Gordon

This long rant is full of misconceptions and red herrings. Firstly
though, you have not answered why the FDA applies the European style
precautionary principle in an "undemocratic way".

Unfortunately, politicians often immix themselves into things they don't
understand and without the vision to analyse the "cradle-to-grave"
consequences and I include here the ecopolitical NGOs. Even less can the
public understand these issues. They are often driven by emotive words
rather than science. Democracy is therefore the last power in public
health and safety.

OK, to continue the argument. Let us hypothetically assume:
- that brominated flame retardants are believed to produce noxious and
polluting gases when burnt, without an absolute scientific proof
- that other flame retardants do not, at least to the same degree
- that the latter are equal in performance and cost effectiveness
- that some authority says that the brominated retardants should be
phased out within n years, working on the precautionary principle?

Do you have a problem with that? If so, what?

Now you say that it is not the brominated comounds that are at fault,
but the incinerators that should be equipped to handle them. I maintain
that this is impractical. To equip an incinerator with means to
eliminate the emissions of bromine compounds would cost every
municipality, say, $100,000 and that would not eliminate them, at all,
but transform them simply into a more easily handled form, such as
hydrobromic acid, rather than hydrogen bromide. So what are you going to
do with all this hazardous waste? This, of course, assumes that the
incineration is not done in burning landfills. Now, let's say there is
an average of 1 incinerator per 1,000,000 inhabitants in developed
countries with a total population of 1e9. The capital cost to the
communities in these countries will therefore be $100M and the running
costs (hefty maintenance and disposal of hazardous waste) probably
another $10-20M/year. A very heavy forfeit jusy to handle flame
retardants. The alternative? That the resin precursor fabricators
(probably only half-a-dozen in the world) change one compound in their
formulations so that there is no bromine in them. Capital cost? Minimal.
Running costs? Minimal. This is where my pragmatism lies.

As for choosing which compounds need the PP applied, as I explained
before, the decision can be made easily, in most cases, just by computer
modelling, requiring a PC and half-an-hour, for an estimation of the
basic toxicity.

Now let me cite an example of the successful and wise global application
of the PP. In 1974, Molina and Rowlands published the paper that earned
them the Nobel Prize for Chemistry about 14 or 15 years later, whereby
they hypothesised that CFCs could deplete the ozone layer. There was not
a scrap of scientific proof (that started to come in, in 1988). It was,
however sufficiently alarming that the USA and some other countries
started to ban the use of CFCs in most aerosol cans as early as 1978.
The Vienna Convention on the Ozone Layer was convened in 1985, following
Joe Farman's discovery of the so-called "ozone hole". It culminated in
the signing of the Montreal Protocol on 15 September 1987, an
internationa agreement, based uniquely, at that time, on the
precautionary principle, laying down measure to limit the emissions of
CFCs, by a phase-down. When the little items of proof started to trickle
in over the ensuing years, it was realised that the PP measures were
largely insufficient and the Protocol had to be urgently tightened to a
more rapid and complete phase-out. Yet, if we had waited for the proof
before any measures were taken, then it is certain that we would be in a
  much worse condition today than we are. This has certainly saved
countless lives.

