Chapter 1
1. This calculation uses the 2007 Hummer H3 weight of 2.2 metric tons (4,800 pounds). The estimate of global carbon dioxide emitted by the “consumption and flaring of fossil fuels” is from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/.
2. From the back cover of the storybook “Slowly, Slowly, Slowly,” Said the Sloth (Carle 2002).
3. More precisely, total world GDP, in constant 1995 dollars, went from just under $8 trillion in 1960 to $35 trillion in 2002 as the world’s population grew from 3 billion to 6.2 billion—a per capita increase of $3,000, from $2,600 to $5,600. See World Bank, World Development Indicators Online, at http://www.worldbank.org/.
4. UNFPA 2004, 8; United Nations Secretariat 2001.
5. World Bank 2005, 236.
6. Of the handful of books that address the environmental impacts of consumption, one of the best is Confronting Consumption (Princen, Maniates, and Conca 2002), a collection of articles that examine the “ecological political economy” of consuming, analyzing in particular “the social and political, especially the organized exercise of influence and power to skew benefits to some and harm to others” (p. ix). In particular, see Princen 2002a, 2002b; Maniates 2002a, 2002b; Manno 2002; Conca 2002; Clapp 2002; Tucker 2002; Helleiner 2002. For other helpful books and articles, see Redclift 1996; Goodwin, Ackerman, and Kiron 1997 (a collection of classics); Westra and Werhane 1998; Crocker and Linden 1998; Lichtenberg 1998; Luban 1998; Rosenblatt 1999; Schor and Holt 2000; Woollard and Ostry 2000; Cohen and Murphy 2001; Myers and Kent 2004; Southerton, Chappells, and Van Vliet 2004; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2004; Schor 2004, 2005; Clapp and Dauvergne 2005; O’Rourke 2005; Cooper 2005; Wapner and Willoughby 2005; Fuchs and Lorek 2005; Princen 2005; Greenberg 2006; Paterson 2007.
7. As far as I know, the term “ecological shadow” first appeared in MacNeill, Winsemius, and Yakushiji 1991, 58-59. I first used the concept in Shadows in the Forest (Dauvergne 1997), where my purpose was “to evaluate the environmental impact of one country’s economy on resource management in another country or area” (p. 2). The 1997 book focuses on the impact of Japan on the rainforests of Southeast Asia, revealing how Japanese traders and financiers were interacting with local politics to accelerate deforestation. The current book extends the concept of ecological shadows to capture the more complex features of interlacing patterns of global consumption.
8. Sociologist Roland Robertson (1992, p. 6) is commonly credited with having first described the globalizing world as “a single place.” The literature on globalization is too vast to list in its entirety. See, for example, Hirst and Thompson 1999; Robertson and White 2002; Giddens 2002; Bhagwati 2004; Wolf 2004; Friedman 2005; Scholte 2005.
9. World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, 43.
10. Garcia-Johnson 2000.
11. World Bank 2006. See also World Bank, World Development Indicators Online, at http://www.worldbank.org/. The estimate of the foreign direct investment flows to developing countries in 2006 is from UNCTAD 2007.
12. See World Bank 2006 for details. See also World Bank, World Development Indicators Online, at http://www.worldbank.org/.
13. See Friedman 2005 for an analysis of what he calls the “flattening effects of globalization.”
14. See McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb 1982; Tucker and Richards 1983; Tedlow 1990; Tucker 2002.
15. World Bank 2006; UNCTAD 2002, xv, 272; UNCTAD 2001, 1, 9. See also World Bank, World Development Indicators Online, at http://www.workbank.org/.
16. Quotation is from Japanese Forestry Agency 1993, 2. See also Dauvergne 1997, 2001.
17. See Porter, G. 1999.
18. One of the best-known critics of the environmental effects of trade is Professor Herman Daly at the University of Maryland. See, for example, Daly 1993, 1996, 2005.
19. World Bank, World Development Indicators Online, cited in Clapp and Dauvergne 2005, 193-195.
Chapter 2
1. Because reliable local data are often hard to obtain, global environmental statistics are all rough estimates. To ensure some balance, I’ve drawn the statistics in this book from a range of sources. These include United Nations sources, in particular, the UN Environment Programme (http://www.unep.org), the UN Development Programme (http://www.undp.org), the Food and Agriculture Organization (http://www.fao.org), and the World Health Organization (http://www.who.org). Besides those listed in the references, sources for doublechecking and counterchecking include the World Bank ( .org), the World Resources Institute (http://www.wri.org), and the World Wildlife Fund/World Wide Fund for Nature (http://www.panda.org).
2. FAO 2005a, 21.
3. Dalton 2005, 1056.
4. The Canadian Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife declared the northern cod endangered in 2003.
5. See Worm et al. 2006, 787-790.
6. See Myers and Worm 2003, 280-283.
7. Worldwatch Institute 2003; quotation is from the summary of the State of the World 2003, 9 January 2003, at http://www.worldwatch.org/. The estimated rate species are going extinct is from World Resources Institute 2005, 36.
8. Davis and Webster 2002, 25.
9. The U.S. statistics are from Wenz 2001, 5-6; the global ones from Green et al. 2005, 550.
10. On the role of the global political economy in climate change and altering various ecosystems, see, for example, Rowlands 2000; Litfin 2000; Newell 2000; Skjæreth and Skodvin 2001; Cass 2005; Bäckstrand and Lövbrand 2006; Victor 2006; Depledge 2007; Bulkeley and Moser 2007.
11. Stern 2006, ii.
12. FAO 2005b; see also IPCC 2001, chapter 11.
13. Canadell et al. 2007, 18866.
14. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which tracks and assesses research on climate change, asserted in a synthesis of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report released in November 2007 that the evidence of “warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” See “Summary for Policymakers,” on the IPCC Web site, http://www.ipcc.ch/.
15. The rankings of warmest years rely on annual average temperature data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the earth’s surface. See http://www.nasa.gov/. The average temperatures for 2005 and 1998 are close, but the 2005 highs arose without the warming effect of El Niño.
16. See the IPCC Web site, http://www.ipcc.ch/. Drew Shindell, as quoted in Zabarenko 2006.
17. As I use the term, “tipping point” is the point at which the process of steady decline in an ecosystem begins to accelerate uncontrollably toward a system crash. For a popular account of the social theory of tipping points, see Gladwell 2000; for a comprehensive environmental analysis of why some societies have collapsed and some haven’t, see Diamond 2005.
18. Walter, Smith, and Chapin III 2007, 1657.
19. Thomas et al. 2004, 145-148; Pounds and Puschendorf 2004, 108. See Dressler and Parson 2006 for an overview of climate change.
20. Food accounts for about 95 percent of human exposure to persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs and dioxins (Betts 2004, 387A). The growing ecological impact of persistent organic pollutants also reveals the dangers of adding chemicals into local environments. See, for example, Clapp 2001; Selin and Eckley 2003; Downie and Fenge 2003; Stevenson 2005; Cone 2005; Maguire and Hardy 2006.
21. See Raloff 2003; Betts 2004; Hites et al. 2004; Bergeson 2005; Schecter et al. 2006.
22. Ascherio et al. 2006, 197-203.
23. Environment reporter Martin Mittelstaedt (2006a, A1, A8) summarizes these studies. Mittelstaedt’s articles in the Canadian Globe and Mail on the environmental impacts of chemicals provide nice snapshots of recent research. See, in particular, his articles from 2006 and 2007. For a review more critical of research claiming that current amounts of PFOA in the environment are a threat to human health, see Weiser 2005.
24. Richard Wiles, David Boothe, and the EPA, as quoted in Mittelstaedt 2006a, A8. The Environmental Working Group is based in Washington, D.C. See their Web site, http://www.ewg.org/. See also Renner 2004, 1887; Stokstad 2006, 26-27.
25. The phrase “science-based approaches” is taken from the DuPont company response to those wanting to restrict chemicals like PFOA, as quoted in “Chemicals’ Makers Criticize Ban,” Globe and Mail (Canada), 20 June 2006, A8. Steven Hentges and Frederick vom Saal, as quoted in Mittelstaedt 2006b, A3.
26. See Davis and Webster 2002, 15-16.
27. A review of scientific publications on breast cancer and environmental pollutants, for example, found more than 200 chemicals causing mammary tumors in animal tests. Of these, 73 are or have been in consumer goods or food chains, 10 are food additives, 35 are in the air, and 25 are common in workplaces. See Rudel et al. 2007, 2635-2667.
28. Ana Soto, as quoted in Mittelstaedt 2006c, A8.
29. On coffee, see Wild 2004; Talbot 2004; Bacon et al. 2008; on bananas, see Striffler 2002; Striffler and Moberg 2003; Bucheli 2005; Soluri 2006; on sugar, see Schmitz 2002; Gudoshnikov, Jolly, and Spence 2004; on tea, see Moxham 2003; MacFarlane and MacFarlane 2004; on whales, see Stoett 1997; Heazle 2006; on elephants, see Pearce 1990; on tigers, see Meacham 1997; on pigs, see Jones 2003; on fisheries, see Bhattacharya 2002; Clover 2004; on forestry, see Dauvergne 1997, 2001; on mining, see Jackson and Banks 2003; on biodiversity, see Steinberg 2001; Mushita and Thompson 2002; on pesticides, see Hough 1998; Hond, Groenewegen, and van Straalen 2003; Pretty 2005; on coal, see Freese 2003; on hazardous waste, see O’Neill 2000; Clapp 2001; Pellow 2007; on persistent organic pollutants, see Downie and Fenge 2003; Johansen 2003.
