Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 280
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
978-1-4422-2137-6 • Hardback • March 2013 • $63.00 • (£48.00)
978-1-4422-2245-8 • Paperback • April 2015 • $38.00 • (£30.00)
978-1-4422-2138-3 • eBook • March 2013 • $36.00 • (£30.00)
Kate Davies has worked on environmental health and justice issues for thirty-five years in the United States and Canada. She has worked for numerous nongovernmental and governmental organizations including Greenpeace, the Canadian Environmental Health Organization, and the Sustainable Path Foundation. She is currently on the core faculty at Antioch College’s Center for Creative Change.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Environmental Health
The US Environmental Health Movement
Background
This Book
Part 1: Historical and Cultural Roots
Chapter 1: The European Ancestry of Environmental Health
The Philosophy of Ancient Greece
The Engineering Achievements of Rome
The Spread of Judeo-Christian Religions
The Scientific Revolution and the Nature of Science
Social Justice and the Enlightenment
The Environmental Health Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
New Policies and Legislation
Recognizing and Preventing Environmentally-Related Diseases
Chapter 2: Early Environmental Public Health
The Environmental Health Consequences of the American Industrial Revolution
Environmental Public Health Concerns
Occupational Health: Working with the Urban Poor
The Home as an Environment for Protecting Health
The Progressive Era and Environmental Conservation
The Origins of Urban Planning
Preventing Environmentally-Transmitted Diseases
Chapter 3: Environmentalism and Economic Growth
Post World War II Economic Growth and the Creation of a Consumer Society
The Environmental Health Effects of Air Pollution
The Environmental Health Effects of Water Pollution
The Environmental Health Effects of Food Quality
The Antinuclear Movement and the Precedents It Set
New Ideas: Toxic Chemicals
New Ideas: Deep Ecology and Social Ecology
New Ideas: Population Growth and Resource Depletion
The Rise of Environmentalism
EPA and the Final Separation of Environmental and Public Health
The Relationship Between the Environmental Movement and the Labor Movement
The Toxic Substances Control Act and Other Environmental Legislation of the 1970s
Chapter 4: The Birth of the US Environmental Health Movement
Love Canal and Its Aftermath
The Beginnings of the Environmental Justice Movement
The Role of Disasters in Building the Environmental Health Movement
Struggles for Regional Environmental Health in the Great Lakes
Winning the Battle Against Waste Incineration
Opposition to Pesticides: An Ongoing Struggle
Securing the Right to Know
Toxics Use Reduction and Pollution Prevention: Limited Success
The Lead Saga
Newer Challenges: Endocrine Disruptors and Epigenetics
Part II: The Contemporary Movement
Chapter 5: Organizations and Issues
The Movement’s Strongest Asset: State and Local Groups
The Roles of National Groups
The Influence of European Toxics Policy
The Louisville Charter
The Emergence of National Coalitions
Communications and Getting the Word Out
The Importance of Women’s Organizations
Alliances with Labor Organizations
New Ways of Framing Environmental Health: Judeo-Christian Religions
Beyond Toxics: Nanotechnology
Beyond Toxics: Electromagnetic Fields
Beyond Toxics: Fossil Fuels
Beyond Toxics: Urban Planning and Green Building
The Significance of Foundation Funding
Chapter 6: Making Environmental Issues Personal
Gaining Support from People Affected by Environmentally-Related Disease
Working with Caregivers - Nurses
Working with Caregivers – Physicians
Engaging the Health Care Sector
Protecting Children’s Environmental Health
Food, Glorious Food
Opposing Toxics in Consumer Products
And in Personal Care Products
Pollution in People
Chapter 7: Precaution and the Limitations of Science
The Impossibility of Proving Environmental Causation
The Failure to Consider Ethics
The Distortion and Cover-up of Scientific Information
Problems with Risk Assessment
Overview of Precaution
The Ingredients of Precaution
Progress on Precaution
Chapter 8: Environmental Justice and the Right to a Healthy Environment
Perspectives on Environmental Justice
Constitutional and Legal Rights to a Healthy Environment
Scientific Information on Environmental Health Injustice in the US
Environmental Justice Issues
Community-Based Research
Environmental Justice Strategies
The US Environmental Justice and Environmental Health Movements
Chapter 9: Changing Economics, the Markets and Business
The Cost of Environmental Illness
Market Campaigns: Overview
Market Campaigns: PVC Products and Packaging
Market Campaigns: Electronics
Market Campaigns: The Health Sector
Green Chemistry and Safer Materials
Socially Responsible Investing
Partnerships with Business
Conclusion and Next Steps: Strategies for Social Change
Strategies for Social Change
Creating Inspiring Visions
Minding the Gap between our Collective Aspirations and Reality
Seeing the Forest and the Trees
Identifying Leverage Points for Environmental Health
Organizing More, Collective Action
Telling Environmental Health Stories
Self-Care
Final Reflections
A Chronology of Key Events in US Environmental Health
Selected Resources on Environmental Health
The Rise of the US Environmental Health Movement is an ambitious book in the best sense of the word. Davies seeks to synthesize a tremendous amount of information, and to begin to write history as it is happening. She has made an invaluable contribution to all those who care—or should care—about what environmental contaminants are doing to us and to all life on earth.
