[Ccpg] SAVE THE DATE/Mon Jan 16/Carolyn Raffenspeger/Precautionary Principle the Golden Rule for Future Generations

Thu Dec 22 20:15:50 PST 2011

SBCC Center for Sustainability Hosts:
Precautionary Principles the Golden Rule for Future Generations

The Precautionary Principle
   the Golden Rule for Future Generations
with Carolyn Raffensperger

and special guest David Eisenberg
Monday, January 16, 7pm-9:30pm, 2012
Santa Barbara City College, West Campus, Fe Bland Auditorium
$10 general/$5 SBCC Students

What does the present owe the future?

         From medicine to agriculture, energy, communication, and 
transportation, we have technologies our grandparents could not have 
imagined.  Some of these technologies have dark sides and unknown 
consequences.  Who will be the guardians for future generations 
insuring that our present technologies don't negatively impact our descendants?

The Precautionary Principle suggests that we err on the side of 
caution when designing for our future.  It is a tool for making 
better health and environmental decisions, and aims to prevent harm 
from the outset rather than manage it after the fact.

Although America's founding father's intended a government that would 
allow its citizens life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they 
could not have anticipated the industrial age with its extremely 
toxic substances that now pollute the soil, air, and water, our 
country's commons.

What role does both government and the individual play in protecting 
these commons, our common heritage?  What compelling vision can we 
have for ourselves and our children that allows us to be prosperous, 
healthy, and ecologically whole?  Come learn about the Precautionary 
Principle and its tool kit for communities, organizations, and government.

Carolyn Raffensperger has helped define, shape, and lead the 
precautionary movement.  She and her team at the Science and 
Environmental Health Network, have purposefully sown the seeds of the 
precautionary principle across the United States.

Carolyn Raffensperger is an environmental lawyer and the Executive 
Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. She is the 
co-editor of Precautionary Tools for Reshaping Environmental Policy 
published by M.I.T. Press (2006) and Protecting Public Health and the 
Environment: Implementing the Precautionary Principle, published by 
Island Press (1999). Together, these volumes are the most 
comprehensive exploration to date of the history, theory, and 
implementation of the precautionary principle.  Carolyn coined the 
term "ecological medicine" to encompass the broad notions that both 
health and healing are entwined with the natural world.

Carolyn will be joined by her friend and colleague David Eisenberg of 
the Development Center for Appropriate Technology (DCAT), who since 
1995, has led the effort to create a sustainable context for building 
regulations.  A panel discussion including community members from 
backgrounds of health, agriculture, social justice, and 
education  will follow the talk.

The event takes place on Monday, January 16, 7pm - 9:30pm, at the Fe 
Bland Auditorium, Santa Barbara City College West Campus, 721 Cliff 
Dr, SB 93109.  Admission $10 general/$5 SBCC students, no 
reservations required. More info; (805)965-0581,ext 2177, sbpcnet at silcom.com

Event Sponsors: Oasis Design, Santa Barbara Permaculture Network & 
the SBCC Center for Sustainability

SBCC Center for Sustainability
http://sustainability.sbcc.edu

More Info:

Carolyn Raffensperger
Science and Environmental Health Network:
www.sehn.org

Articles:

Carolyn Raffensperger Interview:
The Precautionary Principle asks whether harm can be prevented
instead of assessing degrees of "acceptable " risk:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/technology-who-chooses/461

How Do You Love All the Children, Interview with Architect, Designer 
William McDonough:
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/power-of-one/how-do-you-love-all-the-children 

"If design is a signal of intent, and we look at what we've done with 
the first industrial revolution, we would have to ask, did we intend 
to do this? If we articulated the retroactive design assignment of 
the First Industrial Revolution, it would be something like this: 
"Could you design a system that pollutes the soil, air, and water; 
that measures productivity by how few people are working; that 
measures prosperity by how much natural capital you can dig up, bury, 
burn, or otherwise destroy; that measures progress by the number of 
smokestacks and requires thousands of complex regulations to keep you 
from killing each other too quickly; that destroys bio-diversity and 
cultural diversity; that produces things that are so highly toxic 
they require thousands of generations to maintain constant vigil 
while living in terror?"   William McDonough, the Next Industrial Revolution

-end-
Emacs!

Margie Bushman
Coordinator, SBCC Center for Sustainability
http://sustainability.sbcc.edu/
PPlease consider the environment before printing this email.
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