Chapter 3
1. See “Inquests,” Times (London), 21 August 1896, 6, col. B; “Inquest,” Times (London), 26 August 1896, 4, col. F; see also Hamer 1996.
2. Based on data in WHO and World Bank 2004, 3, 172.
3. “Perpetual Motion,” Economist, 4 September 2004, 4; U.S. Department of Energy, “Future U.S. Highway Energy Use: A Fifty-Year Perspective (Draft),” May 2001, as cited in McAuley 2003, 5415.
4. Gross et al. 1996, 83; McShane 1994, 135.
5. Henry Ford, as quoted in Gross et al. 1996, 84; see also p. 81.
6. Porter, R. 1999, 1; Jackson 1985, 161; Foster 1981, 58.
7. Foster 1981, 58; National Automobile Chamber of Commerce 1931, 26.
8. AMA 1935, 84; 1936, 84; 1938, 84; 1946-47, 30. The number of vehicles fell during World War II to, for example, about 31 million in 1944 (AMA 1944-45, 48).
9. Porter, R. 1999, 2.
10. AMA 1951, 28; MVMA 1978, 31.
11. Based on data in MVMA 1972, 28-29.
12. MVMA 1977, 28; 1982, 32; 1987, 36; AAMA 1993, 41. The advertising and GNP figures are from Freund and Martin 1993, 135. The automobile industry as a whole constitutes an even larger percentage of the economies of many other developed states, accounting for around 10 percent of the GDP of the First World. “Perpetual Motion,” Economist, 4 September 2004, 4.
13. AAMA 1997, 46; Ward’s Communications 2002, 51.
14. Sheehan 2001, 60.
15. Statistics in this paragraph are drawn from Frumkin 2002, 201; Worldwatch Institute 2004a, 6; Worldwatch Institute 2004b, 28, 30; Ward’s Communications 2003, 2, 47, 49; Sheehan 2001, 13.
16. This estimate of the costs of traffic collisions is by the National Highway Safety Administration, as cited in Thomas 2004, 26. In recent years, around 43,000 have been killed and 2.6 million injured annually in traffic collisions in the United States.
17. Foster 1981, 14.
18. Yago 1984, 59-61; Freund and Martin 1993, 135-137; Dunn 1998, 8; Paterson 2000, 268.
19. Freund and Martin 1993, 136.
20. Based on data in Ward’s Communications 2003, 14, 47-49. A large literature exists on the growth of the auto industry. See, for example, Sinclair 1983; Yang 1995
Chapter 4
1. The Clean Air Act was amended and strengthened once again in 1990.
2. Madsen 1995, 207-234; McAuley 2003, 5414. These advances in the environmental performance of vehicles were part of a broader trend in the developed world after the 1960s to strengthen environmental and consumer protection (Vogel 2003, 557).
3. See California Air Resources Board, “California’s Air Quality History Key Events,” at http://www.arb.ca.gov/.
Political scientist David Vogel (1995, 6) labels “the critical role of powerful and wealthy ‘green’ political jurisdictions in promoting a regulatory ‘race to the top’ among their trading partners” the “California effect” because this state “has been on the cutting edge of environmental regulation, both nationally and globally, for nearly three decades.” See chapter 8 of his book for a comprehensive analysis of why and under what conditions the California effect occurs.
4. Ananthaswamy 2001, 18.
5. Manufacturers of Emission Controls Association (MECA), “Clean Air Facts—Motor Vehicle Emission Control: Past, Present, and Future,” at http://www.meca.org/. Given recent regulations and technological trends, MECA estimates that, by 2009, “automobiles sold in the U.S. will be 99 percent less polluting than vehicles sold in the 1960s.” See MECA, “Clean Air Facts—Motor Vehicle Emissions and Air Quality in the U.S.,” at http://www.meca.org/.
6. California Air Resources Board, “California’s Air Quality History Key Events,” at http://www.arb.ca.gov/.
7. Environment Canada, “Gasoline,” and “Vehicles, Engines and Fuels: Scrappage Program,” at http://www.ec.gc.ca/. For details on Air Care in Vancouver, see http://www.aircare.ca/.
8. The end-of-life vehicles directive is careful with its terminology: “reuse” refers to when a car part is used another time for the same purpose; “recycling” to when a car part is reprocessed into another original or alternative part; and “recovery” to when the energy in a car part is recovered through, say, incineration (Brinkler 2004, 9). The use of these terms by automakers, however, is inconsistent. Although some are doing so inadvertently, others are intentionally reporting incineration as “recycling” or “reuse” (Ecology Center 2005, 6).
9. Fenton 2000, 40.1; the Steel Recycling Institute, “Steel Recycling Fact Sheet,” and “Recycling Scrapped Automobiles,” at http://www.recycle-steel.org/.
10. Bellmann and Khare 1999, 721, 724; Bandivadekar et al. 2004, 22.
By weight, glass constitutes about 3 percent of a typical vehicle. Some progress has been made, especially in Japan and Europe, in recycling automobile glass since the late 1990s. Many hurdles still exist, however, to effective and efficient glass reprocessing. These include contamination of the glass waste stream with metals and plastics as well as with mixes of different types of glass, which can affect coloring and quality (Brinkler 2004, 10-11).
11. Ecology Center 2005, 2.
12. Schaffer 2004, 4; Bandivadekar et al. 2004, 2223; Bellmann and Khare 1999, 721-733.
13. Ecology Center 2005, 2-3. Despite its praise, the center gave Toyota only a “C.”
14. WHO and World Bank 2004, 132-133.
15. “Safety: Improving Your Odds,” Consumer Reports 68 (April 2003), 26; WHO and World Bank 2004, 91-92.
16. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, as summarized in Cloud 2003; Department of Transportation data, as summarized in Fonda 2004,65.
17. WHO and World Bank 2004, 37; “Safety: Improving Your Odds,” Consumer Reports, April 2003, 26.
Chapter 5
1. The estimated current number of passenger cars and commercial vehicles extrapolates from 2001-2002 trends in Ward’s Communications 2003, 49 (plus the latest figures released by Ward’s Communications). The data on vehicles registered globally are from AMA 1951, 28; AAMA 1994, 41; Ward’s Communications 2002, 53.
2. “Perpetual Motion,” Economist, 4 September 2004, 4; “The Car Company in Front—Toyota,” Economist, 29 January 2005, 73; Worldwatch Institute 2006; McAuley 2003, 5414.
3. Womack, Jones, and Roos 1990.
4. “The Car Company in Front—Toyota,” Economist, 29 January 2005.
5. “London Congestion Charges No Barrier for Toyota Prius,” Management Services, April 2003, 5; “Why the Future Is Hybrid,” Economist 373, 4 December 2004, 22. Not all hybrids are saving significantly on energy. The 2005 Honda Accord hybrid got only 1 mile per gallon more than the four-cylinder Honda EX. The selling feature of the electric engine in the Honda Accord was, not better gas mileage, but better acceleration—from 0 to 60 miles per hour in just 6.9 seconds (compared to 9.0 seconds for the 4-cylinder Accord EX).
6. “The Car Company in Front—Toyota,” Economist, 29 January 2005, 65-67.
7. Worldwatch Institute 2004a, 6.
8. McAuley 2003, 5415; Freund and Martin 1993, 19.
9. Expensive and strict inspections for motor vehicles older than three years encourage Japanese consumers to trade in cars more quickly than in Europe or North America. So do the high costs of maintenance, repairs, and parts. These economic factors, along with a general consumer preference for new products, explain the relatively low demand within Japan for used cars. On the other hand, stronger local demand for them in Europe and North America creates fewer incentives to export used cars from these regions.
10. McAuley 2003, 5414; Worldwatch Institute 2004a, 6; Ward’s Communications 2003, 14; Yardley 2004, A4; and General Motors at http://www.gm.com/. See Gallagher 2006 for a book-length analysis of China’s increasing role in shaping how automobiles affect global environmental change.
11. “Perpetual Motion,” Economist, 4 September 2004, 4; UNEP 2002, 35; Freund and Martin 1993, 27.
12. UNCHS 2001, 68; Gordon, Mackay, and Rehfuess 2004, 28. The Ontario Medical Association study is summarized in Rutledge 2005, F7.
13. Myers and Kent 2004, 29; U.S. Department of Energy data, as summarized in McAuley 2003, 5415.
14. Ananthaswamy 2001, 18; Energy Information Administration 2007, 1, 5.
15. Union of Concerned Scientists, “Automaker Rankings: The Environmental Performance of Car Companies,” at http://www.ucsusa.org/.
