Subject: Swede Dreams Are Made of These-----
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 12:48:40 -0500
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State
of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Carol Browner browner.carol@epa.gov
Dear Mr. Helliker,
I thought you might like to read an article entitled: Swede Dreams Are
Made of These - Sweden takes big steps to ban chemicals - by Donella Meadows
-15 Dec 2000.
''However environmentally permissive a
Republican-controlled U.S. may be, other parts of the world are pioneering
attitudes, technologies, and laws that could carry us safely through the 21st
century. As this week's happy example, I offer the new global agreement on
POPs, plus Sweden's even better policy on the same topic.
POPs is the hot new acronym for persistent organic
pollutants. These chemicals are immediately toxic or cause cancer or
reproductive difficulties or birth defects (or all of the above) and are
almost immortal in the environment. They are human-made, new to the planet.
Few life forms know how to break them down.
Furthermore most POPs contain strong chlorine-carbon bonds that tend to
make them stable even in cold, heat, and sunlight. That stability renders them
handy for industry and real hard to clean out of ecosystems.
The first global agreement on POPs was successfully
negotiated earlier this month in Johannesburg. After five years of preparation
and seven days of word-by-word wrangling, delegates from 122 nations agreed on
a document that will, when ratified, impose worldwide bans or controls on a
"dirty dozen" POPs. They include nine pesticides (aldrin,
chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachor, hexachlorobenzene, mirex
and toxaphene), plus three chemical families called PCBs, dioxins, and furans.
Most of these chemicals are already banned in industrial
nations. Some of those nations, including
the U.S., still make them and export them to developing
countries........ ''
FULL ARTICLE AT: http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/citizen121500.stm
Well Mr. Helliker, Sometimes I truly understand the
meaning of the Preacher's comment in Ecclesiastes 1:18: “Because in much
wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing
pain.” I truly understand why
"some" people prefer to remain ignorant and "others"
prefer to ignore the facts, because their "minds" are already made
up and/or "they" want to continue on with bu$INness as usual.
It is marvelous when anyone, especially an entire nation, realizes that
the dangers your "registered" POISONS present, surely outweigh any
"benefits". I have sent you many e-mails that show your
"registered" POISONS are not "controlling" pest problems
and many other e-mails that show your "registered" POISONS are
however, harming us. When will it
be "legal" (in your opinion) to use safe and far more effective
(unregistered) alternatives to actually control pest problems in California?
Why are we still exporting our "banned" toxins to our friends
overseas?
Respectfully, Stephen
L. Tvedten
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