Brian



Davy, Gordon wrote:
> For those who have not been following the discussion of the
> precautionary principle, please note before deleting this as irrelevant
> to your current job assignment that no subscriber has unequivocally
> supported it, and that the new EU mandates for leadfree, halogenfree,
> and recycling of electronic products are but manifestations of this
> principle, the privations of which (unless challenged) promise to
> provide many more opportunities for you and other scientists and
> engineers to figure out how society can get by without other useful ?
> but prohibited ?  resources.
>
> For those who have been following the discussion, it should be clear
> that while Brian Ellis continues to supply interesting information, he
> is not answering the basic questions. He seems to be having difficulty
> clarifying his position ? perhaps even to himself. (Again, I am opposing
> not him but his ideas.)
>
> He started by expressing perplexity as to why, when substitutes are
> available, the IPC would not support mandating the elimination from
> electronic products of brominated fire retardants, a move which he
> regarded as a ?probably environmentally favourable action, with
> scientific backing?. He then explained that he opposes brominated fire
> retardants because when improperly incinerated they can produce
> molecules that threaten public health. I have asked him, repeatedly, to
> explain why he thinks it better to control what gets incinerated than
> how it gets incinerated, but he has not done so.
>
> In stating his opposition to the use of brominated fire retardants he
> invoked the precautionary principle. This by itself is no answer since
> it requires explaining why he supports that. (The precautionary
> principle attempts to resolve issues which have proved difficult to
> settle using ordinary risk assessment and political consensus building
> by substituting a simplistic ?if I doubt, you can?t? approach.) Instead,
> we find that his support for this principle is mixed: he says he
> supports it in some cases but not others, which must mean that really he
> is using some other principle to decide.
>
> In his latest posting, he states that his principle is pragmatism. This
> means, briefly, choosing what works. In discussing the proposed REACH
> legislation in Europe he states that he is ?100% opposed to REACH?
> because it is inept and would require a huge bureaucracy to administer.
> So using his pragmatic principle, he opposes it because it won?t work
> (or won?t work in a way that he approves of). We are not told how anyone
> can tell whether it is working or not.
>
> Now since he only supports things that will work, in opposing the
> continued use of brominated fire retardants, if he is going to invoke a
> principle he only supports sometimes, shouldn?t he explain why he thinks
> that the prohibition, or else the principle, will work in that
> situation? I have asserted that the prohibition won?t work and that
> application of the principle gives remedies that don?t work, and he has
> not rebutted either assertion.
>
> Since he provided the link to a legal evaluation to REACH (and my thanks
> to him for having done so), Brian must at least be clear on the fact
> that REACH, which he opposes, is based squarely on the precautionary
> principle, which he says he sometimes supports. For those who didn?t
> have the time to read the full article, here is an excerpt that
> discusses REACH?s connection to the principle and the uncertainty as to
> what it takes to get a substance accepted:
>
>     The EU?has calibrated its precautionary stance to such a high degree
>     of risk aversion that it has essentially written factors other than
>     caution out of the equation. What is left is the philosophy that
>     lack of scientific data that corroborate the need for or
>     consequences of stringent environmental measures should not stand in
>     the way of their adoption. In contrast, U.S. law proceeds from the
>     premise that chemicals should be banned or restricted only if
>     credible scientific data shown an ?unreasonable risk,? after
>     undergoing a cost-benefit analysis.? The ideological clash between
>     the two approaches is irreconcilable. ?
>
>     The REACH program represents the EU?s response to the belief that it
>     cannot effectively regulate chemicals by traditional risk-based
>     methods.?Even with billions of dollars and more than a million jobs
>     at stake, the EU appears determined to proceed with REACH. The EU
>     insists that economic arguments will not sway it, in spite of
>     studies showing that the national economies of France and Germany
>     will suffer noticeable hits.?
>
>     Under REACH, ? the public authority may ask for additional
>     information or testing if the submitted materials are of
>     questionable quality or, more nebulously, ?if there is reason for
>     concern.?
>
> Brian goes on to discuss his attempts to get n-propyl bromide
> prohibited, and implies that even though his risk assessment has
> convinced him that use of this material poses a significant public
> health hazard, his inability to get consensus has been due to plain old
> politics and money.
>
> I think that in giving this example Brian has, perhaps inadvertently,