16. Andrew Goudie’s conclusions are summarized in Vince 2004.
17. Bellmann and Khare 1999, 733.
18. See Chen 2005, 20-26.
19. Simms and O’Neill 2005, 787.
20. WHO and World Bank 2004, 3-4; Crandall, Bhalla, and Madeley 2002, 1145.
21. Based on United Nations statistics for road traffic accidents, as cited in Haegi 2002, 1110.
22. The National Safety Council’s estimate of lifetime odds assumes a life expectancy of 78 years. See National Safety Council, “Resources,” at http://www.nsc.org/.
23. WHO and World Bank 2004, 37.
24. Nantulya and Reich 2002, 1139-1140; WHO and World Bank 2004, 4-5.
Chapter 6
1. WHO and World Bank 2004, 3-4.
2. “The Car Company in Front—Toyota,” Economist, 29 January 2005.
3. For an analysis of the resistance to automobiles, see McKay 1996; Wall 1999; Robinson 2000; Paterson 2007. For an analysis of the movement toward voluntary simplicity, see Maniates 2002b, 199-236. For a discussion of “culture jamming,” see Bordwell 2002, 237-252. For a study of the Toronto Islands, see Princen 2005, chap. 8.
4. “What Would Jesus Drive?” at http://www.whatwouldjesusdrive.org/. For a book-length critique of SUVs, see Bradsher 2002.
Chapter 7
1. According to the 1927 Ethyl Gasoline Corporation pamphlet, “The Story of Ethyl Gasoline,” the team tested 33,000 compounds. Although this estimate is sometimes repeated (for example, in Kauffman 1989), it’s probably on the high side. It was in the financial interest of the corporation to market ethyl gasoline as a historic breakthrough following years of painstaking research. Midgley once put the number of tests at just below 15,000, although the team may have run far fewer (see Kovarik 1999, n49).
2. See the comments of George Otis Smith (1920), director of the U.S. Geological Survey.
3. Charles F. Kettering, as quoted in Kovarik 2003. The potential of industrial alcohol as an automotive fuel has a long history. Henry Ford, for example, ran his first car on farm alcohol.
4. Thomas Midgley Jr., as quoted in Kauffman 1989, 719.
5. Kauffman 1989, 719. The cost estimate of a “penny” is from Kovarik 2005, 385.
6. The Du Pont family, using profits from gunpowder sales during World War I to purchase shares in General Motors, owned about one-third of GM shares by 1920. Pierre du Pont (1870-1954) became GM president while his younger brother, Irénée, was head of DuPont. The two firms were cooperating during this time on developing a better fuel. See Bent 1925, 3; Kitman 2000, 17.
7. Thomas Midgley Jr. to H. S. Cumming, 30 December 1922, as quoted in Rosner and Markowitz 1985, 345.
8. Needleman 1998, 79; Markowitz and Rosner 2002, 17. The GM newspaper ad for “ethyl gas,” published in 1923, is reproduced in Kauffman 1989, 721.
9. GM and Standard Oil (later called “Exxon”) combined their patents to create the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation.
10. Bayway laboratory manager, as quoted in, “Odd Gas Kills One, Makes Four Insane,” New York Times, 27 October 1924, 11.
11. “Bar Ethyl Gasoline as 5th Victim Dies,” New York Times, 31 October 1924, 1.
12. Bureau of Mines’ report, as excerpted in “No Peril to Public Seen in Ethyl Gas,” New York Times, 1 November 1924, 17. That the report was distributed to the media just days after the Bayway deaths was not a coincidence. Under the terms of its contract with the Bureau of Mines, GM in effect controlled the release of the findings: the bureau had to submit drafts to Ethyl for “comment, criticism, and approval” (GM contract, as quoted in Rosner and Markowitz 1985, 345).
13. During the first year and a half, 15 to 20 workers likely died in the three plants producing tetraethyl lead. Some scholars arrive at a “precise” number for the estimate of deaths. Yet, for many reasons, it’s prudent to settle for a range of “likely” deaths. Officials did not always accurately record the cause of death for some workers. The complexities of diagnosis and corporate incentives to avoid blame could mean the number of deaths was higher—perhaps far higher. But it could have been lower instead. Friends and colleagues of Bayway worker Joseph G. Leslie, for example, believed he died in 1924. His wife knew the truth, however: doctors had confined him in a psychiatric hospital, where he would die 40 years later (Kovarik 2005, 384).
14. Bent 1925, 3.
15. Until May 1925, Ethyl had been making steady inroads into the U.S. gasoline market. In the first two years and two months, it had distributed some 300 million gallons of ethyl gasoline to 12,000 filling stations in 28 American states (Bent 1925, 3).
16. Frank Howard, as quoted in Rosner and Markowitz 1985, 348. For the full proceedings of the conference on the health effects of tetraethyl lead, see U.S. Public Health Service 1925.
17. Report of the Surgeon General’s committee of experts, as quoted in Kauffman 1989, 721. The Surgeon General qualified the evaluation, however, with a call for further independent research. For the full report, see U.S. Surgeon General 1926.
18. Kauffman 1989, 721; see also Kovarik 2003.
19. Alfred P. Sloan, as quoted in Kovarik 1999, n116; see also Kitman 2000, 31.
20. See the National Inventors Hall of Fame entry for Thomas Midgley Jr., at http://www.invent.org/.
21. Kauffman 1989, 722.
22. Professor Yandell Henderson, speech to the American Society of Safety Engineers and International Safety Council, as excerpted in “Sees Deadly Gas a Peril in Streets,” New York Times, 22 April 1925, 25.
23. David Edsall, as quoted in Kitman 2000, 31. Alice Hamilton, as quoted in Kovarik 2005, 388-389. Erik Krause to Thomas Midgley, as quoted in Kitman 2000, 20, and Kovarik 2005, 385.
24. H. C. Parmelee, as quoted in “Demands Fair Play for Ethyl Gasoline,” New York Times, 7 May 1925, 10. The figure on the market share of leaded gasoline by the 1930s is posted on the Web site of Professor William Kovarik of Radford University, http://www.radford.edu/.
25. Graebner 1987: 140-159; Needleman 1998, 80. See also Markowitz and Rosner 2002.
26. The new standard of 4.23 grams of tetraethyl lead per gallon of gasoline was, again, the outside limit of what refiners were using. The average for most refiners during the 1950s and the 1960s was about 2.4 grams per gallon (see Lewis 1985).
27. Surgeon General, as quoted in Lewis 1985.
28. Patterson 1965, 344, 358. Patterson’s later research on the Arctic, Antarctic, oceans, freshwater, terrestrial soils, and food chains would add copious evidence of a global buildup of lead from human sources. He received many honors during his life (1922-95), including the naming of an asteroid and Antarctic mountain peak after him. See Flegal 1998 for a summary of Patterson’s influence on environmental research. See Davidson 1999 for a collection of essays in tribute to his research.
29. Clair Patterson and Robert Kehoe, as quoted in Needleman 2000, 22-23, which also has excerpts from Kehoe’s correspondence with Katharine R. Boucot, editor of the Archives of Environmental Health.
30. Portions of Kehoe’s testimony are reprinted in Needleman 2000, 24-25. Needleman (1998, 79-85) and Nriagu (1998, 71-78) compare the views of Patterson and Kehoe.
31. Needleman 2000, 26.
32. Gould 1962, 1.
33. Joseph C. Robert (1983), as quoted in Needleman 2000, 26. Robert’s assess-ment of GM may well be unfair. We know now that GM first began developing the catalytic converter in 1958—four years before selling Ethyl (Kovarik 2005, 394).
34. Rawleigh Warner Jr., as quoted in Abele 1970, 51.
Chapter 8
1. Thomson 2000, 186. Many industry scientists in the 1970s contested estimates such as “around 80 percent” for the contribution of automobiles to air-borne lead. My confidence in this figure arises from later studies, including a comprehensive review, which found automotive exhaust was the “greatest source of atmospheric lead pollution” (Lansdown and Yule 1986, 137).
2. William Ruckelshaus, as quoted in Markowitz and Rosner 2002, 117.
3. Chair of the National Academy of Sciences review team, as quoted in Needleman 2000, 28.
4. U.S. EPA 1973.
5. Panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, as quoted in Kitman 2000, 37; see also Kovarik 2005, 394.
6. The 1973-74 newspaper ad is described in Needleman 2000, 28, and in Thomson 2000, 188.
7. U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, as quoted in Thomson 2000, 194.
8. U.S. EPA data, as summarized in Needleman 2000, 30-32.
9. Thomson 2000, 190, 200.
10. The International Lead Zinc Research Organization was also continuing to support research. The Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Environmental Lead Research, held in Cincinnati in 1978, provides some revealing examples; see Lynam, Piantanida, and Cole 1981.
11. Needleman 2000, 31-32; Thomson 2000, 188; Lewis 1985.
12. Lawrence Blanchard, as quoted in Needleman 2000, 31.
13. Donald R. Lynam, Ethyl’s director of air conservation, as quoted in Noble 1984, E8; Ashland Oil’s position is summarized in Thomson 2000, 189.
