I Found a Merchant of Doubt

I guess this is an example of what my last blog was about. In that blog I talked about Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, an exposé on the efforts of industries such as tobacco and oil to obfuscate information on the dangers and consequences of their products: in the case of tobacco, cancer, in that of oil, global warming.

Nicolas Loris of the Heritage Foundation

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/11/New-EPA-Inspector-General-Report-One-More-Reason-to-Reject-Climate-Change-Regulation#_edn12

If you click the above link, you’ll find a piece by Nicolas Loris on the Heritage Foundation web site in which he tries to cast doubt on the work of the EPA and the science of global warming. Giving some context to this link, the Supreme Court, in their ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA found that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are pollutants and as such the authority and the responsibility to regulate such pollutants fell to the EPA under its mandate under the Clean Air Act.

            In response to the ruling, the EPA produced a Technical Support Document (TSD), a report on the science of increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the consequences that has for global warming, rising sea levels, and the acidification of the oceans.

            Loris’ critique of the TSD centers on a procedural review of the TSD from the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG). In doing the procedural review, the OIG reclassified the TSD from an Influential Scientific Assessment to a Highly Influential Scientific Assessment. These two kinds of assessments have differing processing procedures. The OIG found that the procedures for the TSD had not fully followed those of a Highly Influential Scientific Assessment under its reclassification.

            Please bear with me a while longer. I know this is complicated. It is meant to be. And that is part of the problem.

            The reason this process is so complicated is because big business and industry lobbyists back in the beginning of the George W. Bush administration were able to attach a rider on a spending bill that imposed burdensome regulations and red tape on the EPA and other government agencies that rely on science for their work. This rider, The Data Quality Act, is intended to generate reports upon reports, like the review by the OIG, and lead to analysis paralysis.

Loris says that the procedural review “should bring to light the problems with the EPA’s approach to greenhouse gas regulation: The EPA refuses to seriously consider broad dissenting science on the causes of climate change.” The procedural review found that certain procedures for a certain type of assessment were not fully followed. The procedural review did not find anything wrong with the science used in the TSD, nor did it find that the TSD lacked the requirements for rulemaking. By performing a mental bait and switch, changing the topic from procedures to science, Loris would have you believe otherwise.

            At another point he claims that the people at the EPA “bypass the legislative process” in regulating greenhouse gasses. In Massachusetts v. EPA the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had to regulate greenhouse gasses under the authority granted the agency under the Clean Air Act, a law passed by Congress. No legislative process bypassed here.

            Loris would lead you to believe that the EPA is remiss in its responsibilities by heading one section of his critique EPA: Ignoring Dissenting Science. Yet, reading the substance of the section you find that a couple of the “dissenters” don’t disagree with the scientific conclusion that CO2 is warming our planet. They merely disagree as to the extent of the warming that will take place. Most importantly, Loris offers no science that has been performed that shows that the plant is warming for other reasons besides the increased presence of CO2 in our atmosphere. That’s right. No dissenting science. Zero. Zip. Nada.

            I can see how this writing of Loris could, at first glance, sway some folks. But a good look at it, and understanding the context in which a procedural review was generated for an Environmental Protection Agency TSD, reveals it to be laughable.

Ref:

Technical Support Document for Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act  December 7, 2009: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/Endangerment%20TSD.pdf

Procedural Review of EPA’s Greenhouse Gases Endangerment Finding Data Quality Processes Report No: 11-P-0702 September 26, 2011: http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2011/20110926-11-P-0702.pdf

Merchants of Doubt: Why It's So Easy For the Science Deniers

I’m just finishing Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Though I found the book to drag at times, getting bogged down in details, these two authors make a significant case against the climate change denying industry. Starting with the tobacco industry in the 1950s, they catalogue a history of industry hired scientists, and very often the same scientists again and again, obfuscating the truth about scientific findings that hurt the bottom line of their industry sponsors, whether that industry is selling cigarettes or oil.

            I’ve watched the global warming denying phenomenon for about as long as anyone. And what no one can deny is the amount of success that the science deniers have had in bringing doubt into many people’s minds over issues in which the science is greatly indicative or settled. The science deniers have a lot of things working in their favor and have helped them to forestall smoking restrictions or the development of a climate policy in this country.

            First of all, science is hard to understand. Most folks are unable to determine if a scientific study or experiment is rigorous or poorly designed or executed. People aren’t to be blamed for this, but it is very easy to exploit. The average guy or gal doesn’t have the time to double check the cherry picked figures cited by the Heritage Foundation. And using the catchphrase of almost every scientist “more research needs to be done,” gives the deniers an aura of knowingness as they help politicians and policymakers to coddle the industries that finance their campaigns and kick the environmental can down the road for a while.

            In the past 30 years or so there has also developed a suspicion of all expertise. People without credentials and experience are valued as more authentic than those who have paid their dues through schooling or work. These “authentic” individuals’ gut level reactions and thinking are thought to be uncluttered by theory, book learning, or university level high falutiness. In the eyes of many, Barack Obama’s education at Columbia University and Harvard Law School made him less authentic, and therefore less trustworthy, than Sarah Palin, who as a student hopscotched from college to college before earning a degree in journalism. (OK, George W. Bush is a Harvard Business School graduate. But he never acts like a man with a Harvard background, so he at least seems more authentic to a lot of folks.)

Perhaps it is a particularly American characteristic to favor the cracker barrel philosopher over the intellectual. After all, in the halls of the Capitol Congress chose to install a statue of Will Rogers and not one of Emerson. As scientists are men and women who almost uniformly have advanced degrees, they fit into this society of experts: intellectuals and elites who say they know better than you. Americans don’t like them.

