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- Regulating Toxic Substances: A Philosophy of Science and the Law
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Regulating Toxic Substances: A Philosophy of Science and the Law (Environmental Ethics and Science Policy Series)
Carl F. Cranor
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action
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The Politics of Pure Science
ASIN: 0195113780 |
Book Description
The proliferation of chemical substances in commerce poses scientific and philosophical problems. The scientific challenge is to develop data, methodologies, and techniques for identifying and assessing toxic substances before they cause harm to human beings and the environment. The philosophical problem is how much scientific information we should demand for this task consistent with other social goals we might have. In this book, Cranor utilizes material from ethics, philosophy of law, epidemiology, tort law, regulatory law, and risk assessment, to argue that the scientific evidential standards used in tort law and administrative law to control toxics ought to be evaluated with the purposes of the law in mind. Demanding too much for this purpose will slow the evaluation and lead to an excess of toxic substances left unidentified and unassessed, thus leaving the public at risk. Demanding too little may impose other costs. An appropriate balance between these social concerns must be found. Justice requires we use evidentiary standards more appropriate to the legal institutions in question and resist the temptation to demand the most intensive scientific evaluation of each substance subject to legal action.
Customer Reviews:
Regulating Toxic Substances: A Philosophy of Science and the Law.......2007-07-25
Regulating Toxic Substances: A Philosophy of Science and the Law provides a sophisticated and educational analysis of the complexities associated with regulating, assessing and conceptualizing toxic substances. Cranor does an impressive job at dissecting and disentangling the perplexing relationship between scientific risk assessment analysis as it pertains to Tort law, regulatory agencies and their epistemic and philosophical considerations. Theories of distribution and variants of Rawls's concept of Utilitarianism provide an atypical way of conceptualizing ethical justifications for the regulation of carcinogens and other toxic substances. The universal consideration taken by Cranor is the relationship between scientific assessment of toxic substances and public-healthcare policy efficiency. Of particular value, the last four appendices discuss the theoretic and scientific cancer potency estimates in the California Department of Health Sciences (CDHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Models of risk act as a function of Alpha and Beta values, statutes authorizing the regulation of carcinogens, and derivation of TD50 (tumorigenic dose) potency values. Regulating Toxic Substances: A Philosophy of Science and the Law will be best suited for those who are interested in the toxic Tort litigation and familiar with moderate to advanced statistic models of risk assessment and public-healthcare policy. Clanor puts together a cohesive evaluation of the synergetic relationship between toxic substances, policy and scientific method.
Customer Reviews:
I'm glad there's a book out there on this topic!.......2002-08-20
Too often it's assumed that all environmentalists are white, class-privileged neo-hippies and that people of color are too busy with "real" issues. This book shows that activists of color are extremely dedicated to fighting pollutants in their community. This book stresses that a disproportionate number of communities of color have been targeted for toxic wastes sites, etc.; so it is not environmental classism, but specifically environmental racism. This book does a good job in showing how Blacks, Native Americans, and Latinos are equally engaged in fighting this tragedy. This book may be too simplistic for longtime activists. For non-scientists like myself, many of the chemical compounds mentioned and stuff like that went right over my head (figuratively, of course). Still, this helped me learn more on the topic and is a good starter book. I think this book can help bring progressives across color lines together.
Amazon.com
Nobody can question Hackworth's credentials--he's America's most decorated living soldier, a military reporter forNewsweek, and author of the best-selling About Face. In
Hazardous Duty, he travels to danger spots like Bosnia, Haiti, Korea, Somalia and the Persian Gulf to rate U.S. military performance. All too often, he sees it coming up short. "Our military machine is sputtering like a worn-out tank," he writes in the final chapter, where he also offers a practical agenda for reform that is sure to raise the hackles of what he calls the Pentagon's "Perfumed Princes and Propaganda Poets."
Book Description
The author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller About Face, Colonel David H. Hackworth is one of America's most decorated soldiers, having served at the end of World War II, and in Korea and Vietnam. Retired from the military since 1971, he has completed second tour of battlefield duty -- this time as a war correspondent -- accompanying our nation's fighting men and women to the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Somalia, Korea and Haiti. What he learned of high-level military incompetence, futility and corruption in the heat and fury of Desert Storm -- and in the desperation of the Balkans and Mogadishu -- is shocking, frightening and infuriating...and it must be told.
