| Shock Media 2000 Summer Spirit Issue - Letters From Europe |
Letters From Europe |
| La
Securité Alimentaire by Willem Adrianus de Bruijn |
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On Thursday, 21 October 1999, I attended a conference : "La securité alimentaire" (Brussels) The speakers and their "subjects" were : Monsieur Alfred Noirfalise "Etat de la question" Docteur Henry Belveze Chef d'Unité adjoint "La protection du consommateur au niveau européen" Monsieur J. Hallaert "La position de l'industrie agro-alimentaire" Monsieur Robert Remy "La position des consommateurs" The debate was animated by Monsieur Nicolas Guggenbuhl, Professeur de Nutrition à l'Institut Paul Lambin - journaliste scientifique. The conference was organised by the students of the faculty of pharmacy of the ULB, to get some funds to pay for a study tour at the end of their year. The professor who will participate in the trip, gave them some help. Analysis of presentations The system of controls in Europe made by the scientific world, the european government and the food industry does not assure safe food, Monsieur Noirfalise showed. The result is still : "trying to prevent the latest crisis", at an accelerating rate. Germany was recently able to stop pollution by dioxin in milk, just before it became a crisis. They were not able to prevent it. The goal was to create a system that would assure safe food for everyone by the year 2000. Something was missing to achieve this goal, Monsieur Noirfalise told. He expressed his faith to find it by the year 2000. All speakers stressed the need to inform, to educate, nay, to imply the consumer in a process to assure good food. A latest effort of the food industry is to use lists with positive specifications which food products should satisfy, Monsieur Hallaert showed. Reaction to presentations One of the positive specifications, the food industry proposes to use, which food products should satisfy, could be : food should be produced through processes that assure income for eternity. This definition of ecological food implies lists of specifications about the resources used and the means of transformation applied throughout the production processes, for each product, from its cradle to its grave, in the least of details. Such a "cahier des charges" for an ecological industry, could be written by experts. A "cahier des charges" of an ecological industry could be written by producers only. They have to apply and satisfy specifications of experts in the concepts, construction and operations of the tools, techniques and means with which they produce their products. While doing so, they could see other ways and means to improve the ecological quality of their products. Producers would search for ways and means to improve the ecological quality of their products, if consumers could deduct, from their taxable income, the money they had spent on ecological products. It is reasonable to assume that, under these conditions, most of the consumers, who pay taxes over their income, would demand and search for ecological products. They would be driven by financial and personal interests to maintain the integrity of human nature, with their income. Their demand would create the force that would pull producers away from the limits implied in each control. This force would prevent other crises. Production would not be done anymore close to the crisis limits of pollution. The demand of consumers would make producers compete with each other to improve the ecological quality of their products. The demand of consumers for good food assures good food, when consumers account for their costs of living in a public accounting of "stewards or trustees of human nature". The inability of the European Union to assure safe food with its control system demonstrates the logic that no assurance can be given about a quality or state by controlling respect for or adherence to minimum standards. Only continuous control to sustain an achieved quality or state and continuous research to improve a quality or state can assure a quality or state. Such control and research is the work of managers. This inability to assure safe food makes the introduction of the management of the costs of living even more urgent. If the European Union cannot assure safe food, which country, state or nation could? According to a November 1, 1999 ENS e-mail, "U.S. companies will soon have to publicly disclose the release of even small amounts of persistant, long lasting toxins into the air or water. President Bill Clinton announced Saturday that the U.S. will tighten reporting rules on toxins like dioxin, which can accumulate in the environment so that even small releases can lead to serious health and environmental problems." Copyright Environment News Service (ENS)
