Taking Action, Saving Lives: Our Duties to Protect Environmental and Public Health

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 18 No. 2 (2008) ISSN: 1546-2250 Taking Action, Saving Lives: Our Duties to Protect Environmental and Public Health Shrader-Frechette, Kristin (2007). New York: Oxford University Press; 299 pages. $29.95. ISBN 9780195325461. Taking Action, Saving Lives offers a detailed analysis of the challenges and opportunities that surround environmental injustices. Throughout the book, Shrader-Frechette describes the ethical responsibilities that are shared by citizens living in a deliberative democracy. As such, she argues not only for increased awareness of public health and environmental injustice issues, but suggests that as citizens, we share a duty to participate in addressing these challenges. At the beginning of each chapter through introductory vignettes, Shrader-Frechette establishes the context within which we are to develop an understanding of the impacts that corporate pollution and environmental degradation can have on our fellow citizens. Her message is both powerful and emotional, presenting compelling evidence of the impacts that pollution can have on the otherwise fragile nature of human life. In addition, she offers deeply compelling personal narratives that better frame the impacts of pollution, helping to make them understandable and relevant. Far too often, the dangers associated with human-created environmental hazards (whether nuclear, chemical, pharmaceutical, or others) seem distant or perhaps that they are “someone else’s problem.” Prior to engaging with the technical and political dialogue concerning public health issues more generally, these evocative vignettes help to personalize and make more intimate the overall discussion. Emphasizing public health in the United States, the book focuses on six main themes to support the call for environmental justice. Though I will not attempt to summarize all six explicitly, they all seem to fall back to the underlying message that pervades 256 the entire work: the need for citizen attention to the ills associated with threats to public health. Though she certainly does not exonerate corporate and governmental entities associated with such histories, she argues that as citizens, we are intimately connected to those systems and structures, and therefore must engage in the process of addressing their faults. This is all the more imperative, she argues, because the techniques and political operations of those responsible for environmental injustices are so finely tuned (i.e., deeply supported financially, politically and sometimes academically). For instance, she describes the ways in which certain corporations use “regulatory capture” to influence government regulators through information suppression, campaign donations and lobbying. In chapters 2 and 3, she describes several other methods that contribute to the distortion or hiding of public health threats, including media complacency, public relations, hired research and other agenda-driven projects. Through such analysis, the book promotes public awareness of the unethical strategies employed by private and governmental entities and lays the groundwork for fighting against such schemes. Shrader-Frechette argues that citizens must stand up to protect the public health of all, but in particular those most vulnerable to the presence and placement of environmental toxins. She pays special attention to minorities and children. Both groups are described as being powerless in the face of corporate plans, with the latter suffering disproportionately greater neurological and developmental disorders due to air, water and soil pollution. Some of SchraderFrechette ’s most compelling arguments stem from her description of the uneven burdens that children take on as a result of their diminished ability to withstand most toxins. She refers often to the work of the American Public Health Association to help tie together the complexities of science-based environmental awareness with the public health impacts on society more broadly. These arguments are some of the strongest in the book, utilizing extensive data and research to provide a deeper understanding of just how dangerous environmental pollution can be. Despite the good intentions, there are several weaknesses with the overall argument. There are historical and social factors that shape 257 the relationship people (citizens) have with capital (industry) and the production of material goods in the U.S. In tying environmental justice so tightly to the science-based arguments of public health, and advocating an ethical responsibility argument to help address problems, the argument overlooks the context responsible for environmental inequities in the first place. Poverty and racism are...