Hazardous Duty is a necessary wake-up call for military reform -- a no-holds-barred, no-punches-pulled exposé that calls America's top political and military leaders to account for selling out duty, honor and country. It is riveting, real-life adventure of courageous warriors on the world's new battlefields -- and of their systematic betrayal by the weakness of an increasingly wasteful and inept high command. It offers essential solutions to problems that must be addressed if our nation is to remain the foremost military power in a volatile and ever-changing world.
Customer Reviews:
We All Should Know.......2007-08-23
Hackworth is the ultimate soldier. He has been there, done that, and his record gives him the credentials to call a spade a spade in military matters. Recommendations and condemnations are posited on the basis of what is best for each soldier and his defense of our country. Even his technical descriptions are easily understood by an average reader. The writing flows naturally, and Hackworth's integrity is clear on every page. Honor, duty, country. Hackworth was all about that, even without the ring of West Point. He lived it; all of us owe him respect.
A Soldier's Tale.......2006-05-12
Love him or hate him, you can't deny that David Hackworth has a story to tell. "Hazardous Duty" is his very persuasive diagnosis of the problem with American armed forces. Hackworth has "been there." Hew has led men in combat in Vietnam and experienced the "ticket punchers" who were less interested in destroying the enemy than in feathering their resumes. In this book, he takes us from the rice paddies in Vietnam to the scorching sands of Iraq and Kuwait in order to show us the weaknesses in the American fighting machine.
Hackworth takes dead aim at the "military-industrial-congressional complex," the source of much of the problem, in his telling. His "perfumed princes" ride the military promotion machine to high rank while arms manufacturers pad their expenses and congressmen use the revolving door to lucrative jobs in the arms trade. The media and public are bedazzled by a few "smart" bombs and glad-handed into shelling out more tax dollars for Flash Gordon wizzbangery. Meanwhile, the grunts on the ground are outfitted with obsolete weapons and uniforms manufactured for the wrong climate.
Hackworth portrays himself as a soldier's soldier, more interested in what happens on the ground than in some major's efficiency report. His devastating analysis of the debacles of the Grenada invasion and the Iranian hostage rescue are the first serious criticism I have heard about these botched operations. His skewering of Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf is pretty frightening. In Hackworth's telling, it's a good thing that Saddam Hussein was such a horrible tactician; the US might have taken some serious casualties otherwise. By letting Iraq's Republican Guard escape, he empowered Saddam Hussein, and ensured that we would have to fight him again.
Hackworth sees the military as a bloated giant, drunk on appropriations and its own sense of importance. Its leaders are dizzy with bringing home the bacon and fighting the other services, leaving America poorer and less prepared to fight the next war. Hackworth's pre-9/11 perspective is fascinating, if not always on target. He criticizes Reagan and Bush I for blindly throwing money at the military and Clinton for trying to integrate gays at a time of severe cutbacks and low morale. Writing at the time the US was involved in stopping Bosnia's self-destruction, he criticizes that effort as well as our interventions in Somalia and Haiti. The measured success in Bosnia and Haiti were still in the future, and somewhat diminishes Hackworth's omniscience.
Whatever his excesses, Hackworth is passionate about his country and the ordinary soldiers and sailors who defend it. His prescriptions (reducing the armed services from 4 to 1, stopping the revolving door from Congress to arms manufacturers) may be either visionary or unrealistic. But it's clear from his experiences and perspective that a military that persecutes and marginalizes "war fighters," which continually prepares to fight the last war, and is hypnotized by fancy gadgetry is no asset to our country.
Where have all the soldiers gone?.......2005-11-26
There are two types of soldier, peacetime and wartime. Hackworth is from that wartime brand. A pain in the ass in peace but vital in conflict. He clearly identifies the issues and yet is lambasted as a poor staff leader, funnily enough so was Patton, and what a fighting general he was! No one believed him about the Russians at the end of WW2. As an ex-soldier from a recon background i'd really have liked to have met and even served under Col. Hackworth. At least he wouldn't have thrown my life away like modern leadership. The quickest way to resolve an issue is to accept that it exists. The US Military should listen to these views and act on them, otherwise when the big day comes and they are up against an effective force they will be sorely embarrased. Look how badly they are currently handling the insurgency in Iraq.