14. Indeed, the EPA science advisory council went on to praise Needleman’s methods and results as “pioneering.” For details on the controversy surrounding Herbert Needleman, see Markowitz and Rosner 2002. For an example of one of his most controversial articles, see Needleman et al. 1979.
15. Newell and Rogers 2004, 178-181.
16. The estimate of 99.8 percent for the decrease in lead content of gasoline from 1976 to 1990 is in Ostro 2000, 5. A summary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey is in Kitman 2000, 38. Until the 1960s, most doctors put the “safe” threshold for lead at 60 micrograms per deciliter of blood. The reason was straightforward: visible symptoms of acute lead poisoning, such as convulsions, generally do not occur below this level. Brain and kidney damage can occur at lead levels between 80 and 100 micrograms per deciliter of blood. Death can result at levels above 125 micrograms per deciliter of blood (Ostro 2000, 2).
17. Needleman 2000, 34. Needleman’s estimate assumes toxic levels are above 15 micrograms per deciliter of blood, the government standard in 1988. For the estimate of declining lead levels in children from 1976 to 1994, see Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2005, 513.
18. The Japanese government was one of the first to act, phasing down leaded gasoline in the 1970s. By 1981, only 3 percent of gasoline in Japan contained lead; five years later, no one was producing or using leaded gasoline there (El-Fadel and Hashisho 2001, 38).
19. Ethyl’s data are summarized in Kitman 2000, 13, 39.
20. Hilton 2001, 248.
21. El-Fadel and Hashisho 2001, 38.
22. For an analysis of Thailand’s phaseout of leaded gasoline from 1991 to 1995, see, for example, Sayeg 1998.
23. “Getting the Lead Out,” Time Canada, 27 July 1998, 12. (The article summarizes data from the World Bank and World Resources Institute.) The country percentages hide some significant variations in environmental impacts arising from different numbers of vehicles and amounts of lead in the gasoline pool. At the end of the 1990s, for example, automobiles were emitting on average about 20 times more lead per day in Mexico City than in Jakarta (Brooke 2000, 27).
24. Hammar and Löfgren 2004, 192-205. See also Löfgren and Hammar 2000, 419-431.
As in the United States, many refiners and gasoline station owners in Europe opposed the phaseout of leaded gasoline because of the costs of introducing unleaded gasoline. Smaller operators in particular argued that any phaseout would favor larger operators—including ones with ties to the United States.
25. See Hammar and Löfgren 2004, 192-193, 203.
26. Hilton 2001, 246-247. Hilton analyzed 19 countries with phaseouts completed by 1994. The mean phaseout time was about 15 years for those countries starting before 1979. The mean time for those beginning later was about 10 years. The one significant exception was Japan, which, although one of the first to begin phasing out lead, largely did so in just 4 years. This analysis excludes countries that did not manage to phase out lead from gasoline by 1994, leaving open the possibility that some countries began after 1979, but still took longer than countries like the United States. See Hilton 2001, 249-53, for his cases and analysis.
27. By the late 1990s, Octel was supplying 80 percent of the world’s tetraethyl lead, including to companies like the Ethyl Corporation (Brooke 2000, 27). The NewMarket Corporation is now the parent company of the Ethyl Corporation. Its Web site (http://www.ethyl.com) explains the company’s ongoing link to leaded gasoline: “Ethyl also has a significant interest in the tetraethyl lead (TEL) business through marketing agreements with Innospec Inc. This sunset business continues to generate strong cash flow for the company.”
28. Member of Octel’s management board, as quoted in Kelly and Dawley 1995, 50.
Chapter 9
1. See “Declaration of Dakar, Regional Conference on the Phasing-Out of Leaded Gasoline in Sub-Saharan Africa,” at http://www.unep.org/; Lacey 2004b, 5.
2. “Lead-Free Africa, Lead-Free World,” Appropriate Technology 30, no. 1 (March): 26; a summary of Robert De Jong’s comments is in Majtenyi 2005.
3. Phiri 2006; Lacey 2004a, N3.
4. Timberg 2006, A14; Lacey 2004a, N3.
5. UNEP 2004; “House Team Roots for Oil Refinery Upgrade,” East African Standard, 6 February 2006; “Kenya Phases Out Leaded Fuel,” East African Standard, 27 January 2006; “Leaded Petrol May Be Phased Out This Month,” Nation, 7 January 2006.
6. Worldwide, different brands of lead replacement petrol (LRP) rely on different additives. Thus the LRP in countries like South Africa generally contains potassium, phosphorus, or manganese.
7. UNEP 2005b; Timberg 2006, A14; Phiri 2006. The estimate of “at least 600,000 children” is by the South African Medical Research Council.
8. Majtenyi 2005; Timberg 2006, A14; Phiri 2006.
9. Over 30 countries worldwide were still using leaded gasoline at the beginning of 2006; among these, countries without any phaseout plans included Afghanistan, Algeria, Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, Cuba, Iraq, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Chapter 10
1. Wakefield 2002, A574-A580; Ostro 2000, 1-30.
2. In the case of the United States, the overall benefits of the phasedown of leaded gasoline “likely outweighed its costs by 10 to 1” (Newell and Rogers 2004, 191).
3. Newell and Rogers 2004, 189.
4. Manufacturers of Emission Controls Association (MECA), “Clean Air Facts—Motor Vehicle Emission Control: Past, Present, and Future; and The Motor Vehicle Emission Control Industry,” at http://www.meca.org/.
5. Midgley’s associate Carroll Hochwalt, as quoted in Cagin and Dray 1993, 11. For an obituary of Thomas Midgley Jr., see also Time, 13 November 1944, 86; for a flattering biography, written by Midgley’s grandson, Thomas Midgley IV, see Midgley 2001.
Chapter 11
1. Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Molina and Rowland. As early as 1970, Crutzen had raised the possibility that nitrogen oxides from fertilizers and supersonic aircraft were harming the ozone layer.
2. Cagin and Dray 1993, 58; see also Kelly 2005, 52.
3. Cagin and Dray 1993, 58-59.
4. The widespread use of similar compounds in the CFC class came later. CFCs were initially put into insecticide spray cans to propel insecticide for combatting malaria during World War II. After the war, this application was extended to a variety of other products, from hairsprays to deodorants. In the 1950s, CFCs were mixed with plastic resin to create polyurethane, common in insulation, car bumpers, egg cartons, and picnic coolers. The use of CFCs in air conditioners grew quickly after the 1950s with sales of air-conditioned automobiles and the building of air-conditioned malls, office towers, and sports arenas. Later still, CFCs became common in solutions to clean computer chips and electronic parts.
5. DuPont bought out GM’s share in 1949. Before long, other CFC producers were entering the market, including Allied Signal in 1952, Pennwalt in 1957, Kaiser Tech in 1963, and Racon in 1965. See Thévenot 1979 for a comprehensive history of refrigeration.
6. Cagin and Dray 1993, 59, 66-67; see also Kelly 2005, 52.
7. Molina and Rowland 1974. Their article sparked a burst of research; their original theory was refined as more and more evidence was gathered.
8. Two of the most common CFCs were chlorofluorocarbon-11 and -12.
9. F. Sherwood Rowland, as quoted in “Chlorofluorocarbons Threaten Ozone Layer,” 168th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Chemical and Engineering News, 23 September 1974, 28; see also Rowland 2000, 137.
10. Molina and Rowland’s press conference is summarized in Cagin and Dray 1993, 6-9. See also “Chlorofluorocarbons Threaten Ozone Layer,” 168th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Chemical and Engineering News, 23 September 1974, 27-30; “Environmentalists Seek Fluorocarbon Ban,” Chemical and Engineering News, 2 December 1974, 14; “Fluorocarbon Ban Would Be Premature,” Chemical and Engineering News, 23 December 1974, 12.
11. Shapiro 1975, 13.
12. NOAA, as quoted in Gibney 1975, 13.
13. Rowland 2000, 137.
14. See the DuPont Company statement, “You Want the Ozone Question Answered One Way or the Other; So Does Du Pont,” Washington Post, 30 September 1975, A10.
15. Strictly speaking, the “hole” in the ozone layer was an area of severe thinning. In 1985, some 45 percent of CFCs produced in the United States were used as refrigerants, 30 percent as blowing agents, and 20 percent as cleaning agents. For background on developments in the early to mid-1980s, see Ciantar and Hadfield 2004.
16. In the mid-1980s, halons (whose molecules combine carbon with one or more atoms of bromine) were common in items like fire extinguishers. Although less significant than CFCs, halons deplete the ozone layer, too.
17. DuPont began investigating possible substitutes in the mid-1970s, but, according to the manager of DuPont’s Freon division in 1988, it ended active testing in 1980 after only managing to develop substitutes that were too costly for most consumers. Summarized in Weisskopf 1988, A1.
