permaculture

[Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>]

 Here is a very interesting article from the Environmental Research 
Foundation about the toxicity of diesel and the severe health problems 
it causes. I suspect that that PURE bio-diesel fuel might reduce the 
severity of the problem, but I am still left wondering whether 
bio-diesel is really any kind of a long-term solution.

It seems to me that a more important first step -- before we start 
'pushing' bio-diesel -- is to make FULL-use of today's technology to 
reduce the size of our vehicles and dramatically increase fuel 
efficiency. Today's hybrids are getting only 55-60 mpg, while RMI's 
hypercar designs (see bottom of the page at 
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid18.php ) demonstrate that 150-200 mpg 
are possible with today's technology -- and NONE of the hypercar 
technology involves diesel.
<mailto:rachel-replies@rachel.org>


The Diesel Opportunity

The deadly effects of breathing diesel fumes came into sharp focus
this week when the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) released a report[1]
estimating that diesel fumes kill about 21,000 U.S. citizens each
year.

Furthermore, diesel fumes cause 27,000 nonfatal heart attacks and
410,000 asthma attacks in U.S. adults each year, plus roughly 12,000
cases of chronic bronchitis, 15,000 hospital admissions, 2.4 million
lost-work days, and 14 million restricted activity days.

And that is almost certainly not the worst of it. The Clean Air Task
Force report cites numerous studies revealing that diesel soot

** degrades the immune system (the system that protects us all from
bacteria, viruses and cancers);

** interferes with our hormones, reducing sperm production,
masculinizing female rats, altering the development of baby rats
(changing their bones, thymus, and nervous systems), modifying their
adrenal and reproductive hormones;

** causes serious, permanent impairment of the nervous system in
diesel-exposed railroad workers;

** induces allergic reactions, not limited to asthma, causing children
to miss thousands upon thousands of school-days -- a primary cause of
school dropout, consequent low self-esteem, and subsequent life-
failure.

The new report is based on the most recent available data from the
federal EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) combined with EPA risk
models, with calculations carried out by Abt Associates, a consulting
firm that frequently performs contract studies for the EPA.[2]

The key findings of the report should come as no surprise. The dangers
of breathing diesel fumes have been known for at least two decades.

More than 20 years ago, numerous researchers confirmed and reconfirmed
that they could cause lung cancer in laboratory animals breathing air
laced with diesel fumes.

To anyone taking a precautionary approach, this confirmed knowledge of
diesel's ill effects on animals would have jump-started a search for
alternative ways to power on-road and off-road machines, to phase out
diesel in an orderly step-wise fashion.

But the National Academy of Sciences did not take a precautionary
approach. The New York Times reported Dec. 23, 1981, that the Academy
acknowledged that diesel soot is known to contain suspected cancer-
causing substances. But the Academy said, "no convincing
epidemiological evidence exists" that there is "a connection between
diesel fumes and human cancer." In other words, let's not act on the
animal evidence -- let's hunker down and wait until we can line up the
dead humans. This is the risk-based approach to public health. It is
the opposite of a precautionary approach.

Twenty years ago, in the spring of 1985, the Natural Resources Defense
Council (NRDC) issued a scientific report about the dangers of diesel
fumes in New York. The New York Times reported May 18, 1985: "Diesel
emissions are probably the single most important air-quality threat in
New York City today," said Eric A. Goldstein, a lawyer for the
environmental group and an author of the report. "But city, state and
Federal agencies have not yet mounted a broad-based counterattack."
The Times reported then that a spokesperson for the New York State
Environmental Conservation Department acknowledged that diesel fumes
cause lung cancer in humans but, he said, the state was "not yet sure"
how big the problem was. The state had no plan for dealing with diesel
because "we have not identified the extent of the problem," he said.

This is a classic example of the risk-based approach.  Ignore the
evidence so long as it is not 100% airtight. Use uncertainty as an
excuse to delay. Wait for the dead bodies to pile up, then slowly
acknowledge the need for action.

By 1985, there was no doubt that dead bodies were piling up. But the
exact number of corpses remained uncertain, so the risk-based approach
allowed "business as usual" to continue.

From a precautionary perspective, knowing that a technology causes
lung cancer, and knowing that hundreds of millions of people are
exposed to it, just naturally kicks off a search for less-harmful
alternatives. But no one in 1985 was taking a precautionary approach.

In 1988 the federal government's Robert A. Taft Laboratory in
Cincinnati published NIOSH report 88-116, officially confirming that
exposure to diesel fumes causes lung cancer in humans.

At this point the precautionary principle would insist that a search
for alternatives begin. Other fuels? Other kinds of engines? Filters
for trapping the fumes and soot? Innovative modes of transportation
for moving goods and people? Other ways of planning city growth, to
reduce reliance on trucks and buses? Electrified steel-rail mass
transit? Maglev trains? Hydrogen? Steam? Compressed air? The
alternatives are many.

A precautionary approach would focus attention on eliminating the
problem rather than arguing over the exact body count. Is a diesel-
free world possible? Working backward from the vision of a diesel-free
world, what steps could we be taking today to achieve the vision? That
is the essence of a precautionary approach.

But the risk-based approach serves the purposes of "business as
usual," and therefore has the backing of powerful special interests.
So long as the exact size of the problem is uncertain, risk assessors
can always call for delay and more study. And, since scientists-for-
hire can always reinterpret old data to cast doubt on the nature of
the problem, action can be stalled for decades. This is in fact what
has happened with diesel.