Hazardous Duty.......2005-10-09
Great read, unique and interesting perspective about the US military from a qualified expert.
Excellent.......2001-12-07
Very interesting book. I couldn't put it down after the first page or two. I've been inspired to read his other books -- esp. About Face, and support his organization Soldiers for the Truth.
Book Description
In this series of essays Paz explores the intimate connection between sex, eroticism, and love in literature throughout the ages. Rich in scope, The Double Flame examines everything from taboo to repression, Carnival to Lent, Sade to Freud, original sin to artificial intelligence. “Brimming with insight, thoughtfulness, and sincerity” (Kirkus Reviews). Translated by Helen Lane.
Customer Reviews:
Eroticism: In Its Finest Form.......2001-11-29
The big bang of my holiday reading began with ever-enigmatic Octavio Paz's another master piece, "The Double Flame". A three hundred sixty degree recount of history and genre of Love & Eroticism. During his diplomatic job at India, being inspired by the Buddhist erotic statues of Karli (alas the other Mecca of history & culture that I never had a chance to visit), Octavio wanted to write a 100 page polemic on this subject. He waited almost 15 years. Finally in 1993, wrote this 276 page authoritative, eclectic, mesmerizing and fascinating book. I found Paz always dwells on this interesting issue. In his poems about India such as Mathura and Vridabaan, Octavio brings the erotic images of ancient India as living objects. But through this book only I discovered the depth and breath of his reading on this occult issue. Beginning with Plato's Symposium, Paz gives us a short history of love and eroticism in literature throughout the ages. From Greeko-Alexandria to Roman-Europe to Tantrik Bengal, Octavio swims us through every current and under current of human sexuality. To him, eroticism to sexuality is same as poetry to language. The courtly love in Heian Japan to twelfth century amorous lit of France, Paz is everywhere. It helped me understand Baudelaire better. It explains the erotic nuances of Madame Bovary and Ulysses. The Double Flame is translated to English by Helen Lane and published by Harcourt Brace & Company.
Insights from one of Latin America's greatest poet-essayists.......2001-08-13
"The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism," by Octavio Paz, is an impressive prose exploration of the title subject. The book has been translated from Spanish into English by Helen Lane.
In this extended multi-part essay, Paz considers the presence of love, eroticism, and related phenomena in literary works that span many cultures and centuries: the biblical Song of Songs, the writings of the Marquis de Sade, Joyce's "Ulysses," Murasaki Shikubu's "Tale of Genji," Mohammed Ibn Dawud's "Book of the Flower," the poems of Sappho, and much more. Paz also considers a wide range of other social and scientific phenomena that are relevant to his project: the "Big Bang" theory, the AIDS crisis, artificial intelligence, the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, the "Luciferian" movement in art, and more.
Occasionally, Paz seems to be a little too full of himself; he sometimes issues pronouncements on highly debatable points as if they were undebatable facts. But his overall passion and intelligence make these occasional lapses forgivable.
"The Double Flame" is also rich in what I call "Pazisms": characteristically witty, wise, and highly quotable statements. Here's one of my favorite Pazisms: "Love has been and is still the great act of subversion in the West" (from the 5th chapter, "A Solar System"). If you are interested in love and eroticism, in the art of nonfiction prose, or in Latin American literature, check out this book.
a wonderful mystery.......2000-07-10
Reviewer: luismendez@codetel.net.do from DOMINICAN REPUBLIC love is a wonderful mystery and this book takes a good love at all sides, from chinese and budhism, to western society and courtly love. this collection of essays is spellbounding and magnificent. it is reallly the work of a master at his best. this is the first time i read a book by him , but it certainly won't be the last. the scope of this book is enormous and it makes us feel that we are not alone in feeling a sensation we cannot fully account for. i recommend it for everybody, specially for the people who want to learn something in the art of living. --
LUIS MENDEZ crazzyteacher@hotmail.com
a wonderful mystery.......1999-05-16
love is a wonderful mystery and this book takes a good love at all sides, from chinese and budhism, to western society and courtly love. this collection of essays is spellbounding and magnificent. it is reallly the work of a master at his best. this is the first time i read a book by him , but it certainly won't be the last. the scope of this book is enormous and it makes us feel that we are not alone in feeling a sensation we cannot fully account for. i recommend it for everybody, specially for the people who want to learn something in the art of living.