> indicated why he sometimes supports the simplistic and undemocratic
> nature of the precautionary principle. It offers an attractive
> alternative to the frustration experienced by any true believer who has
> been unsuccessful using normal political processes to get the majority
> to share his conviction of impending calamity unless they adopt his
> remedy. (As a true believer in the ideas that it is wrong to prohibit
> lead and brominated fire retardants from electronic products and
> electronic products from landfills, I too know the frustration.)
>
> The precautionary principle is simplistic because it doesn?t state who
> gets to decide and how compelling their doubts have to be, and it
> doesn?t make clear how to choose the best remedy for a given problem.
> Assuming that the public health hazard is real, why does application of
> the precautionary principle support prohibition of brominated fire
> retardants and ignore improper incineration? Some people do get poisoned
> by lead, but who believes that prohibiting lead from, or landfilling of,
> electronic products is going to help even one of them or prevent any new
> cases?
>
> Brian is right that it comes down to politics ? with or without the
> democratic concepts of open debate and consent of the governed. But the
> precautionary principle is undemocratic in approving coercion in the
> absence of consensus. By using deception and appeals to emotion to get
> buy-in to changed rules, a demagogue only has to create doubt rather
> than prove his case, making it much easier to get his way. Why, if
> recycling of electronic products is so good for society, does the WEEE
> directive make it a crime to tell ? truthfully ? ordinary citizens how
> much recycling is costing them? (Incidentally, it?s understandable that
> demagogues would resist truth telling, but I wonder how Brian judges
> such prior restraint of speech ? by whether it works or whether it is
> wrong.) Who knows how many ordinary citizens would have voted for RoHS
> and WEEE had the elitists ? their supposed representatives ? provided a
> truthful cost-benefit analysis instead of propaganda and given them the
> chance to decide? Given the predicted economic hit, how many ordinary
> citizens would vote for REACH?
>
> History gives many examples of true believers campaigning, often for
> decades, to end some social ill. The mere fact that they are ardent
> proponents says nothing about whether they will be remembered as heroes
> or demagogues. I?m no historian, but I know that William Wilberforce in
> England and John Quincy Adams in the U.S. were tireless leaders in the
> cause to prohibit slavery. Often the cause, even if successful, has
> unintended consequences. Carrie Nation and the Women?s Christian
> Temperance Union, using tactics that included vandalism, were eventually
> successful in the U.S. and Canada in prohibiting (though not so
> successful in stopping) the sale of alcoholic beverages, but the
> unintended consequences led to a subsequent reversal. (We might
> anticipate some unintended consequences from prohibiting the sale of
> other substances as well.) The ardent supporters of the American
> Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution had very
> different ideas about how society should be structured.
>
> Many of these true believers were willing to go beyond mere appeals to
> the existing power structure to get their principles adopted ? i.e., to
> gain power. Unlike Wilberforce and Adams, the ardent supporters of the
> precautionary principle have demonstrated their willingness to deceive
> people, which by itself is bad, in order to gain their objective, which
> they believe is good ? but certainly no more noble than ending slavery.
> In fact, their very willingness to deceive brings into question the
> rightness of their principle. The long-term success of a cause depends
> on the rightness of it, so since the precautionary principle is really a
> bad idea, we can expect that eventually it ? and its proponents ? will
> be repudiated. But when and at what cost?
>
> In conclusion, to me it looks as if Brian, out of a genuine concern for
> public health, would like to find something that works better than risk
> assessment and the admittedly inefficient (but still not unpragmatic)
> process of political consensus building in swaying others to prohibit
> n-propyl bromide as well as brominated fire retardants. But I don?t see
> how he thinks it will work for him invoke a principle that he himself
> only supports if it works. Since he has stated that he is a pragmatist,
> I encourage him to base his efforts on explicitly pragmatic grounds. If
> he decides to post again on this subject, I suggest that readers look to
> see whether he:
>
> ·         Explains in clear language, using ordinary risk assessment,
> why he believes that prohibiting brominated fire retardants will work
> better for the public health than controlling incineration, and
>
> ·         Admits that since he bases his decisions on pragmatism, he
> really doesn?t believe in using the precautionary principle to support
> even his own noble causes, because it is inherently simplistic not
> realistic, demagogic not democratic, and dogmatic not pragmatic.
>
> Gordon Davy
> Baltimore, MD
> [log in to unmask]
> 410-993-7399
>
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