18. Calculated from data on the Alternative Fluorocarbons Environmental Acceptability Study (AFEAS) Web site, http://www.afeas.org/. These data refer only to the five main CFCs: CFC-11, CFC-12 (the primary one for refrigerators), CFC-113, CFC-114, and CFC-115. See Litfin 1994 and Parson 2003 for analysis of the global environmental politics of developing an international agreement to address ozone depletion.
19. Parson 2003, vii.
Chapter 12
1. Production of CFC-113 climbed from just over 100,000 metric tons in 1980 to a peak of just over 250,000 metric tons in 1989. The phaseout was swift after the Montreal Protocol went into force, with global production falling off to just 6,000 metric tons in 1996. See the data on the Alternative Fluorocarbons Environmental Acceptability Study Web site, http://www.afeas.org/.
2. UNEP 1989, iii, 7-8. This report estimated the total amount of controlled CFCs in 1986 at approximately 1.1 million metric tons.
3. Ahmed 1995, 31.
4. Electrolux 2005, 32; BSH 2004, 21. See Langley 1994 for background on the use and recycling of CFCs in the refrigeration sector.
5. Hammitt 2004, 172. For details on the illegal trade in CFCs, see Clapp 1997. For more on the history of regulating CFCs, see Benedick 1998; Andersen and Sarma 2002.
6. Zambian fishmonger and civil servant, as quoted in Zulu 1999, 6.
7. “CFC Refrigerators to be Phased Out in India,” New Nation, 14 January 2005. Many countries in Eastern Europe also converted the cooling systems of CFC refrigerators to run on hydrocarbons. China is also using this technology.
8. Zhao 2005, 59; Zhao and Ortolano 2003, 710; Zhao and Ortolano 1999, 500-503.
9. See Zhao and Ortolano 2003, 708-725; Zhao 2005, 58-81.
10. Chinese refrigerator plant manager, as quoted in Zhao and Ortolano 1999, 503.
11. Zhao and Ortolano 1999, 503-505. For details on environmental labeling in China’s refrigeration sector, see Zhao and Xia 1999, 477-497.
12. In 2004, BSH, for example, became the first company to produce CFC- and HFC-free refrigerators in Brazil at its subsidiary’s Hortolândia factory near São Paolo (BSH 2004, 21).
13. Zhao and Ortolano 1999, 504, table 1.
14. Complex, and at times frustrating, application procedures for Multilateral Fund financing slowed plans to phase out CFCs and halons across all sectors in China using them in the 1990s. It was especially hard for smaller firms to meet the fund’s criteria. Since 1997, financing packages from the fund for entire sectors, rather than individual firms, have helped overcome some of these procedural obstacles (Zhao 2005, 67-68).
15. Zhao 2005, 63-64, 70.
16. See Multilateral Fund, “News, Multilateral Fund Looks to 2007 and 2010 Targets,” 11 April 2006, at http://www.multilateralfund.org/.
17. Skaer 2001, 106.
18. See Greenpeace, “Greenfreeze and Solar Chill” at the Greenpeace Web site, http://www.greenpeace.org/.
19. Global production of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC-22, -124, -141b, and -142b) in 2003 was approximately 284,000 metric tons, down from a peak of about 445,000 metric tons in 1998. The trend for hydrofluorocarbons (HFC-134a, -125, and -143a) has been in the other direction, however, with global production increasing from about 113,000 metric tons in 1998 to over 202,000 metric tons in 2003. See the Alternative Fluorocarbons Environmental Accept-ability Study Web site, http://www.afeas.org/, for production data on HCFCs and HFCs from 1970 to 2003.
20. In 1993, for example, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District offered consumers $100 for each old (CFC) refrigerator they replaced with a new (CFCfree) one (Kim, Keoleian, and Horie 2006, 2311).
21. The data on refrigerators and freezers are from Euromonitor International 2003, 5.1.4 Regional Sales.
22. Euromonitor International 2003, 8.1 Corporate Trends.
23. China Sourcing Reports 2005.
24. Euromonitor International 2003, 8.1 Corporate Trends.
25. Consumers take on average between 11 and 13 years to replace refrigeration appliances (an approximate global figure, with moderate variations across particular countries). Euromonitor International 2003, 3.4.2 Refrigeration Appliances.
26. The increasing interest in hobby cooking in the United States has also pushed up demand for new (CFCfree) appliances (in part because some celebrity chefs encourage such upgrades).
27. Euromonitor International 2003, 5.1.5 Leading National Markets.
Chapter 13
1. Kim, Keoleian, and Horie 2006, 2310; Euromonitor International 2003, 3.7.1 Energy Efficiencies; Electrolux 2005, 9.
2. Kim, Keoleian, and Horie 2006, 2310; Higgins 2001, 50.
3. BSH 2004, 23; BSH 2006a, 4.
4. In 2002, the world’s largest manufacturer of refrigeration appliances was the Swedish firm Electrolux (with 12.0 percent of the world share in unit volume); the U.S. firm Whirlpool was close behind, with 10.8 percent; the remaining manufacturers by unit volume were Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte (BSH; 5.6 percent); Haier Group (5.6 percent); General Electric (4.6 percent); and Maytag (3.0 percent). See Euromonitor International 2003, 5.1.8 Global Manufacturer and Brand Shares. BSH grew over the next few years and, by 2006, was capturing 7 percent of the global home appliance market (BSH 2006a, 13).
5. Electrolux 2005, 5.
6. The International Organization for Standardization has also certified seven nonmanufacturing Electrolux units under ISO 14001.
7. Electrolux 2005, 8-9, 24, 33. Henrik Sundström is quoted on p. 8.
8. Electrolux 2005, 5, 9, 17, 25-27. Jean-Michel Paulange is quoted on p. 27. See also the Web site for the World Packaging Organization, http://www.packaging-technology.com/wpo/.
9. The WEEE Directive is a “minimum” directive, meaning significant differences can arise among the national laws of member states.
10. Electrolux 2005, 10-11. In 2001, Japan also made manufacturers legally responsible for dismantling and recycling large home appliances. Japanese consumers must pay a set fee to throw out an appliance. No plans are under way in North America for similar recycling laws, primarily because, thanks to the high steel content of appliances, the recycling rate is already high (85 percent in 2001 in the United States). See Euromonitor International 2003, 3.7.4 Recycling/Disposal.
11. The six hazardous substances restricted by the European Union are cadmium, hexavalent chromium, lead, mercury, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE). See Selin and VanDeveer 2006 for an overview of the EU’s recent management of hazardous substances.
12. BSH 2004, 5. See also BSH 2006b and the BSH Web site, .bsh-group.com/. Environmental and Corporate Responsibility 2006 marked the fifteenth straight year that BSH published an environmental responsibility report.
13. The CECED brings together about 280 of Europe’s major home appliance makers, which together produce about 50 million large appliance units in Europe every year. The CECED code of conduct (see CECED’s Web site, .ceced.org) reads: “Companies will comply with environmental regulations and standards applicable to their operations, and will observe environmentally conscious practices in all locations where they operate” (p. 3).
14. The high estimate (90 percent) is the one BSH uses to calculate its environmental impacts (BSH 2006a, 4). The low estimate (80 percent) is in Electrolux’s sustainability report (Electrolux 2005, 8). Transportation of an appliance, for example, has relatively little environmental impact compared to its use. Trucking a refrigerator 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) from Sweden to Spain generates 14 kilograms of carbon dioxide. This is equal to about 30 days of use of a top energy class refrigerator or freezer (Electrolux 2005, 33).
15. BSH 2004, 9, 20, 23-26, 30.
16. See “Corporate Fact Sheet,” at http://www.whirlpoolcorp.com/. Globally, Whirlpool expects unit demand to continue to grow at a rate of between 2 and 3 percent, and for the company to therefore continue to expand operations (Whirlpool Corporation 2006, 4).
17. See “Social Responsibility: Our Commitment to Corporate Responsibility,” on the corporate Whirlpool Web site, http://www.whirlpoolcorp.com/.
18. ENERGY STAR 2006, 1-2.
19. See “About ENERGY STAR,” at http://www.energystar.gov/. See also ENERGY STAR 2006.
20. ENERGY STAR 2006, 1-2; “EPA Recognizes Energy Star Winners for Outstanding Energy Efficiency,” 21 March 2007, in the “News Room,” at http://www.energystar.gov/.
21. See Built Green Colorado 2006.
22. See “EPA Recognizes Energy Star Winners for Outstanding Energy Efficiency,” 21 March 2007, in the “News Room,” at .gov/.
23. Myers and Kent 2004, 54-55.
24. Kim, Keoleian, and Horie 2006, 2310 (based on data from the U.S. Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers).
25. Energy Information Administration 2005, 1; Myers and Kent 2004, 54. The 2.2 percent estimate for rising annual energy consumption since 1970 is for “marketed” energy.