Double Flame: Love is still all that matters.......1999-03-25
Spellbinding in its scope, the Double Flame strips humanity of every tradition and circumstance and presents it at its most ritual level, which is the act of love itself. In a nutshell, sex is the root, eroticism is the stem, and love is the flower that blooms as a result of the two. Octavio Paz simply gives it a soul, injecting new life into an entity that seems to grow more trivial as nature succumbs to change. Its a definite shot in the arm for an increasingly technocratic society.
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- I hadn't a clue, until i read this book
- Leadville shines
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Leadville: The Struggle To Revive An American Town
Gillian Klucas
Manufacturer: Island Press
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A Quick History of Leadville
ASIN: 1559633859 |
Book Description
Leadville explores the clash between a small mining town high up in Colorado's Rocky Mountains and the federal government, determined to clean up the toxic mess left from a hundred years of mining.
Set amidst the historic streets and buildings reflecting the town's past glory as one of the richest nineteenth-century mining districts in North America-a history populated with characters such as Meyer Guggenheim and the Titanic's unsinkable Molly Brown--the Leadville Gillian Klucas portrays became a battleground in the 1980s and 1990s.
The tale begins one morning in 1983 when a flood of toxic mining waste washes past the Smith Ranch and down the headwaters of the Arkansas River. The event presages a Superfund cleanup campaign that draws national attention, sparks local protest, and triggers the intervention of an antagonistic state representative.
Just as the Environmental Protection Agency comes to town telling the community that their celebrated mining heritage is a public health and environmental hazard, the mining industry abandons Leadville, throwing the town into economic chaos. Klucas unveils the events that resulted from this volatile formula and the remarkable turnaround that followed.
The author's well-grounded perspective, in-depth interviews with participants, and keen insights make Leadville a portrait vivid with characterizations that could fill the pages of a novel. But because this is a real story with real people, It shows the reality behind the Western mystique and explores the challenges to local autonomy and community identity brought by a struggle for economic survival, unyielding government policy, and long-term health consequences induced by extractive-industry practices.
Customer Reviews:
I hadn't a clue, until i read this book.......2005-06-15
even though i grew up in colorado in the 80's & 90's i had no idea about the complex issues surrounding the superfund of leadville. this book was not as riveting as a novel, but drew me to read it for better reasons. i learned a great deal from this book about leadville and mining clean up in general. this book is the print edition of an educational IMAX film. it is compact, moves along at a good speed, and doesn't get bogged down in explaining too much but isn't completely superfical either.
i highly reccommend everyone reading this book so that they have a better handle of what it means to mine and then to subsequently clean up mining. these are important issues that impact how our society functions and this book is a good way to get some insight.
Leadville shines.......2005-03-23
I loved "Leadville." I worried that a book about toxic waste and
bureaucracy would be boring, but Klucas's book reads like a novel with fascinating, vividly drawn characters I enjoyed getting to know. But besides being a fun read, the book describes an important environmental issue that few know
about, even though it's happening all over the west. Leadville's battle with the government is a poignant, sometimes humorous, story, and Klucas does a great job of reporting all sides of the issue. The unfolding drama carried me forward effortlessly.
Customer Reviews:
Amusing and interesting.......2005-12-27
Obviously, there is more to anthropology than simply going to some faraway land and relating tales about one's experiences there. But there's nothing wrong with doing just that, as Nigel Barley does in this book. He starts right out, in the first sentence, by saying that "Anthropology is not a hazardous sport." Anyway, he goes off to Indonesia (actually, to Torajaland, on the island of Celebes) to live, um, non-hazardously.