— Michael Lerner, president of Commonweal and co-founder of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, Health Care Without Harm and the Health and Environmental Funders Network
The Rise of the U.S. Environmental Health Movement is a finely-balanced and fair-minded account of how this movement came to be and what it will take to execute the sea change we need to fully protect public health.
— Elise Miller, Director and co-founder of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, founded and directed the Institute for Children’s Environmental Health, Founding Executive Director of the Jenifer Altman Foundation
Kate Davies' authoritative history describes the origins and dimensions of one wing of the environmental movement. It is both generous and accurate in its portrayal of the ideas, the people, and organizations that forged the link between the environment and human health. This is the definitive guide to the story of one of the most important movements of our century.
— Carolyn Raffensperger, Science and Environmental Health Network
A compelling history and an accessible guide that unravels the complexity of environmental health issues and the evolving environmental health movement and offers references and examples for how our collective and individual actions can make a healthy difference in the places where we live, work, play, and go to school.
— Peggy M. Shepard, Executive Director and co-founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice
The Rise of the U.S. Environmental Health Movement is a well-done history of America’s environmental health movement and offers readers valuable information on how grassroots organizing prevents harm from toxic exposures and leads to safe and healthy communities.
— Lois Marie Gibbs, Executive Director, Center for Health, Environment & Justice
The world is not a safe place. Toxic waste, air pollution, and pesticide use can be hazardous to your health. According to the World Health Organization, more than 40 percent of all asthma, nearly 20 percent of all cancers, and 5-percent of all birth defects are attributable to poor environmental quality. It’s impossible to avoid exposure to at least some of the 80,000 different chemicals utilized in the United States. The environmental health movement consists of many individuals and organizations cognizant of the relationship between people and the environment and environmental factors that potentially affect health. Davies extensively covers the historical roots and rise of this movement in the United States and tracks its current status and strategies, from forging national coalitions to lobbying for legislation and promoting grassroots activism. America’s environmental health movement focuses on environmental safety through precaution and prevention, opposes the use of toxic chemicals, and advocates sustainability and environmental justice. As ecotheologian Thomas Berry once declared, 'You cannot have well humans on a sick planet.'
— Booklist
The Rise of the U.S. Environmental Health Movement examines the evolution of the diverse social movement that aims to prevent such hazards from arising. Between the complexity of our chemical environment, policy responses to it, and the movement itself, the task that Davies has taken on strains the limits of a single volume. Her broad narrative succeeds. . . . Davies’s book offers a valuable introduction to key topics in environmental health politics. Advanced undergraduates, beginning graduate students, and budding activists interested in environmental health may find the later chapters especially helpful for gaining conversance in the movement’s positions, rhetoric, and controversies. Faculty teaching courses on environmental health or health geography may find the book a helpful guide to key policies, debates, and events, especially if they are struggling to present complex scientific and political concepts for undergraduates. Davies’s great skill is in distilling these concepts.
— Journal of Historical Geography
Kate Davies of Antioch University in Seattle has written a pioneering work that fills a gap in the literature and advances the cause of environmental health: that is, increasing human health and well-being through changing the environment. . . .The Rise of the U.S. Environmental Health Movement is a new departure and a major achievement. It will appeal to a wide audience of potential activists because of its optimistic tone and its appeal to spiritual as well as material values. The contributions it makes are diverse and discerning while the controversies it generates are pertinent and constructive.
— New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy
The book is well-written and easy to read. . .[I]t is interesting. . . .[T]his work will appeal . . . to those interested primarily in the process of social change itself. . . .[A] copy would make a welcome addition to a complete medical, public health or sociology library. . . .Its greatest value to the occupational and environmental medicine provider lies in its ability to teach one about the importance of making environmental health issues personal and economically relevant, to achieve sufficient public momentum. In this way, individuals can succeed in making legislative and regulatory changes that improve the health and safety of our communities at the local, national, and global levels.
— Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• Winner, Booklist Spotlight on Sustainability: Top 10 Books on Sustainability (2014)