Page 51 - Spring2012

All Thumbs Book Reviews

The Polluters: The Making of strong federal standards. In an economic race to
Our Chemically Altered Environment the bottom, companies played one state against
by Benjamin Ross and Steven Amter another by threatening to move jobs to “business-
Oxford University Press, 2010 friendly” states with low wages and anti-union,
right-to-work laws devoid of environmental and
According to an industry spokesman, "Pollu- workplace safety provisions. Companies moved
tion is the price of progress. . . . Waste disposal is factories from the Midwest to states such as
a legitimate use of water. Water pollution would North Carolina.
not be feared if the public did not expect too These strategies are still part of current con-
much. Our air cannot everywhere be clear and gressional policies. An even more intense race
clean." to the bottom later moved the North Carolina
The exhaustively researched book from factories to maquilladoras in Mexico, El Salva-
which this quote is taken is a saga of American dor, Southeast Asia, and China after Congress
government at its best and at its worst. The au- lowered or removed tariffs on imports. These
thors identify early environmental incidents and tariffs had protected some American markets and
follow the emergence of environmental standards jobs. Congress then inserted an Internal Revenue
and regulations. State water pollution control ef- code that continues to reward businesses for
forts initiated in 1888 moved to Congress in 1890, moving jobs offshore. The U.S. Agency for Inter-
after urban typhoid epidemics in Massachusetts national Development often assisted American
and New York were linked to sewage discharge. companies by negotiating a “business-friendly”
The authors then trace how it became possible to environment in those countries. (Former U.S.
put profit before people in this country. Written in Senator Byron Dorgan [D-ND] details many of
clear and engaging prose, the often disillusioning these policies and their dire impact on American
chronology of events explains how businesses workers and local economies in his book Take
have capitalized profits, socialized risks and This Job and Ship It: How Corporate Greed and
destroyed the Commons. Brain-Dead Politics are Selling Out America.)
Chemical manufacturing factories have a The lesson from the dinosaurs alluded to
history of waste disposal problems and a resis- in this book really resonates amidst widespread
tance to spending the amount of money needed environmental devastation and contamination.
to protect workers and communities. Industries “The dinosaurs were a dominant species that
have successfully pursued “spill, study, and stall” failed to meet a challenge.” The challenge today
tactics that controlled the studies and thwarted is how to reverse this historical trend of corporate
meaningful state and federal regulations. Tech- influence and harm.
nology created the problem and technology Review by Alyce Ortuzar
would eventually solve the problem, the public
was told after each environmental disaster. JouRNal NoW avaIlable aS DIGItal talkING book
foR the vISually ImPaIReD
Every sentence in this comprehensive em-
pirical investigation matters. Gripping details We now have our journal converted into an audio format available for
untangle and elucidate case studies of “how the visually impaired. Special software is required for this, such as Dolphin
business influences government when politics, easy Reader. Go to the JouRNalS tab on our homepage. Starting with
pollution, and science merge.” Illustrations of fall 2011, click the journal you are interested in. Please tell others!
how industries manipulated weak state and lo-
cal pollution controls demonstrate the need for Many thanks to Amy Adams of ePubUSA.com for this service!
Wise Traditions SPRING 2012 SPRING 2012 Wise Traditions 51

89494_text.indd 51 3/13/12 1:47 AM