An incident typical of the author's misadventures comes when some of the people he's visiting decide they need to consecrate a new rice barn with blood. They plan to sacrifice a pig to do this. But when they ask him to pass them a machete, he cuts his fingers badly on it. So badly that his blood suffices; they don't need to sacrifice a pig after all.
I enjoyed this book, and I recommend it.
Funny and Informative.......1999-12-31
I am a student of African and Indonesian spiritual practices. This book, along with Mr. Barley's others, is a refreshing departure from long-winded, ivory-tower lectures. Funny and informative.
Anthropologist in Indonesia.......1999-11-28
Nigel Barley is an English antropologist who makes a visit to Torajaland in Sulawesi, Indonesia. He says in his foreword that he want to tell the stories that more traditional antropological books don't tell. The result is sometimes funny but otherwise not very remarkable.
Average customer rating:
- Good read, good analysis
- outstanding, balanced account of the events at Love Canal
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A Hazardous Inquiry: The Rashomon Effect at Love Canal
Allan Mazur
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
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Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
ASIN: 0674748336 |
Book Description
Love Canal. We hear these words and quickly recoil, remembering a community poisoned by toxic waste. Twenty years after the incident, Allan Mazur reexamines the circumstances that made this upstate New York neighborhood synonymous with ecological catastrophe and triggered federal "Superfund" legislation to clean up the nation's thousands of hazardous waste sites.
But is there only one true story of Love Canal? Borrowing the multi-viewpoint technique of the classic Japanese film Rashomon, Mazur's book reveals that there are many--often conflicting versions of what occurred at Love Canal. Hooker Chemical Company, which deposited the toxic wastes, explains why it subsequently donated the dump as the site for a new school. Lois Gibbs, whose son attended the school, tells of organizing the community to fight both the chemical threat and the uncaring state bureaucracy. Then there is the story of David Axelrod, New York's embattled commissioner of health, at odds with the homeowners over their assessment of the hazards and the proper extent of the state's response. We also hear from Michael Brown, the young reporter who developed the story in the Niagara Gazette and eventually brought the problem of toxic waste to national attention.
If A Hazardous Inquiry succeeded only in making us understand why one version of the events at Love Canal gained precedence over all others, it would be invaluable to policy makers, journalists, scientists, environmentalists, lawyers, and to citizens caught up in technical controversies that get played out (for better or worse) in the public arena. But the book moves beyond that to evaluate and reconcile the conflicting accounts of Love Canal, giving us a fuller, if more complex, picture than ever before. Through gripping personal tales, A Hazardous Inquiry tells how politics and journalism and epidemiology sometimes mesh, but often clash, when confronting a potential community disaster.
Customer Reviews:
Good read, good analysis.......2003-03-24
The book is divided into two parts. The first part tells the "story" of Love Canal five times, each from the perspective of a different interest group: the chemical company that produced the wastes, the homeowners affected, the New York Health Department, etc. These stories are different, often inconsistent. The second part reconciles, so far as is reasonable, the conflicting claims. Like peeling the layers of an onion to finally get to the core, we get an unusually cogent view of what really happened at Love Canal -- and what did not happen.
outstanding, balanced account of the events at Love Canal.......1998-12-17
This book provides a systematic, balanced account of the history of Love Canal as it concerns various interested groups--Hooker Chemical, Love Canal Homeowner's Association, Niagara Falls School Board, press, etc. It is unique in that it does not lean toward any one side in its recounting of the various sides of the story. Its analysis of the impact of the events and the where the responsibilities might rest is certainly one of the best I've read. Also a terrific book on EPA response to a policy crisis--it provides a springboard to further discussion of the media's role in public policy as it concerns environmental issues.
Average customer rating:
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Toxic Warfare
Theodore Karasik
Manufacturer: RAND Corporation
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ASIN: 0833032070 |
Book Description
A qualitative analysis of the threat posed to the United States by the use of toxic weapons.
Download Description
The past several years have seen an increase in the use of toxic weapons -- i.e., inexpensive and easily acquired chemicals and industrial waste -- on the part of state as well as nonstate actors. Nonetheless, little analysis has been done on the nature and extent of this threat either to the military or to the U.S. homeland. This report examines the implications of toxic weapon use for military planning and concludes that such weapons merit further analysis.