            Going back to recent decades, Americans no longer had to worry about cholera, malaria, and typhoid thanks to science. And the researcher Jonas Salk conquered polio. But just as we could now rest assured that our drinking water was safe and our children would not be crippled by an insidious virus, the atom bomb scared the collective bejesus out of us. Though we are no longer gripped by the existential fear that The Bomb created, cloning, genetic engineering, and other scientific finagling leave many of us unsettled and suspicious of science.

            Oreskes and Conway devote a chapter to the current attacks on Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring. It may very well have been this suspicion of science—the invention and use of DDT and other synthetic pesticides, which were the main targets of Carson’s critique—that helped Silent Spring gain ground with the American Public and our political leaders when it did. Ironically, it is now the deniers to exploit this suspicion to attack Carson, her work, and the banning on DDT.

            With Merchants of Doubt Oreskes and Conway make a persuasive argument. Their book may help end this charade of creating public doubt over settled science. I was just hoping in this blog to add to the context in which this important book may help in our understanding of science and our efforts to curb global warming.

Super Committee to the Rescue!

As their due date for coming up with a budget deal looms in the coming days, the congressional super committee is once again in the news. If these six Democrats and six members of the GOP fail to hammer out $1.5 trillion in budget cuts and increased revenue, there will be automatic cuts, big cuts, to government budgets.

            For the sake of argument, let’s assume that setting up this super committee was the way to go, the answer to our deficit problem. There are other matters in which this Congress has proven itself incapable of making any progress. Perhaps it is time to set up other super committees. I offer a few suggestions on issues that deserve this sort of added attention.

            With global warming presenting itself as our greatest crisis, and Congress incapable of acting on this problem, we should have a climate change super committee: a dozen lawmakers tasked with reducing the CO2 output of the United States to pre1990 levels. If these lawmakers fail in their task, tax loopholes for the oil industry would automatically close and a carbon tax would be established. With this revenue billions would be used to create green and carbon neutral industries.

            We’ve had too many people out of work for too long. What about an employment super committee? These six Democrats and six members of the Grand Old Party would reduce our unemployment to under five percent. If this group of lawmakers failed in their duty, a jobs program to employ hundreds of thousands, financed by a tax on our wealthiest citizens, would automatically go into effect.

            I imagine that there could be an entire Justice League of America of Super Committees to come to the rescue for additional conundrums this country has that that are going unresolved, a Get Us Out of Iraq Super Committee, a super committee to stop mountaintop removal, maybe even a super committee to get big money out of politics.

            Though these things need to be done, Washington will not set up special task force committees to take care of these problems. Super committee or no super committee, the reason these things are not getting done in Washington is because there is no political will to get them done and much money and lobbying guaranteeing that they don’t get done.

            The super committee is a charade. It was not set up because of the deficit. It was set up because there is money and lobbying that wants to do away with many governmental programs and benefits. And there are members of the Grand Old Party who have always wanted to do away with beneficial governmental programs. Through legislative muscling and intimidation they may very well achieve their goal of returning America to the 1920s, poor houses and orphanages included.

Sense and Census in Mississippi

Next week in the state of Mississippi the electorate will vote on Proposition 26, which would confer personhood on a human fertilized egg. Les Riley, who has worked on getting the proposition on the ballot and passes, says that the purpose of the law is to “help stop abortion in our state.” The logic behind this antiabortion is pretty straightforward. If a fetus is, by law, a person, then aborting that fetus amounts to murder. There would be no abortions in Mississippi, as folks like Riley want.

            Now I don’t want to wade into the abortion debate here. For me, both sides can make convincing arguments and present examples that can sway my opinion. But if Mississippi passes Prop 26, besides jeopardizing some forms of birth control that keep fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus, they are opening up a big can of worms.

            After Prop 26 passes, how will Mississippi conduct a census? Traditionally a pregnant woman counts as one person. Once the woman gives birth, there are two persons. This is how it has been done throughout history. In the bible Joseph searches Bethlehem for a place to stay for him and Mary, a very pregnant Mary, but it is clear in the Gospel of Luke that there is just Mary and Joseph—two and only two persons. Mary gives birth, the angels sing, shepherds make their visit, and the Holy Family is now three. It is the process of birth that adds a person to the human total.

            As the law only requires that there be a fertilized egg within a woman’s body, with the passage of Prop 26 every female of childbearing age in Mississippi is possibly a plural of persons. Unless a woman is locked away in solitary confinement, there is no way to tell if she has a fertilized egg floating around inside her. She might be one person. She might be more than one person. How do you count that?

This is not that far fetched. Before the Civil War, Mississippi, as well as the rest of the slave holding states, wanted the best of all possible worlds: slave holders having power over their slaves as property and federal political power as an expression of their population. So they finagled with how much a person could be counted. The equation came out as a slave being equal to three fifths of a person. Silly? Well, the Founding Fathers signed off on it, so there must have been a great deal of wisdom in the equation. Maybe Jefferson did the arithmetic.

            So how is the Magnolia State to count its citizens? Women who know that they are pregnant would have to be counted more than once. Carrying twins? Triplets? These women would be counted multiple times. A pregnant Octomom would count as much as a baseball team. As many fertilized eggs don’t get implanted in uteri, a Mississippi female could be one person, then two, then one again without even knowing that she had been a plural for a few days. Traffic cops have no way of knowing if a driver has a fertilized egg inside her. Will Prop 26 open the door for women, without any other apparent passengers in their cars, to drive in carpool lanes?

            As I said before, I don’t want to get into the abortion debate. But when any person or political cause ventures into the absurd, you get absurd results.