Articles by Geoff Dabelko

Industry ‘science’ generates confusion in other areas than just climate change.

Climate change is not the only place where interested obfuscation is pervasive these days.

Former energy department official David Michaels writes in the June issue of Scientific American that business groups are pursuing a broad strategy of manufacturing uncertainty around science that might hurt the bottom line. His examples include beryllium, used in nuclear weapons and linked to lung cancer (Michaels was the "chief safety officer for the nuclear weapons complex" as assistant secretary of energy for environment, safety, and health from 1998 to 2001), and the appetite suppressant and decongestant phenylpropanolamine (PPA), linked to hemorrhagic strokes.

But he makes broader indictments about the process of using industry funded "science" to contest inconvenient scientific research.

Industry have tried to manipulate science no matter which political party controls the government, but the efforts have grown more brazen since George W. Bush became president. I believe it is fair to say that never in our history have corporate interests been as successful as they are today in shaping science policies to their desires.

Incidentally, environmentalists come in for criticism as well. Michaels says:

Furthermore, the denial of scientific evidence and the insistence on an impossible certainty are not limited to business interests. For instance, some zealous environmentalists remain adamantly opposed to food irradiation--the use of gamma rays, x-rays or electron beams to kill microbes in meats and produce--even though the benefits of the practice greatly outweigh the risks.

There’s more to talk about in Iran than nukes.

U.S. news coverage of Iran these days is a one-trick pony -- their nuclear program and what is George W. Bush going to do about it. Today, as Iranians vote for their new president, we may read a bit more. But there are environmental stories to tell, and in some cases they are a reaction to the cacophony surrounding the nuke story.

Last month I traveled to Tehran to attend the International Conference on Environment, Peace, and the Dialogue Among Civilizations and Cultures, a two-day conference co-sponsored by the UN Environment Program and the Iranian Department of Environment. The conference, featuring an eclectic mix of environment ministers and NGO and academic experts, was itself a bid for alternative dialogue on something, anything frankly, other than the contentious nuclear proliferation issue.

Because it was a UN-sponsored meeting, the incredibly valuable and thorough Earth Negotiations Bulletin team covered the event and provide a detailed summary and numerous pictures here and here. I wrote a bit more about the conference here as well.

New journal focuses cross-disciplinary work on sustainability.

I have a soft spot for titles that include the kitchen sink and lack what we'll call concision. It comes from regular attempts to bring together strange bedfellows with our Environmental Change and Security Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

So I was heartened and not put off when I received notice of a new open source ejournal Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy.  As explained in an inaugural editorial by journal advisor and renowned biologist E. O. Wilson, "[t]he goal of the publication -- to establish a forum for cross-disciplinary discussion of natural and social sciences, practices, and policies related to sustainability -- is an important step toward creating achievable sustainable practices through buy-in and consensus."

Such forums at the science -policy interface are too few and far between.  This one promises to have a chance to make a difference, even if reading the inaugural issue suggests it will err on the scholarly side of readability.  The journal's private and public backers, CSA, the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), and Conservation International (CI), bring some diverse ends and means to the table.  

China cracks down on environmental protest

Seems that's what happened last weekend in China after heavy-handed government tactics allegedly led to the deaths of two elderly women protesting polluting chemical factories. Reuters has the story.