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The deserts of the world are the birthplaces of great religions, the inspirations for sublime expressions of art and feeling, the treasure houses of exotic beauty and remarkable forms of life. They are also the junkyards of industrial civilization, the resting place for abandoned cars, scrapped airplanes--and a vast array of toxic wastes, nuclear and chemical.
Chip Ward came to one of the planet's most unforgiving deserts, the flat salt pans west of Salt Lake City, Utah, to drive a bookmobile. He has emerged from it, years later, as a spokesman for that forbidding landscape, the repository of decaying plutonium, retired biochemical weapons, and other manifestations of what he calls the "ecocidal schemes" of big business and government. Ward, working with other concerned Utah citizens, has been fighting an uphill battle not only to remove such threatening substances from desert dumps, but also to prevent new lethal trash from being hauled in from other parts of the country. That struggle has not been universally popular among his fellow desert dwellers: while across the country voters have rejected plans for proposed toxic-waste incinerators for toxic wastes, in that part of Utah, he writes, "we had a tradition of trading environmental quality for jobs and revenue"--and there is, he acknowledges, money to be made in lethal detritus, from which substantial fortunes have been born.
Ward documents his group's efforts to clean up their corner of the American desert, a quest that took him into the halls of Congress and before voters across the country. The struggle is ongoing, with no end in sight. He pleads his cause in the pages of Canaries on the Rim to good effect. Above all, he emphasizes that the desert should no longer be seen as a wasteland fit only for hiding our mess. "It is not desolate at all," he insists. "Desolation is what we have carried to it." --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
In the late 1970s Chip Ward and his wife left the Sleeping Rainbow Ranch in Capitol Reef National Park to raise their children in the classic small-town American setting of Grantsville, Utah. There, on the edge of the Great Basin Desert, disturbing tales of local sickness and death interrupted an idyllic life. A seven-year quest to understand a hidden history of ecocide followed. Canaries on the Rim is Ward's firsthand account of that quest and how lessons learned in the wilderness were later applied to building opposition to toxic waste disposal, chemical weapons incineration, industrial pollution, and nuclear waste storage. The secret holocaust that is unfolding along the toxic shadow of America's Great Basin Desert is grim, but Ward's colorful and often-humorous story is not. Canaries on the Rim is a warning and a call to arms, but it is also a compelling drama and a lively primer on environmental activism. If civil action took place in Edward Abbey's West, this is the book that would result.
Customer Reviews:
A book everyone should read.......2005-10-20
This is not a perfect book...but it is a book you need to read. "Canaries on the Rim" is an eye-opening look at the sad environmental state of the American West, and at the health hazards that constantly threaten the West's people: nerve gas incinerators, the lingering effects of atomic testing, chemical weapons manufacturers, air and water pollution, grazing abuse, and more.
Every chapter of the book could stand alone as an article on a certain facet of this huge problem, and together the chapters paint a compelling picture of an environmental disaster and the ways to help fight it, ways Chip Ward has tested out personally.
Chip Ward's information is not always accurate--for instance in his chapter on cattle in the West he states that most cattle ranchers in the West are owned by "big operations that function as tax-sheltering investments for even bigger corporations," when in reality small family grazing outfits exist all across Utah and the West. He also repeatedly says that cattle operations have a hard time in the West due to the West's harsh environment, when in reality the biggest enemy of the Western cattle industry has been the government's restrictions on grazing. And he never addresses what would be so much better than raising cattle out at home on the range. ...Cramped feedlots?
Aside from that chapter, his information seemed mostly trustworthy though, almost always interesting, and always food for thought. The book was well-written (though troubled by weird capitalization), often entertaining, and made me want to read his second book, which I just found out about.
If you live in the West, I highly suggest you read this. No matter where you live, if you care about what you eat and breathe and drink, I suggest you read this. It will make you consider what more you could be doing for our world, and it will make you feel as if there's something you can do.
Because there is.
Chip Ward has proved it.
