Whiter than white? Clean and healthy? A new challenge for nurses

As primary health care workers nurses should be encouraged to see their role as encompassing a concern with and responsibility for the environment that is consistent with an holistic conception of health or wellness. It is argued that health care workers and environmentalists (who may be one and the same) need to carefully consider issues surrounding a sustainable environment. Building alliances with unions and the community, as occurred in the Green Ban Movement in New South Wales in the early 1970s, would be useful. The debate surrounding future plans for the timber industry illustrates the strategic importance of trying to change consumer demand in ways which can make better resource management and production practices commercially viable. This paper argues against simplistic responses to the conversation crisis and emphasizes the need to strike a balance between environmentalism and the avoidance of mass unemployment, itself a source of ill-health.