26. Energy Information Administration 2005, 1.
27. Economist Intelligence Unit 2005, 7, 21. For more on per capita energy consumption, see International Energy Agency 2006. The United States has slightly higher per capita carbon dioxide emissions than countries like Canada and Australia, far higher per capita emissions than countries like Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, and dramatically higher than most of the developing world. Here is a sample of the figures in metric tons per capita for 2004: United States (20.2), Australia (19.4), Canada (18.1), Germany (10.5), Japan (9.9), United Kingdom (9.6), France (6.7), Mexico (3.7), China (3.6), India (1.0), and Rwanda (0.1). Singapore, interestingly, has some of the world’s highest per capita emissions (29.7). These statistics are from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, at .gov/.
28. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 35 percent since the late 1700s, with the increase attributed primarily to the combustion of fossil fuels (World Meteorological Organization 2006, 2).
29. The 1990-2001 emissions data, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, are in Myers and Kent 2004, 53. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency conducted the study placing China as the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide in 2006 (see http://www.mnp.nl/en).
Chapter 14
1. The ozone hole over the Antarctica broke records in September 2006 for depth, average area, and duration (9 days, from September 21 to 30). Still, the overall signs are positive. The ozone layer has remained fairly stable since the mid- to late 1990s, despite some scientists’ concern that its decline might be impossible to halt. The reasons for changes in the ozone layer are complex, including sunspots, weather, and volcanoes; some fluctuations are natural. Reduction in the emission of CFCs probably accounts for about half of the layer’s recent stability. See Barry and Phillips 2006. See also UNEP’s Web site, http://www.unep.org/, and NASA’s Web site, http://www.nasa.gov/, for the latest data. Some scientists do worry, however, that climate change may derail a full recovery of the ozone layer (see Weatherhead and Andersen 2006, 39-45).
2. In total, developing countries were able to reduce CFC consumption by 60 percent from the mid-1990s to 2004 (UNEP 2005a).
3. Higgins 2001, 54.
Chapter 15
1. Sinclair’s The Jungle first appeared in 1905 as a serial in the socialist weekly Appeal to Reason. An edited version (with a modified ending) was first published as a novel in 1906 by Doubleday, Page. The quote from Sinclair’s autobiography is in Sinclair (1962), reprinted in Eby 2003, 351.
2. The efforts in Congress to regulate food production began years before the publication of Sinclair’s novel. The “scandal” from this novel, however, “shocked the world” and galvanized public support (Eby 2003, ix).
3. Although Henry Ford is correctly remembered as the first to use the moving assembly line for large-scale manufacturing (building entire factories around the idea), James Barrett (1987) documents the meatpackers of Chicago as the first to use it at all.
4. Smil 2002, 606. For a sampling of the literature on the history of farming and eating beef, see Rixson 2000; Carlson 2001; Smil 2000, 2002; Rogers 2003.
5. Leading authority Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba summarizes these studies in Smil 2002, 606-610. No firm consensus exists on the best estimates of average per capita meat consumption during the Middle Ages. Although some scholars of European history accept much higher figures than the ones in this chapter (such as 500 kilograms in Berlin in 1397 and 72-100 kilograms in Nuremberg in 1520), Professor Smil rejects these as “vastly exaggerated.”
6. Skaggs 1986, 90; Smil 2002, 609. For details, see also Popkin 1993; Caballero and Popkin 2002.
7. Gold 2004, 8; Brown 2006, chap. 9; Nierenberg 2005, 9-10. Sheep, goats, and other less common animals like buffaloes, yaks, and ducks account for the remaining 7 percent of global meat production.
8. The data for China, India, Indonesia, and the United States are from the FAO, World Resources Institute, “Earthtrends,” at http://earthtrends.wri.org/.
9. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics, from the “Food Safety and Inspection Service Fact Sheets,” at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/.
The federal government began in 1985 to charge a mandatory $1 per head of cattle at the time of sale, in part to fund generic advertising to promote beef consumption. The goal of the so-called Beef Checkoff Program is “to strengthen the position of beef in the marketplace and to maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets and uses for beef and beef products.” For years, this program was under attack on various legal fronts as unconstitutional for amounting to “compelled speech.” The U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled the program constitutional in 2005. Today, these fees generate about $45 million a year. For details, see “Beef Checkoff Program, Beef Promotion and Research Order,” at http://www.ams.usda.gov/.
10. See Economic Research Service (ERS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, at http://www.ers.usda.gov/.
11. See FAO, “World Agriculture 2030: Main Findings,” at .org/.
12. Nierenberg 2005, 12.
13. Smil 2002, 618; see also “Breeds of Cattle,” at .com/.
14. Schlosser 2001, 136-138; Goldenberg 2004, 13.
15. Schlosser 2001, 138. The estimate of the degree of control of the four largest U.S. meatpackers is from Hendrickson and Heffernan 2005.
16. Schlosser 2002, 26.
17. The United States, for example, allows ranchers to use antibiotics to “treat” or “prevent” diseases in cattle but requires a minimum waiting period before slaughtering to allow these to leave the animal’s system. The Food Safety and Inspection Service of the USDA conducts random tests for antibiotic residues at slaughter time. The U.S. government also allows ranchers to use hormone implants (placed in an ear of each animal) to “promote efficient growth.”
18. Nierenberg 2005, 23; Smil 2002, 616. The estimate of the percentage of cattle receiving growth hormones is on the Niman Ranch Web site, http://www.nimanranch.com/, under “Frequently Asked Questions.” The “grain” for animal feed—especially corn—is often of lower quality than the “grain” grown for human consumption. This is arguably an “efficient” use of “grain” (a case the meat industry sometimes makes in response to critics who see meat as an inefficient source of protein for humans).
19. These weight-gain estimates were made by rancher Rich Blair during an interview with journalist Michael Pollan (2002), 47.
20. See Schlosser’s bestseller Fast Food Nation (2001) for a lively account of these modern slaughtering facilities in the United States. For a sampling of more academic studies on the political economy of beef production (from a variety of disciplines and countries), see Gouveia and Juska 2002; Brown, Longworth, and Waldron 2002; Filho 2004.
21. Schlosser 2002; Moss, Oppel, and Romero 2004, A1.
22. See Moss, Oppel, and Romero 2004, A1.
23. South Dakota rancher, Ed Blair, as quoted in Pollan 2002, 47.
24. See Schlosser 2001; McDonald’s 2005 financial statements, at .mcdonalds.com/; Subway, “About Us,” at http://www.subway.com/; “About Pizza Hut,” at http://www.pizzahut.com/; and Kentucky Fried Chicken, “About Us,” at http://www.kfc.com/.
25. Wendy’s spokesman, Denny Lynch, as quoted in Warner 2006, C5.
26. Lemonick and Bjerklie 2004, 58-69; World Health Organization, “Facts, Obesity and Overweight,” at http://www.who.int/.
27. FAO data, World Resources Institute, “Earthtrends,” http://earthtrends.wri.org/; Nierenberg 2005, 10-11. See also the Web site of the International Food Policy Research Institute (a research center of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), at http://www.ifpri.org/.
Chapter 16
1. Smil 2002, 609; FAO, “World Agriculture 2030: Main Findings,” at http:// www.fao.org/. See also the data tables of the World Resources Institute, under “Earthtrends,” at http://earthtrends.wri.org/. For a general ecological argument against the use of grain to produce meat, see Goodland 1998.
Significant differences exist in how much cattle ranchers rely on grain. Those in developed countries, for example, tend to use far more grain to produce a kilogram of beef than those in developing ones (on average, around 9 times as much). This estimate comes from the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, cited by the beef industry on its Web site, http://www.beef.org/.
2. Nierenberg 2005, 24; Millstone and Lang 2003, 35.
3. For background on increasing agricultural productivity after 1950, see Brown 2006, chap. 9.
4. This estimate of total 1998-2004 subsidies for U.S. soybean farmers is from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, summarized in Lawrence 2006, 8.
5. Ash, Livezey, and Dohlman 2006, 3, 11; Brown 2006, chap. 9.
6. Lawrence 2006, 8.
7. Economic Research Service of the USDA, “Soybeans and Oil Crops,” in “Briefing Rooms,” at http://www.ers.usda.gov/. Palm oil, currently the world’s second largest source of vegetable oil, is beginning to close the gap on soybean oil with the rapid expansion in recent years of oil palm plantations in developing countries like Indonesia.
8. Economic Research Service of the USDA, “Soybeans and Oil Crops: Background,” in “Briefing Rooms,” at http://www.ers.usda.gov/; Oliveira and Davis 2006, 6.
9. Lawrence 2006, 8.
10. Kansas staff veterinarian, Mel Metzen, as quoted in Pollan 2002, 51.
11. David Wallinga, as quoted in Nierenberg 2005, 48 (see also pp. 32, 46-49); World Health Professions Alliance 2001.
12. Methane traps heat about 20 times—and nitrous oxide about 300 times— more effectively than carbon dioxide.
13. Livestock and the Environment 1999, 2, 9; Subak 1999, 79-91; Nierenberg 2005, 24. The 18 percent estimate for greenhouse gases is from a 2006 FAO report cited in Read 2007, C7. See also Worldwatch Institute 2004a.
14. The term “Amazon” in this section refers to the Brazilian government’s administrative region, the “Legal Amazon.”
15. See Kaimowitz et al. 2004, 1-4, 9; the import figures for fresh and frozen beef are calculated from the data in table 3 (p. 9).
