Forwarding for Gordon Davy:
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Brian Ellis has stated that my essay on his proposal concerning
brominated fire retardants in electronic products and uncontrolled
incineration was too long for him to reply to point by point. It was
long, but there weren't that many points, and it doesn't seem to me that
he answered any of them. I still hope he will or, better, say that he's
changed his mind. To that end, and for the benefit of those who missed
that essay, I provide here a short
summary:
* The problem should be clearly stated before a solution is
offered.
* The additional contribution to air pollution from incinerating
discarded electronic products is trivial.
* Even if the additional contribution were significant,
prohibiting
brominated fire retardants in the manufacture of new products would not
noticeably reduce it.
* There is an obvious way that would reduce air pollution from
uncontrolled incineration of refuse - control the incineration.
* Switching to materials being considered as substitutes may be
worse than continuing to use brominated fire retardants.
He did clarify his concern about the production of noxious
bromine-containing molecules from uncontrolled incineration: it is not
just the direct threat to public health but also the indirect threat via
damage to the ozone layer. He also claimed, a little less confidently I
thought, that suitable substitutes for brominated fire retardants in
electronic products exist. But even with his latest posting, without
responding to my points, it seems to me that he still hasn't explained
why he thinks forcing manufacturers to stop using brominated fire
retardants in their products is the right thing to do.
Since this essay is long, too, I've provided some headings and a summary
to make it a little easier for those willing to make the effort to
follow, and if so inclined, respond to.
The precautionary principle
Brian also recommends adopting and applying the "precautionary
principle" for this situation. With this prompting, I decided to find
out more about this principle, which I recall being discussed some time
back in this forum after Kay Nimmo mentioned it. I found that some
environmental activists enunciated it in six paragraphs (along with some
commentary) in 1998 (see
<http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0398/et0398s4.html>
http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0398/et0398s4.html). I agree with Brian
that this principle deserves to be considered. Since he did not offer
further explanation, and since some subscribers may not be completely
familiar with it, I present it here with an express goal of influencing
public opinion.
1. The release and use of toxic substances, the exploitation of
resources, and physical alterations of the environment have had
substantial unintended consequences affecting human health and the
environment. Some of these concerns are high rates of learning
deficiencies, asthma, cancer, birth defects and species extinctions,
along with global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and
worldwide contamination with toxic substances and nuclear materials.
2. We believe existing environmental regulations and other decisions,
particularly those based on risk assessment, have failed to protect
adequately human health and the environment the larger system of which
humans are but a part.
3. We believe there is compelling evidence that damage to humans and the
worldwide environment is of such magnitude and seriousness that new
principles for conducting human activities are necessary.
4. While we realize that human activities may involve hazards, people
must proceed more carefully than has been the case in recent history.
Corporations, government entities, organizations, communities,
scientists and other individuals must adopt a precautionary approach to
all human endeavors.
5. Therefore, it is necessary to implement the Precautionary Principle:
When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the
environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause
and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In
this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public,
should bear the burden of proof.
6. The process of applying the Precautionary Principle must be open,
informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties.
It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives,
including no action.
I don't present the entire commentary, but in it you will find "The
burden of proof of harmlessness of a new [emphasis added] technology,
process, activity, or chemical lies with the proponents, not with the
general public." Also, "People have a duty to take anticipatory action
to prevent harm. If you have a reasonable suspicion that something bad
might be going to happen, you have an obligation to try to stop it."
Noble?
In a previous essay I asserted that environmental activists have been
deliberately misleading people, and I find this manifesto to give some
good insight into their reasoning and their rhetoric. On the surface it
sounds so noble. I can see how someone even as well-informed as Brian
might be misled into acquiescing to it, so to clarify what I think it
really says, here is my two-sentence paraphrase followed by a critique:
"Some human activities have harmed public health. Traditional ways of
dealing with this situation have been inadequate, and it's now obvious
that the problems are so severe that we've had to come up with a new
principle: if we activists decide that what you're doing or want to do
is harmful, then unless you can prove us wrong to our satisfaction,
we're nobly going to do all we can to make you stop."
My paraphrase makes it sound less new and noble - it's just the same old
political activism we've known for decades, with the public health angle
almost incidental to the larger cause of promoting a visionary agenda
with the activists running things and making the decisions. I was on the
Berkeley campus of the University of California in 1964 during the Free
Speech Movement when Mario Savio and others used a similar appeal
(successfully) to force the administration to allow free political
speech on the campus of a government-funded university - a worthy goal
that it taken for granted today. I learned a lot watching this movement,
which lasted for two semesters. The movement Savio ended up representing
chose to use mass demonstrations and sit-ins - civil disobedience that
resulted in mass arrests - rather than to seek a legislative or judicial
remedy, saying that the need was too pressing to wait, even though the
prohibition was of long standing and the issue was triggered by a single
event.
