SOUND SCIENCE, JUNK POLICY

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Is Science Anti-Environmental?

• Democracy and Science in Environmental Health
  Policy
• Michele Morrone, Ph.D.
• Ohio University

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Definitions

• Environmentalism The activity of protecting the
  environment from pollution or destruction.
• Science the search for knowledge.

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Definitions

• Environmentalist anyone with a significant
  involvement with environmental issues, usually in
  an advocacy sense.
• Scientist a person who uses observation,
  experimentation and theory to learn about a
  subject

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Role in Environmental Policymaking

• Scientists
• Provide data
• Advise decisionmakers
• Serve as experts

• Environmentalists
• Identify issues
• Lobby
• Mobilize the masses

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Integrating Science with Environmental Policy

• Unrealistic expectations
• No right answers
• Role of uncertainty
• Democracy
• Media
• Illiteracy

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Science Literacy(AAAS)

• A science-literate person
• Is familiar with the natural world
• Understands key scientific concepts
• Has capacity for scientific thinking
• Is aware of interdependence of mathematics,
  technology and science and understands their
  limitations
• Uses scientific knowledge for personal and social
  purposes

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National Science FoundationScience and
Engineering Indicators, 2002

• Adults All (yellow), males (dark blue), females
  (light blue)
• Education No HS (yellow), HS only (dark blue),
  BS (light blue), graduate degree (gray)
• Science education 5 or fewer science classes
  (yellow), 6-8 science classes (dark blue), 9 or
  more science classes (light blue)

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Junk Science

• Phony science concocted to further activist
  regulatory agendas and profitable litigation.
• Faulty scientific data and analysis used to
  further a special agenda.

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SETACs Warning Signs

• Statements of absolute certainty
• Important variables overlooked
• Unreported/inadequate sample sizes
• Lack of useful standards of reference
• Inferences of cause-effect relationships
• Observer bias and vested interests
• Conclusions based on personal stories
• Unpublished findings

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Good Science

• accurate recordkeeping, openness, and
  replication, buttressed by the critical review of
  ones work by peers.
• American Association for the Advancement of
  Science

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Science and Food Safety Scientists v.
Environmentalists

• Human Health Issue
• 76 million illnesses
• More than 5,000 deaths
• 325,000 hospitalizations
• Cost
• ERS estimates that Salmonella alone costs US 3
  billion/year

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Food Safety Risks

• Microbiological
• Bacteria
• Viruses
• Parasites
• Chemical
• Pesticides

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Incidence of Foodborne Illness(at 9 FoodNet
sites, 2003)
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Food Safety Policy

• Food Code
• Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP)
• Food Safety Initiative
• Federal Laws

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Food Additives Act

• Not based on imminent public health threat
• Based on concerns over long-term exposures to
  chemicals, pesticides and additives
• How to define additive

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What is Food Irradiation?

• Organic Consumers Association
• Food irradiation is a key part of factory
  farming. By sterilizing meatat the end of the
  process, food irradiation perpetuates and even
  worsensthe unsustainable, unsanitary and
  inhumane conditions found on mostfactory farms.

• CDC
• promising new food safety technology that can
  eliminate disease-causing germs from foods
  treating food with ionizing radiation can kill
  bacteria and parasites that would otherwise cause
  foodborne disease

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How safe is irradiation?

• CDC
• The foods are not changed in nutritional value
  and they are not made dangerous as a result of
  the irradiation. The high energy ray is absorbed
  as it passes through food, and gives up its
  energy

• Pure-food.com
• The existing science on the safety of food
  irradiation is totally inadequate for the FDA to
  unleash this technology on the public.

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Irradiation Science

• More than 40 years of research
• 1990 GAO report
• American Medical Association
• American Dietetic Association
• American Veterinary Medical Association

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Irradiation Policy

• 1963, FDA approved use in wheat and flour
• Food Additives Act
• Food labeling requirements

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Science and Global Warming

• International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• The role of the IPCC is to assess on a
  comprehensive, objective, open and transparent
  basis the scientific, technical and
  socio-economic information relevant to
  understanding the scientific basis of risk of
  human-induced climate change, its potential
  impacts and options for adaptation and
  mitigation.

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IPCC Findings from Third Assessment (2001)

• The global average surface temperature has
  increased .6C during the 20th century.
• Snow cover and ice extent have decreased by about
  10 since 1960
• Global average sea level has risen between .1 and
  .2 meters during the 20th century

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• The 1990s were likely the warmest decade in the
  20th century
• 1998 the warmest year in the 20th century

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Global Warming

• IPCC Concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse
  gases and their radiative forcing have continued
  to increase as a result of human activities.

Sierra Club The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded by consensus
that "increasing concentrations of anthropogenic
greenhouse gases have contributed substantially
to the observed warming over the last 50 years."
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Global Warming

• Sierra Club Like the tobacco industry, the
  corporations that produce carbon dioxide
  pollution are seeking to deny the truth. Rather
  than admit that our increasing dependence on
  coal, oil, and natural gas is altering our
  climate, those who produce these fuels, along
  with the powerful auto industry, are spending
  millions of dollars in an effort to discredit the
  IPCC and global warming.

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Policy Response

• President Bush reneges on campaign plan to limit
  carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the
  U.S.
• "The policy challenge is to act in a serious and
  sensible way, given the limits of our knowledge.
  While scientific uncertainties remain, we can
  begin now to address the factors that contribute
  to climate change."

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Further Policy Response

• If, in 2012, we find that we are not on track
  toward meeting our goal, and sound science
  justifies further policy action, the United
  States will respond with additional measures that
  may include a broad, market-based program as well
  as additional incentives and voluntary measures
  designed to accelerate technology development and
  deployment.
• Global Change Policy Book from the White House

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Comparing Food to Air
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So, Is Science Anti-environmental?

• The better question is does it really matter if
  scientists are environmentalists or not?
• Because
• Most policy making will proceed either with or
  without science
• Norse and Tschirley
• University College of London

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Public Confidence in Selected Institutions
SOURCE J. A. Davis, T. W. Smith, and P. V.
Marsden, General Social Survey 19722002
Cumulative Codebook (University of Chicago,
National Opinion Research Center).
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• Recently, a group of prominent scientists
  charged that the Bush Administration is ignoring
  and distorting scientific evidence concerning the
  seriousness of environmental problems such as
  global warming. How much have you heard about
  this criticism before now a great deal, a
  moderate amount, not much, or nothing at all?
• Great deal 8
• Moderate Amount 26
• Not much 40
• Nothing 26
• Source Gallup Poll, 1005 US Adults, March 8-11,
  2004

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• Who do you tend to believe in this matter the
  scientists who claim that the Bush Administration
  is ignoring and distorting scientific evidence
  about environmental problems, OR, the Bush
  Administration, which denies ignoring and
  distorting scientific evidence about
  environmental problems
• Scientists 59
• Bush Administration 32
• No opinion 9
• Source Gallup Poll of 1005 US Adults, March
  8-11, 2004

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In science, the majority does not
rule. William Ruckelshaus former USEPA
Administrator