16. David Kaimowitz, as quoted in “Making Mincemeat Out of the Rainforest,” Environment 46, June 2004, 5; the information in this paragraph is drawn from Kaimowitz et al. 2004, 1-4.
17. See Kaimowitz et al. 2004, 2.
18. “Despite Foot and Mouth, Brazil’s Beef Exports Break Record,” Brazzil Magazine, 19 January 2006, at http://www.brazzilmag.com/.
19. These estimates of deforestation are from Brazilian National Institute of Space Research, reproduced on the Web site http://www.mongabay.com/.
Chapter 17
1. Montana cattleman, as quoted in Wilkinson 2003, 3.
2. See Coleman Natural Foods, at http://www.colemannatural.com/, in particular, “Frequently Asked Questions.”
3. Dave Carter, former chairman of the USDA’s National Organic Standards Board, as quoted in Moran 2006, C1. For details on the Food Safety and Inspection Service, see the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service, “Fact Sheets,” at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/.
4. Natural beef producer, Charlie Moore, and Mel Coleman Jr., as quoted in Moran 2006, C1.
5. See Moran 2006, C1.
6. Burros 2006, F5. For background on grass farming, see http://www.eatwild.com/.
7. See the Niman Ranch Web site, http://www.nimanranch.com/.
8. Chef Heather Hand, as quoted in Robbins 2003, F8.
9. See the Niman Ranch Web site, http://www.nimanranch.com/. Organic farming in the United States accounted for just $393 million of the $207 billion in agricultural sales in 2002. That year, only 12,000 of the 2.1 million farmers were growing any certified organic products. See Purdum 2005, sec. 6, p. 76.
10. Robbins 2003, 8; see also the Niman Ranch Web site, http://www.nimanranch.com/.
11. The estimate of the retail value of organic beef in 2005 is from the U.S. Organic Trade Association. The estimate of the growth in sales of organic beef for that year is from the U.S. National Cattlemen’s Association. See Aldrich 2006, B7C; Severson 2005, F1; Robbins 2003, 8; Roosevelt 2006, 76-78.
12. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Soil Association is the primary regulator of the organic sector, employing some 70 inspectors to approve licenses for farms. See Meikle 2006, 6.
13. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced that, “in the interest of the consumer,” his government would work to increase the proportion of land farmed organically to 20 percent by 2010 (from 2.6 percent in 2001). See Sancton et al. 2001, 18-23.
14. Political scientist David Vogel (1995, 2003, 2004) documents many instances in more recent years where Europe has taken a more proactive tack than the United States in managing environmental risks.
15. Danish butcher and Parisian greengrocer, as quoted in Sancton et al. 2001, 18.
16. See Sancton et al. 2001, 18.
17. Ralph Human, managing director of the UK Organic Livestock Marketing Co-op, as summarized in Buss and Macmillan 2004, 30. See also Buss 2004, 29.
18. In 2005, the organic food market in the United Kingdom was growing at about twice the rate of the general grocery market. See Leigh 2005, 18.
19. Leigh 2005, 18.
20. Allison 2003, 39; Buss 2004, 29; Macmillan 2004, 30.
21. Burros 2002, F1.
22. Vancouver chef, as quoted in Gill 2002, L8.
23. See the Heifer International Web site, http://www.heifer.org/.
24. For details, see the Conservation International Web site, http://www.conservation.org/.
Chapter 18
1. Smil 2002, 606; Brown 2006, chap. 9; Nierenberg 2005, 9-10.
Chapter 19
1. Swilers would hunt a small number of hooded seals, too, ideally their pups, called “bluebacks,” which produce more oil and larger pelts than whitecoats.
2. The “legend of the main patch,” Newfoundland author Harold Horwood (1960, 38) believes, became part of sealing lore in the second half of the 1800s, as hunters searched for reasons why so many hunts failed to land large numbers of whitecoats. The obvious explanation—that hunters had severely depleted the herd with unsustainable catches in the 1830s and 1840s—was less attractive than searching for a “mythical main patch.”
3. Candow 1989, 106. The term “highliner” originates from the tradition of placing the best fisherman in the bow, so that his fishing line was the highest in the water.
4. See Kean 1935, 13; see Cole 1997, 242-243, for a reprint of an article by N.C. Crewe, first published in the Daily News (St. John’s), 31 March 1964; see Cole 1997, 245-249, for a reprint of an article by Mildred Gough, the daughter of Mary Crewe, first published in the Gander Beacon, 6 February 1985; see also Brown 1972, 1-2.
5. See Brown 1972 for a vivid account of this tragedy.
6. Chantraine 1980, 196. Captain Thomas Conners, who saw the Southern Cross steam “hell-bent out of the muck” of the storm across the stern of his ship Portia, felt the Southern Cross was overloaded with pelts, “half-seas under and so low in the water her decks was running green” (Mowat 1973, 136; the quote is a reenactment of Conners’s recollections).
7. Chantraine 1980, 191; Candow 1989, 36; Brown 1972, 14. See Bartlett 1929 for a captain’s description of sealing during the first quarter of the twentieth century.
8. The landsmen hunt—hunting from shore, inshore ice, and small boats— continued on a relatively small scale throughout the history of the large commercial sealing fleets.
9. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, “The Canadian Seal Hunt—A Timeline,” at http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/; Coish 1979, 16, 18; Candow 1989, 27, 29.
10. Royal Commission on Seals and the Sealing Industry in Canada 1986, 23.
11. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, “The Harp Seal,” at http://www.dfo-mpo. gc.ca/; Horwood 1960, 39.
12. Candow 1989, 16, 30, 34-36.
13. Horwood 1960, 39.
14. Coish 1979, 25-27.
15. Horwood 1960, 39.
16. In 1895, sealers began to record harp seals separately from the other kinds of seals they landed, allowing a more accurate calculation of total harp seal catches. Figures after this time are therefore lower than the recorded total seal catch figures from earlier times.
17. Candow 1989, 45, 47; Fisheries and Oceans Canada, “The Harp Seal,” at http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca. For a description of sealing during World War I and the Great Depression, see also Coish 1979, 42-50.
18. Kean 1935, 131.
19. Candow 1989, 47, 58, 169, 174.
20. Of the 8 vessels that left Norway for the Front in 1939, 1 sank en route and 2 were lost at the Front. The 5 vessels to return to Norway took a catch of 33,000 seals—about one-third of the catch of the Newfoundland vessels.
21. Candow 1989, 113, 155; Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2003, 6.
Chapter 20
1. Lillie 1955, 244, as quoted in Candow 1989, 116.
2. Horwood 1960, 40-41.
3. Royal Commission on Seals and the Sealing Industry in Canada 1986, 667.
4. See Serge Deyglun’s letter to the editor in Lust 1967, in front matter.
5. Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2003, 6; Candow 1989, 109. In the final decade before the ban on whitecoats, furs accounted for 95 percent of sealskin profits, whereas leather accounted for just 5 percent (Candow 1989, 175).
6. Coish 1979, 258. For a personal account of the anti-sealing campaign, see Davies 1989.
7. The Canadian government eventually agreed in 1976 to authorize the use of the Norwegian hakapik—similar to a gaff, but having a slightly bent, blunttipped metal pick instead of a hook at one end.
8. After the Canadian government banned large vessels (over 65 feet in length) from the Gulf in 1972, the anti-sealing protests shifted from the Gulf to the Front. The protestors also began to focus more on the role of the Norwegian fleet at the Front (11 Norwegian and 7 Canadian vessels went to the Front in 1973).
9. Lee 1988, 23. Because seals have a swimming reflex that can continue even after death, it’s hard to tell whether a seal is dead or alive in video footage of a skinning: like a chicken, a pup may move for a while even after dying. Also, because fluid to protect their corneas flows continuously from their tear ducts, pups appear to be weeping even when they aren’t.
10. Lee 1988, 25. John Lee analyzes the power of words and metaphors to alter the “reality” of the Canadian seal hunt.
11. Weyler 2004, 352-363. Robert Hunter (1979, 248) credits Paul Watson and Walrus Oakenbough with the inspired idea of spraying the whitecoats with an indelible dye. For a more critical account of the Greenpeace anti-sealing campaign, see Harter 2004; for a more critical analysis of the anti-sealing movement as an industry, see Allen 1979.
12. See Weyler 2004, 601n6. Environmental critics of the seal hunt gained strength after National Geographic published an estimate of the 1975 western Atlantic harp seal population—based on a new technique to count whitecoats on the ice as black spots using ultraviolet aerial photographs—that put the whitecoat population at less than 200,000 and the total harp seal population at less than 1 million (Lavigne 1976, 137). Although the estimate now appears to have been too low, it armed critics with new “objective” data showing the seals were in crisis.
13. Weyler 2004, 360-363. See also Hunter 1979, 248-296; Brown and May 1989, 44-49; Dale 1996, 90-91.
14. Candow 1989, 124.
15. Weyler 2004, 493-501.
16. Revenue Canada revoked IFAW’s tax-exempt status in 1977, arguing that the fund’s efforts to end the seal hunt made it a political, not a charitable, organization. This pushed the organization to relocate the following year to Hyannis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.