Many people claim to believe that there is no such thing as absolute
truth. The activists' willingness - then and now - to engage in coercive
behavior is either a reflection of the confidence they share that they
are right and their adversaries are wrong in some absolute sense, or a
deceptive application of political power to enforce their own
preferences.
Applications and implied threats
In listing the problems in paragraph 1 the creators of the precautionary
principle manifesto probably did not anticipate all the other possible
applications. In particular, it's unlikely that they would have foreseen
that Paragraph 5 - the principle itself - could be interpreted to
support President Bush's military intervention in Iraq to eliminate
weapons of mass destruction (what greater threat to the environment?).
One can infer from the doctrine that the duty to take anticipatory
action exists even if a duly elected government entity, such as the UN
Security Council, lacks the courage or clarity of thought to agree with
you, or has its own hidden agenda. Incidentally, I wonder what
anticipatory actions activists might be considering to eliminate the
WMDs of other countries for the good of the environment.
Note that the creators of this principle state that they came up with it
(and want everyone to accept it, including its call for "anticipatory
action" - which sounds to me something like "pre-emptive strike")
because the problems facing us are so severe that ordinary ways of
dealing with problems (particularly risk assessment) are not enough -
they have failed. In effect, logic is out, superstition is in. This is
language that could be useful for demagogues.
Am I over-reacting in my critique? The doctrine may have been the basis
for members of the Earth Liberation Front recently torching SUVs for not
being energy efficient enough to suit them - see
<http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030822/def017_1.html>
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030822/def017_1.html. Other environmental
activists claim to be horrified, calling it "vandalism," thereby
ignoring the motive and distancing themselves from any responsibility
for having encouraged it. This "anticipatory action" approach can be
used to redress all kinds of social ills. It has been used to justify
assassinating those who take the lives of unborn children. With enough
public support it would work for ridding a community of witches. Or
intolerant fundamentalists.
Don't overlook the creative ambiguity of the word "must" in paragraphs 4
and 6. It leaves each person free to interpret the urgency and implied
level of enforcement needed to ensure universal compliance with the
doctrine. There is no guide to proportionality, i.e., "The anticipation
of something this bad implies a duty to try this hard to stop it."
Built into the manifesto is the idea that the end justifies the means.
When a government uses a threat of force to ensure compliance with
democratically enacted legislation, it is referred to as law and order.
When a non-governmental organization threatens - even if covertly - to
use force to bring about compliance with its doctrines, then depending
on the severity of its ensuing tactics, it is referred to as civil
disobedience, extortion, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare. It is a
vigilante mentality that dismisses normal democratic governmental
processes as being inadequate - in spite of seeming to call for others
to observe them.
Contradictions and lack of support
Consider some apparent contradictions. While in paragraph 2 they abandon
as ineffective decisions based on risk assessment; in paragraph 6 they
call for application of their principle in an "open, informed and
democratic" process, involving "potentially affected parties" (read
"slow and inefficient"). Given the urgency of paragraph 3, what, besides
risk assessment, is supposed to go on in this process, and how long are
they willing to wait for the right outcome before adopting anticipatory
action? The answer, based on what I've seen, is that in spite of their
expressions of urgency they really mean that they can be quite patient
as long as their mandated remedies are accepted by all potentially
affected parties, with the scope of the discussion limited to how the
remedies are to be implemented. So the contradiction is only apparent:
the process is to be open to all parties provided the discussion is
limited to "how" and not "why". Don't be misled by the listing in
paragraph 6 of the hypothetical option of no action. Since it's the
activists who create the issues, "no action" is never their choice. They
just threw that in at the end to make themselves look open-minded and
willing to compromise, which they decidedly are not.
But what else is wrong besides exclusion from the process or implied
threats for disagreeing with the activists? Note that in spite of their
using the magnitude of the public health threat as the justification for
abandoning ordinary risk assessment, they never quantify it.
Characteristically, in paragraph 3 they tell us of their belief, based
on "compelling evidence", that the damage is of great "magnitude and
seriousness", but they do not produce the evidence. In paragraph 5 they
allude to the lack of cause-and-effect relationships, another apparent
contradiction. Identifying problems is easy. Offering the right remedy
is hard. In the way that they state it, they blur the distinction
between the evidence that there is a problem and the evidence that their
remedy is the right one to ameliorate it. We are to trust them that
while dismissing the risk assessments of others, they have conducted
their own and arrived at their beliefs rationally and impartially and
not on some other basis (such as promoting their agenda). You'll rarely
obtain from an environmental activist even a crude estimate of how many
people are suffering today as a result of whatever looming crisis he is
decrying, although he will claim that many will suffer if you don't
embrace his remedy.