A Remarkable Achievement.......2000-07-16
This book is a remarkable achievement that describes remarkable achievements. First, although this is Chip Ward's first published work, the book is well written and easy to read. It is by turns lyrical, witty, informative, wise, sensitive, and, yes, angry. It describes how the author raised awareness in his community and made a difference despite overwhelming odds. I found it inspiring and uplifting despite the grim topic of toxic pollution. That Ward can keep his sense of humor in the midst of such adversity is amazing. It is a shame this book has not found a much bigger audience.
We all live downstream..........2000-07-07
I loved the book! And Mr. Ward should be commended highly for taking the actions he did, and writing the book to make other people aware of these terrible problems in Utah. It's outrageous! I feel sorry for the people of Utah, and wonder when we will come to our senses.Whatever the answers are to these terrible environmental problems, I think you can depend that each of us will be unpleasantly surprised by some more of these issues in the future, no matter where we live.
The best part is missing.......2000-06-14
"Canaries on the rim" is as much a story of an environmental movement starting in a small town, as it is a story of the evolution of an environmental activist.
Chip draws the reader in with a sparklingly detailed examination of the environmental effects of a single cow in a single canyon. The apathy of local, state, and federal burocrat towards solving the environmental problems he discovers is staggering. The reader is left with the question; "how can someone afford to fight environmental battles"? Shortly after pondering the question of "breakfast cereal for two headed babies" Chip appears to discover that the most important polluters are those with the deepest pockets.
Chip describes the fame and attention he receives and the changes it brings to his life as a bookmobile driver. Chip's acting locally evolves into national action. As he evolves so does his prose. Examination is replaced by name-calling, detail replaced by assumption. In short, he becomes one of the environmental shock therapists he pokes fun at early in the book. Chip sells out and if through some literary device he was able to see it this would be a truly great book.
Tooele County is pockmarked with environmental problems. Stockton, one of Grantsville's close neighbors, has an arsenic toxic waste site where many towns would have a town square. Overgrazing denudes the deserts. For years cancer-causing pesticide overuse, to attack the grasshopper and cricket blooms, was commonplace. Even natural pollution, in the form of effervescing dust and putrid sulfurous stenches from the salt lake's mudflats, attacks human health. But none of these assailants will pay. It may be necessary to go after the deep pockets to try and patch the broken lives left by health problems caused by life in Tooele County. The fight that Chip's environmental battle evolves into may be a good fight. The changes that Chip goes through in giving up a pure environmental battle based on environmental effect and targeting that battle based on political effect would be a good story. However, that story is only inferred in the later chapters of this book.
Welcome to Utah!.......1999-12-22
When you enter Utah, the Billboards don't tell you that you've entered the largest environmental sacrifice zone in the country. You have to read Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West to find that out. Ward details what the Army and other government officials are afraid to tell you. He documents the environmental ecocide that has taken place in the once pristine deserts of the Great American West from decades of uncontrolled military experiments and unregulated industrial pollution.
In his book, Ward describes the attitude and mindset of the people who live in one of the most beautiful, yet most polluted states in America, and the polluters who take advantage of their trust. Home to the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the world, the only nerve gas incinerator in the country, and the largest industrial polluter in America (MagCorps), the people of Utah have been subjected to environmental conditions that boggle the mind.
From atomic testing in the 50's, to open-air biological and nerve agent testing in the 60's, to uncontrolled industrial pollution in the 70's, to the MX missle crisis in the 80's, to chemical weapons incineration in the 90's, the reasons for the skyrocketing rate of chronic illness are not hard to track down.
Ward gives a colorful first hand account of his efforts to uncover the deceipt, corruption, and cover-ups that have plagued the people of Utah. Canaries on the Rim is a humerous tale of the darkness that has compromised the lives and health of Utahns. This is a must read for all Americans, especially those living in the intermountain west.
Books:
- Rick Steves' Amsterdam, Bruges, and Brussels 2007 (Rick Steves)
- Rocket Propulsion Elements, 7th Edition
- Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower
- Shadow Dance: A Novel
- Silent Steel: The Mysterious Death of the Nuclear Attack Sub USS Scorpion
- Some Place Like Home: Using Design Psychology to Create Ideal Places
- Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon's Grand Armee
- That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present
- The Ancient Maya, 6th Edition
- The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking : How to : Win an Argument, Defend a Case, Recognize a Fallacy, See Through a Deception,
Books Index
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