On May 2, 1995 the New York Times reported that researchers were
casting new doubts on the evidence that diesel fumes cause cancer in
humans. They acknowledged that diesel soot might endanger people by
aggravating conditions like asthma, chronic bronchitis and cystic
fibrosis, but lung cancer? Probably not, they said.

The Times reported then, "Studies in humans found that those with an
occupational exposure to diesel smoke had lung cancer rates 20 to 50
percent higher than other workers, but none of the studies were
precise about the level of exposures...." so the studies could not be
relied upon to tell us the true cancer danger among the general public
in places like New York City and Los Angeles.

Doubt is a powerful helpmate when your goal is to maintain "business
as usual." The risk-based approach waits for the holy grail of
scientific certainty to emerge from the data -- until then, just keep
on truckin'.

So now in 2005 we awake to learn that we have a public health disaster
on our hands, with at estimated 21,000 deaths each year caused by
diesel fumes, and more than 100 times that number made sick.

It is time to engage in an urgent search for a way out of this diesel
disaster. Every college and university that receives any public funds
(including tax exemptions for private institutions) could to commit to
doing something to solve this problem, engaging in a coordinated
effort to figure out how to make the U.S. "diesel-free or darn near"
within 15 years. Given that we have "risk assessed" our way into this
problem, we could refuse to wait for further study to determine the
exact placement of the decimal point. We could take precautionary
action now, aiming to ELIMINATE this problem.

But precaution is not (yet) fashionable.  Risk-assessment is. So, for
example, in our home state of New Jersey (which likes to think of
itself as environmentally progressive), the state's Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP) has set a goal of reducing diesel
emissions by 20% over the next eight or nine years -- during which
time an additional 7 or 8 thousand citizens of New Jersey will have
been killed by diesel fumes with many times that number made sick.

But a recent study revealed that truck traffic in New Jersey is likely
to increase 80 percent (!) in the next 15 years,[3] so the DEP's plan
seems unlikely to make any real headway against the diesel deathtrap.
Their goal is too timid.

Something much larger is needed. Something bold, innovative,
aggressive and comprehensive. Something commensurate with the size and
urgency of the diesel menace.

Every state's colleges and universities that receive public subsidies
could focus enormous resources on this problem, to find solutions as
quickly as is humanly possible.

Diesel presents a conundrum for urban designers and planners, and for
those with urban transportation know-how. It is a complex engineering
problem, fraught with fundamental questions in several hard sciences.
It is an environmental problem, a medical/biological problem, a legal
problem, and a management problem. It is an enormous public health
problem. It is a problem of public administration and good government.
It is, above all else, an ethical problem, a problem of fairness and
justice -- those most harmed are those least able to defend
themselves, children of the urban poor. Philosophers, economists,
sociologists, psychologists, historians, writers, and all the
humanistic disciplines (arts, dance, theater, literature, film, and
music) could make important, unique contributions. Knowledge and
skills from business, labor, and decision-making are needed. Every
discipline could contribute because this diesel poses a fundamental
question for a self-governing people. In the original conception of
this country, how was democracy supposed to work? Who is supposed to
decide?

Because the diesel industry involves huge sums, diesel presents us
with a fundamental problem of democratic self-rule. Despite mounting
evidence of widespread harm, diesel has been maintained all these
years by corporations and their trade associations and lobbyists --
from Detroit and Houston to Washington and in every statehouse -- who
have run roughshod over the needs and interests of the American people
for the last half-century, a tiny few who wield life-and-death power
over the many -- harnessing governments to employ their risk-based
approach to deflect and stymie the search for least harmful
alternatives. (To learn more about this appalling story of corporate
crime against the people of the U.S., see Rachel's #439 at
www.rachel.org, and see the video, "Taken for a Ride," which tells the
story of a proven conspiracy between General Motors, Firestone Rubber,
and Standard Oil of California to buy up and destroy the streetcar
systems of 80 U.S. cities and replace them with diesel buses).[4]

At bottom, the diesel problem forces us to ask, What does our
democracy really mean? How can a tiny minority of powerful people keep
the multitudes locked into this deadly dead-end technology decade
after decade? Surely, another world is possible. The publicly-
subsidized institutions of higher learning in every state could help
us all visualize and then realize that better world.

The taxpayers of each state would feel well-served by a university
system that would mount a coordinated effort to solve complex and
pressing public problems, to help us preserve and enhance the common
wealth, like clean air and our right to breathe it.

Suddenly every state's very substantial brain trust within higher
education would take on new relevance to the lives of the taxpaying
public, and it would be appreciated and rewarded for its efforts. As a
result, educational funding would naturally rise -- a win-win for
higher education and for the citizenry.

In the process, the nation's colleges and universities could gain
experience working together to solve other deep problems facing us
all. With close guidance from citizens, they could develop a public-
interest research agenda and a modern capacity for precautionary
problem-solving. With such an effort, the U.S. might actually reverse
40 years of environmental destruction and urban deterioration and
finally turn the corner. That's the diesel opportunity.

==================

A version of this essay first appeared in Garden State EnviroNews
February 23, 2005; http://www.gsenet.org.

[1] http://www.catf.us/publications/view.php?id=83

[2] http://www.catf.us/publications/view.php?id=84

[3] http://www.tstc.org/press/011205_NJtrucktraffic.html

[4] http://www.newday.com/films/Taken_for_a_Ride.html

--
Keith Johnson
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 1209
Black Mountain, NC 28711
(828)669-6336

also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
Culture's Edge at Earthaven Ecovillage
http://www.permacultureactivist.net
http://www.earthaven.org
http://www.bioregionalcongress.org

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