stresses on ecosystems, communities, and human health. The project’s
website (cumulativeimpacts.org) assembles information on the latest science, emerging best practices
, analytical tools, and legal headway and obstacles." Boston.com
www.cumulativeimpacts.org
New website to address cumulative harm on communities and the environment The Green Blog
Group Urging State To Protect Children From
Toxic Toys
WLNS.com
There's a local push to tackle a national problem. Dozens gathered at the State Capitol to urge lawmakers to protect children from toxic toys and other products. Arsenic, mercury and carcinogens- they're all toxic chemicals, but parents say it's impossible to know if these chemicals are in the products they buy for their children.
Living Hero Podcast - Conversations with
Living Luminaries and Mavericks
By Carolyn Raffensperger
Where's the Imagination? — Synthesis Series #1
"We need a new imagination for how we are going to live together, how we're going to do business, what we're going to permit in the body politic, as well as the human body. It is that failure of imagination that I think is the biggest roadblock that I've encountered." Link to site and download.