The danger of trying to assure safe food by imposing limits to pollution is also the danger implied in the assessment of the risks accompanying this pollution. This danger is described in a paragraph of the article : "Ethical Hazards of Risk Assessment" by Peter Montague : "But risk assessment is now embedded in our environmental laws at the federal and state levels in a way that guarantees that the "rights" of industrial poisoners will be protected by the apparatus of the state while citizens will be first disempowered and then physically harmed by the risk assessors' work. Risk assessors are now in the position of the conductors and engineers who kept the trains running on time to the death camps in Nazi Germany to minimize discomfort to their passengers --they are just doing a job, honorably and to the best of their ability, but the final result of every professional risk assessor's work is the destruction of the natural environment, one decision at a time, and the relentless spread of sickness throughout the human and wildlife populations." The complete article is presented at the ZERO web site. What could further happen when production continues close to the crisis limits of pollution? Because of the increasing sophistication and refinement of pollutants in their effects on genes and cells, any pollution beyond the crisis limit could wipe out the population in particular sections of a town, over a period that might shorten in time. These pollutants could also blind this population or deform them either mentally or physically otherwise, over the same period. Such pollution could be turned into leaks and become arms in fights between gangs, cartels or groups formed by different criteria than the previous two. "La guerre des boutons" serait devenue la guerre des ordures. There does not seem to be another theory, to pull producers away from the officially accepted levels of pollution and to assure safe food, according to the words of Klaus Töpfer, executive director of the UN Environment Programme and formerly Germany's Environment Minister. In the "Newsweek" of September 27, 1999, an interview with Mr. Töpfer is presented on the last page, 76. He describes the ecological crisis as worsening globally. He ends his description with : "Postponing action is no longer an option". His answer to the question : "What kind of action is needed?" is : "We need much more comprehensive, integrated policymaking." "International Institutions, governments, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, the scientific community - they must learn to work more closely." These are the words of someone who does not know a solution to a problem. When a solution is known, policies are applied in practises, such as the management of the costs of living. All these organisations then automatically work closely to apply the solution globally, out of necessity. The Belgian law of mai 5, 1997, stipulates that the Interdepartmental Commission Sustainable Development has to consider the remarks, observations, advices of "the people", in its final version of the project of the Federal Plan concerning Sustainable Development. The two reasons given on page IV of the project are, in short, they do not know how to achieve sustainable development and, even if the government takes the correct measures, their impact is not sufficient if the people do not suppport these measures by changing their way of living. The people therefore share responsibility to sustain development, is the conclusion on page V. On Monday March 27, 2000, I sent the Commission the article : Un développement durable à réaliser, together with my advice to open a special economic zone, in which the capacity of consumers to deduct, from taxable income, the money they spent on ecological products, would be tested on its efficiency to sustain a way of living in harmony with Nature. I also sent them detailed observations and comments about the project of the Plan, in Dutch. If you send the Commission your support for the opening of a special economic zone, before March 31, 2000, 24.00 hours, the Commission would be obliged, by force of the law of 5 May 1997, to take your support into consideration in the final version of its project of the Federal Plan concerning Sustainable Development. After March 31, the Federal Offce of the Plan and the Federal Advisory Board on Sustainable Development might consider your suppport, if there are many who react. The law also stipulates that the Federal Office of the Plan (Bureau fédéral du Plan) has to include in its subsequent Report on Sustainable Development, a description of the foreseen development in case of unchanged policy and in the case of a change in policy according to a pertinent hypothesis. With enough support for my proposal and/or theory, the accounting capacity of the consumer to deduct costs of living with ecological products from taxable income, should be recognised as a pertinent hypothesis. The Report should then contain a description of development in the case the costs of living are managed by consumers. The law also stipulates that the Federal Advisory Board on Sustainable Development (Conseil Fédéral du Développement Durable) has as mission, a.o., to propose research in all domains relative to sustainable development. When the Report would contain a description of development in the case the costs of living are managed by consumers, the probability that the Federal Advisory Board on Sustainable Development would propose research in a special economic zone to test whether this management practise enables mankind to sustain a way of living in harmony with Nature and to maintain the integrity of human nature, could approach certainty. We have the law on our side to introduce the management of the costs of living into the free market economy, if you send a message that you support the opening of a special economic zone and/or that you support the capacity of the consumer to deduct costs of living with ecological products from taxable income, to plan@icdo.fgov.be. Would you be good to do so? Could you also forward this message to others? Thank you. I would appreciate it if you send me a cc of your mail to the Commission. Brussels, March 30, 2000 W.A. de Bruyn. With sincerity and its feelings, Willem Adrianus de Bruijn |
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