17. Allen 1979, 426n8.
18. Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2003, 6.
19. Royal Commission on Seals and the Sealing Industry in Canada 1986, 68-69.
20. Joyce 1982, 23-24; Goar 1982, 23-25; Candow 1989, 136. The temporary import ban did not affect Greenland, a European Community member, because native sealers only hunted adults with rifles.
21. David Story, “Shooting Hold in Seal Hunt Protests,” Toronto Star, 15 February 1984, as quoted in Lee 1988, 24.
22. Fisheries Minister Pierre De Bané, as quoted in “Ottawa Rejects Ban on Seal Hunt,” New York Times, 10 March 1984, 2.
23. Candow 1989, 189.
24. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, “The Harp Seal,” at .gc.ca.
25. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (TV), “Ottawa Ends Large-Scale Seal Hunt,” 30 December 1987, clip at http://archives.cbc.ca/.
26. This “triumph” brought considerable economic hardship to some fishing communities, particularly among the Inuit. The primary campaign against the hunting of harp whitecoats caused sealskin prices to fluctuate and finally collapse worldwide. The Inuit were, in the words of John Amagualuk of the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut (quoted in Dale 1996, 91), “innocent bystanders,” caught in a war where the activists, media, and consumers (especially in Europe) failed to distinguish between the Inuit hunt for adult seals and the large-scale commercial hunt for whitecoats. The income of the Inuit in Labrador, for example, fell by one-third because of lost sealing revenue.
27. Davies 1989, 220.
Chapter 21
1. Canadian Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin at press conference, 18 December 1995, as quoted in Lavigne 1995, 11n3.
2. Tobin’s estimate was made during an interview on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (TV), “The Seal Hunt Makes a Comeback,” 18 December 1995, clip at http://archives.cbc.ca/.
The evidence connecting the resurgence in the population of Atlantic harp seals with collapsing cod stocks is highly debatable. Seals eat not only cod, but also predators of cod like squid. The typical diet of an adult harp seal is capelin, sand lance, arctic cod, crabs, squid, shrimp, and krill. On average, commercial cod account for only about 3 percent of a harp seal’s diet. Fisheries and Oceans Canada today recognizes the complex and uncertain connections between seal and cod populations, and no longer justifies the commercial seal hunt as necessary to protect or revive cod stocks.
3. Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2003, 24.
4. Friedman 2003, 5.
5. Schultz and Barnes 2002, 56. Indirect subsidies, such as support for processing facilities, remain in place. Gary Gallon, director of the Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment, estimates that the Canadian government funneled over C$20 million into sealing from 1995 to 2002, which includes financing for local fisheries offices and Coast Guard support. Gallon’s comments are summarized in Schultz and Barnes 2002, 56.
6. Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2003, 9, 24.
7. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, “Seals and Sealing in Canada: Facts about Seals, 2004-2005,” and “Socio-Economic Impact of the Atlantic Coast Seal Hunt,” at http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/.
The 2003-2004 sealing figures are for Canada only. A hunt for Northwest Atlantic harp seals occurs in Greenland, too. Unlike Canada, Greenland does not mandate a total allowable catch. Currently, Greenland sealers land between 90,000 and 110,000 harp seals, as well as around 7,500 hooded seals. The struck-and-loss rate is high in this hunt, however, so that these sealers may actually kill two seals for every one landed.
8. In 2002, the province of Newfoundland accounted for over 90 percent of the landed catch of seals in Canada. The profits from the hunt constituted 25-35 percent of the annual income of the province’s typical sealer, even though the hunt is a relatively small part of the C$600 million Newfoundland fishery.
9. Fisheries and Oceans Canada data, summarized in IFAW 2005, 10. The average landed value of a beater pelt in 2004 (C$48) was more than twice its average landed value in 1997 (C$22), when a bedlamer pelt earned on average C$15, a ragged jacket C$12, and an adult harp seal pelt C$9 (Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment 2001, 23).
10. In the mid-1990s, demand for seal penises was high in Asian markets, where they were thought to enhance sexual performance; as a result, male seal carcasses were worth at least two times more than female ones. With the launching of Viagra in 1998, demand for seal penises fell markedly. Today little demand remains.
11. Dion Dakins, as quoted in Armstrong 2006b, A3. The data in this paragraph are from Statistics Canada, International Trade Division, summarized in Armstrong 2006b.
12. See Fisheries and Oceans Canada, “Socio-economic Impact of the Atlantic Coast Seal Hunt,” at http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/.
13. In its five-year management plan for 2006-2010, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans adjusts the total allowable catch to reflect changing environmental conditions.
14. Canadian Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn, as quoted in Armstrong 2006a, A8.
15. Marine Mammal Regulations, Canada Gazette, pt. 1, vol. 1, no. 9 (2 March 2002), 507.
16. Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2003, 1.
17. Daoust et al. 2002, 693.
18. See the Web sites http://www.protectseals.org/ and http://www.ifaw.org/. Notably, the environmental organization WWF does not oppose what it sees as a sustainable and reasonably humane seal hunt.
19. The Green Party of Canada’s official position on sealing is at http://www.greenparty.ca/. The Martin Sheen quote is at “Martin Sheen Speaks Out Against the Seal Hunt,” at http://www.seashepherd.org/. The Paul McCartney quote is from “Harp Seal Hunt a ‘Stain’ on Canada, McCartney says,” CBC News, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, at http://www.cbc.ca/. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society quotes are at http://www.seashepherd.org/.
20. See the Humane Society of the United States, “Facts about the Canadian Seal Hunt,” at http://www.hsus.org/.
21. See the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Web site, http://www.seashepherd.org/.
22. IFAW 2005, 6, 8-9.
23. “Bad Science: Harp Seals’ Future on Thin Ice,” 10 March 2005, at http://www.greenpeace.org/; Cox 2005, A15 (Bruce Cox is executive director of Greenpeace Canada). See also Johnston and Santillo 2005.
24. See “Boycott Canadian Seafood,” at http://www.sealhunt.ca/.
25. Murphy 2004, B3. See also the IFAW Web site, http://www.ifaw.org/.
26. Dion Dakins, as quoted in Armstrong 2006b, A3.
Chapter 22
1. Royal Commission on Seals and the Sealing Industry in Canada 1986, 84, 96. For a description of the pro-sealing “counterprotest” in the second half of the 1970s, see Lamson 1979.
2. Bevan 2005, A11.
3. IFAW, “Who We Are,” at http://www.ifaw.org/.
Chapter 23
1. Many books survey the evolution of the politics of global environmentalism over the last four decades. See, for example, Guha 2000; Maniates 2003; Lipschutz 2003; Switzer 2004; Elliott 2004; Conca and Dabelko 2004; Speth 2004; Clapp and Dauvergne 2005; Dryzek 2005; Dryzek and Schlosberg 2005; Chasek, Downie, and Brown 2006; Betsill, Hochstetler and Stevis 2006; DeSombre 2007.
2. See, for a sample of the literature on NGOs and global environmentalism, Keck and Sikkink 1998; Lee and So 1999; Newell 2000; Bryner 2001; Wapner 2002; Hochstetler 2002; Gunter 2004; Park 2005; Pellow 2007; Betsill and Corell 2007.
3. WWF 2006, 5.
4. See the Forest Stewardship Council Web site, http://www.fsc.org/. See also WWF 2006, 4. On Home Depot and the FSC, see “Wood Purchasing Policy,” at http://www.corporate.homedepot.com/. For more on certification, nongovern-mental forces, and changing forest practices, see Cashore, Auld and Newsom 2004; Gulbrandsen 2005, 2006; Espach 2006; Cashore et al. 2007.
5. For background on the Marine Stewardship Council, see http://www.msc.org/. See also Gulbrandsen 2005.
6. Alan Meier, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, summarized in “Pulling the Plug on Standby Power,” Economist, 11 March 2006, 32.
7. For a sample of analyses of the changing nature of global environmental governance, see include Vogler 2000; Newell 2003; Falkner 2003; Jasanoff and Martello 2004; Conca 2005; Dauvergne 2005; Najam, Papa, and Taiyab 2005; Dimitrov 2005; Humphreys 2006; Speth and Haas 2006.
Chapter 24
1. See Princen, Maniates, and Conca 2002, 326-328.
2. Whiteside 2006, viii, xi, 30, xiii.
3. Whiteside 2006, 39, 153.
4. Principle 7 of the UN Global Compact refers to the definition of a “precautionary approach” from the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which stresses the need to apply precaution according to state “capabilities” and with “cost-effective measures.” The full definition in the Rio Declaration (Principle 15) reads: “In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environ-mental degradation.” See Rio Declaration on Environment and Development on the UNEP Web site, http://www.unep.org/.
5. The estimates of the worldwide market share and light output of incandescent lightbulbs are by Harry Verhaar at Philips Electronics NV in the Netherlands, reported in Gandhi 2007, A3.