Maybe it's because the activists don't really have the evidence - like
Chicken Little they are too busy warning us, and lack the interest in
taking the time to find out. Or maybe they do have evidence, but are
concerned we won't agree that it is as compelling as they find it, and
so choose not to tell us. If they did, we might assess the risk in a way
that could undermine their entire agenda or invite criticism of their
tactics. We may even attempt to offer counter-evidence in an open,
informed, and democratic debate with a scope not limited in the way that
they demand. (I recall clearly how reluctant an activist was in
admitting to me years ago that electronic products constitute only one
percent of municipal solid waste.) In either case, whether they know the
statistics or not, it works better if they can create a frightened
urgency with vague threats to our sense of well being without having to
share and defend the data, act as if they had proved their case that
theirs is the only suitable remedy, and adroitly shift the attention
onto how best to deal with the crisis they have nobly brought to our
attention.
For a particular example beyond the one at the beginning of this essay
and appropriate to this forum, subscribers will know that the activists
do not have compelling evidence that disposal of electronic products
containing lead is causing damage of great (or any) magnitude and
seriousness, and their remedies (prohibition and recycling) would be
totally ineffective in dealing with the situation even if it were. So
much for trusting their risk assessments and remedies. Let me mention
again - at the risk of alienating my entire audience - that in spite of
support expressed by every subscriber of this forum who has commented on
the subject of government-coerced recycling of electronic products, no
one has presented - nor, I suspect, seen - the compelling evidence of
the need. This indicates to me just how effective activist propaganda
can be in influencing opinions, even the opinions of those affected
parties who will have to pay year after year to subsidize the activity,
solely to enrich the recyclers and satisfy the activists.
Easy targets, lack of benefits, and inconsistent interpretations
Next, I have noticed that while their manifesto mentions "corporations,
government entities, organizations, communities, scientists and other
individuals", activists seem to favor trying to force corporations
rather than, say, government entities to change their behavior. Hence
their attention to what gets incinerated instead of how the incineration
is done. Hence their focus on lead in electronic products rather than
third-world governments condoning use of lead in gasoline and paint.
They seem to prefer aiming at easy targets over promoting effective
environmental benefits that might, after all, put them out of a job. It
makes sense that it would be easier to get a government entity to force
someone else to change behavior than to get it to change its own
behavior.
It has been observed before that the activists' own risk assessment is
such that RoHS legislation does not apply to the airplanes activists fly
in or to the armaments legislators depend on to maintain national
sovereignty (although, as an example of the law of unintended
consequences, lead-free solder and pure tin plating will wind up in
both).
Finally, while the clear preference in their manifesto as stated is for
sticking with the known rather than adopting something new, activists
seem to have no problem interpreting it otherwise when they think that
something should be changed, even if that would mean abandoning the
known for something new. Thus they want to coerce the electronics
industry to adopt new solders in place of old ones, and new fire
retardants in place of old ones (and to pay for switching, too). Yet
according to their principle, since they are the proponents of the
activity, they are the ones who bear the burden of proof that switching
is good.
Summary and conclusion
The precautionary principle manifesto sounds noble and can easily
mislead people until it is dissected. Citing imminent danger but without
providing the supporting evidence, it calls for people to take matters
into their own hands rather than relying on the normal processes of risk
assessment and deliberation. Discussions are to be limited to how the
activist agenda is to be implemented, not why it should be. In applying
it activists frequently choose symbolic activities rather than those
that might actually improve the environment, and interpret it
inconsistently for their own convenience. It means in effect that
activists seek to impose on us all their agenda and to prohibit us all
from doing whatever it is they decide they don't like.
You may think that I have been too severe in this critique of the
precautionary principle, and perhaps I have. After all, I can take
satisfaction in its reassurance that I have been doing the right thing
all along. That is, having had a reasonable suspicion that something bad
is going to happen, and out of a sense of obligation, I have been
writing quixotic essays in an attempt to stop it. Besides, with my new
enlightenment, I now realize that as an affected party I can do more. So
I hereby issue the following non-negotiable demands:
* Before activists attempt to eliminate a useful practice or
substance that has long been in use, they must use their own funds to
apply to any proposed substitute the precautionary principle in a way
that is open, informed (numbers in place of propaganda), and democratic,
showing to my satisfaction that the switch will be beneficial (quite
unlike the way they did with the WEEE and RoHS directives).
* Out of concern for public health, activists must stop
squandering
their donated resources in targeting "irresponsible" industrialists who
have been putting brominated fire retardants into electronic products,
and instead confront those truly irresponsible legislators who have been
allowing uncontrolled incineration.
(Now using my own creative ambiguity) otherwise, since my efforts so far
have been ineffective, and given the seriousness of the situation, I
may, out of a sense of duty, have to engage nobly in anticipatory
action.
Gordon Davy
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
410-993-7399
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