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Volume 26 (1), February 2021
Table of Contents
1. Letter from the Editor
2. The Bold ReThink & The Ministry for the Future
3. Unacceptable Risk: Dr. Margaret Kripke on Cancer and the Environment
4. SEHN in the News:
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Friends,
We are in the midst of a heated debate about what government should do about the economy given the pandemic. We have witnessed first-hand that public health has an outsized effect on both the market and government. In this issue of the Networker we take a look at the place where those three intersect and ask if the way we currently assess government’s success is appropriately measured by economic growth or by another metric that would gauge well-being.
In the first essay Carolyn Raffensperger critically (and joyfully!) assesses Kim Stanley Robinson’s take on current economic policies like the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in his science fiction novel, “The Ministry for the Future.”
We also feature a video made by the Cancer Free Economy that describes the work of one scientist who came to realize that the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. The Cancer Free Economy asks what would a cancer-free economy look like and how can we get there? One thing we know is that we would have a public policy paradox: the GDP would be lower but we would increase public health! The reason it is a paradox is that good public health is not measured or valued in the only terms that currently matter, economics. “In the US in 2017, estimated cancer healthcare spending was US $161.2 billion …”
We share the Cancer Free Economy’s agenda “[o]ur strategies are derived from an in-depth analysis of the “system” that has created an economy that depends on hazardous chemicals”. Ted Schettler, SEHN’s science director serves on the Cancer Free Economy’s science committee.
Our focus at SEHN is the system that created that economy and says economic growth from cancer is a good thing. We need a system that prioritizes well-being and then measures it. That system is government, the primary instrument for the public good.
Carolyn Raffensperger
Executive Director
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Climate change has altered our sense of time, much the way the astronauts’ glimpse of our beautiful, blue planet changed how we saw space. The future looms large. And to many, frightening. Thousands, if not millions, of people are racing against time to salvage enough so we have a livable future.
Where are the plans, the blueprints, the maps to that future? Readers of Kim Stanley Robinson’s new novel, The Ministry for the Future will gleefully answer, “in fiction!”
Adrienne Marie Brown said that “all organizing is science fiction . we are bending the future, together, into something we have never experienced. a world where everyone experiences abundance, access, pleasure, human rights, dignity, freedom, transformative justice, peace. we long for this, we believe it is possible.”
The Ministry for the Future “… opens like a slow-motion disaster movie. In the near future, a heatwave of unsurvivable “wet-bulb” temperatures (factoring in humidity) in a small Indian town kills nearly all its inhabitants in a week…” Out of the wreckage of that climate disaster the world comes together and creates an international body “charged with defending all living creatures present and future who cannot speak for themselves”. The Ministry for the Future.
What is so striking about this fictional account of climate change is that it is spun out of the existing economic and policy systems that are anti-future. By anti-future, I mean the things that support the free market at the expense of the Earth and all living beings (think: slow-motion disaster movie). He carefully dissects these policies and shows us how to create a pro-future world.
At SEHN we’ve spent almost two decades working to design and implement policies that would give future generations a sporting chance. From creating legislative and constitutional provisions for a legal guardian for future generations to advocating for the equivalent of a Ministry for the Future at the U.N ., we’ve invented new institutions that meet the challenges of our day. Robinson’s book captured all the roadblocks we ran into and shows us how they might be dismantled.
Continue Reading
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For National Cancer Prevention Month, the Cancer Free Economy Network is pleased to share the release of a new documentary film, Unacceptable Risk: Dr. Margaret Kripke on Cancer and the Environment.
The Cancer Free Economy Network is comprised of collaborative, diverse teams of experts and stakeholders from the environmental and social justice, health, science, policy, legal, labor, business and communications sectors who have come together to accelerate progress towards a society that values healthy communities above profit. With a goal of eliminating environmental causes of cancer and other diseases, the network aims to drive an equitable transition from toxic substances in our homes, communities, and economy to safer and healthy alternatives. Ted participates on behalf of SEHN.
The film, produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker Cynthia McKeown, tells the story of a prominent cancer researcher who began to rethink her assumptions about the causes of cancer and the contribution of toxic chemicals in our everyday environment.
Dr. Kripke is a professor emerita at MD Anderson Cancer Center. She served on the President’s Cancer Panel that released the 2009 report “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now”. In this film she speaks directly to her experience and the urgent need for cancer prevention research.
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Watch the 15-minute documentary and be sure to share the film with your friends and family!
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"The Future of Healthcare is Green": An Interview with Dr. Ted Schettler
"My vision for healthcare of the future includes a greater emphasis on primary prevention and reducing drivers of common chronic diseases that increase morbidity and mortality and are far too expensive to care for. The global pandemic is forcing us to reimagine and redesign ways of delivering healthcare services."
Read more here!
"On Wishcycling" by Rebecca Altman
Initially, the term emerged from within the recycling and waste industry as a response to the influx of non-recyclables “contaminating” the recycling stream. In this sense, wishcycling is a charge levied against individuals and, as part of public education campaigns, intends to shift “poor” recycling habits. But increasingly, it is used as part of a structural critique by recyclers, one that shifts the focus onto infrastructure or the plastics industry, who have long promoted recycling as the primary solution to the mounting scale and complexity of contemporary waste. In this case, putting non-recyclables in the bin is likely an act carried out because it feels necessary, but also knowingly incommensurate with and potentially irrelevant to the problem of disposable plastics.
Read more here!
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The Science and Environmental Health Network | moreinfo@sehn.org | www.sehn.org
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