Sustainablog

The discussions following my two last posts about climate change opinion shifts and about an anti-science coalition have made it clear that one of the reasons people distrust science is that “Science” fails to speak with one voice.  There are definitely forces from the outside of Science that erode trust, but there are also internal issues.

The problem is that Science will not ever “speak with one voice.”  Scientists often have different opinions about a given topic.  Often that simply represents a healthy part of the scientific process.  When I hear someone say, “scientists don’t even agree about this!” I want to say, “you don’t know many scientists, do you!”  We are trained to questions assumptions and scrutinize analytical methods.  We are taught how to spot artifacts and how to come up with alternate hypotheses.  Some scientists get a little aggressive about this (there is usually at least one curmudgeon in every department).

There are definitely some topics that are so complex that it is impossible to be 100% sure about conclusions.  There are questions that are not amenable to running a controlled experiment.  These are all factors that make a topic like climate change so controversial.  These are legitimate reasons for the lack of a single “answer from science.”

All the above said, there are plenty of examples of scientific disagreements that arise from what can only, honestly be called bad science. Doing science well is non-trivial.  It requires a good deal of mental rigor and comprehensive information acquisition.  If we scientists are honest we all have to admit that we can fall short of the ideal “scientific method” at times.  Trust in “Science” ultimately means trusting “Scientists” and thats sometimes where the trouble starts.  There are 5 main ways that I can think of that scientsts can “behave badly.”  Maybe you can add some more.
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A wise Nebraska farmer I know taught me this saying: “It’s what you know for certain that keeps you from learning.”   This principle is at the core of why certain groups and entities are rejecting good science.

As a scientist, and particularly as a scientist involved in agricultural and environmental issues, I’m increasingly aware of this trend.  In some cases this involves open hostility to science, in others it is just a matter of ignoring the scientific input. What is disturbing is how many different “voices” are in this unlikely “coalition” and the extent to which they are coloring the views of the broader society  (as seen in the recent Pew survey of American attitudes about climate change). 

At acknowledged risk of offending people, I will try to describe factions in the groups that tend to reject things that science would tell them.  I know that what I am talking about does not apply to everyone, or even most people in these groups, but it is still a potent force in our society. 

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Last Monday the popular show “CSI: Miami” ran a segment in which a young woman dies and it turns out to be because of a GMO corn developed by a rogue company called “Bixton Organic Foods.”  In the plot, the company willingly puts people at risk.  This fictional scenario bears no plausible tie to reality, but it fits well with the simplistic, good guys/bad guys image in the Myth that many people believe about farming.  To see how it feels to be the brunt of a distortion like this, I recommend you read a post from a real corn farmer.  

So why is it possible for CBS writers to generate fictional “drama” about the “danger of GMO” when in fact GMO technology has been used with complete safety for more than a decade on a gigantic scale?  (Having witnessed first-hand the thought and care that went into developing this technology over the past 30 years, I’m not surprised by that safety record).  There is an abundance of good information available about this technology including many confirmations of its safety by panel after panel of highly qualified, science and medical experts around the world.  I think the reason that the fear of GMO persists in certain extreme circles is the same reason that there are still “birthers” and people who are sure that health reform will lead to “death panels.”  Its not that there is much overlap between these demographics but rather that the same mechanism of “selective knowing” is involved.

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This post is going to be another struggle for balance.  The threat from this particular mycotoxin in the food supply is a so large that it makes the risks that worry most people look tame.  It makes the subject of one of my previous posts about another mycotoxin, vomitoxin, look like a virtual non-issue. Aflatoxin is one of the most potent acute toxins known and one of the most carcinogenic.  Because of this the average international tolerance for aflatoxin B1 in food is 4 parts per billion (PPB).  The average tolerance for food for children is 0.2 PPB and for milk 0.05 PPB (USDA ERS publication source for this data).  These are seriously low numbers.  I want to accurately represent the seriousness of this risk.  

At the same time I also want to accurately represent the extent to which the commercial food supply is now protected from that risk.  The same ERS document above reported US crop losses in 2003 from mycotoxins in corn, wheat and peanuts of $932 million and another $466 million for testing.  That is all for preventing this toxin from getting to us. There is a lot going on in the background that few people recognize.

Folks in the food industry may well ask “why even bring it up!?”  First of all, this is no secret.  My Google Alert for “Aflatoxin” sends me articles nearly every day.  Also I raise this issue to try to “calibrate risk.”  I saw an entry in a comment string on another blog the other day where someone wrote, “I hope this is a move towards chemical-free food.”  I’ll give that person the benefit of the doubt that they know that all food is made of chemicals (proteins, fats, carbs…).  Their concern was about synthetic pesticide residues.  I doubt that they know about “chemicals” like aflatoxin.  They should.  It is thousands of times more toxic than a typical pesticide residue.

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Lots of people in America are worried about their food - usually not about having enough food, but mostly about things that might be in their food that could potentially hurt them or their children.  People also worry about the environmental impacts of food production.  At one level I’m glad that people are engaged in this way and I do believe that there are legitimate concerns.   I happen to think that some of the fear about food is misplaced.

I believe that much of this fear stems from a limited understanding of toxicology, molecular genetics, and also what farming is actually about today.  Very few Americans have any real contact with farming.  Frankly, some of this fear is also driven by the activities of businesses and organizations with a vested economic interest in alarming people.

I’ve been working as an agricultural scientist for 32 years.  I’ve had the opportunity to learn about lots of crops grown all over the world.  I’ve been involved with all sorts of different technologies.  I’ve seen huge changes in agriculture over time. So from all of this experience, do I worry about anything to do with food?  Yes, absolutely I do worry! But my list of worries is a little different from the norm

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Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas’ Editor-in-Chief, discusses current trends and future developments in the solar technology industry with Dan Thompson, Founder and CEO of SPG Solar.

Click Play Below,or

In a previous post, I listed five of the best things I think you can do in order to live a sustainable lifestyle — #6-10. Now, here is the top five list.

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Today’s post is by Lisa Moore, a climate scientist at EDF.

NOAA recently released a terrific scientific report that explains, in plain English, the current and projected effects of climate change on the U.S. The nonpartisan report, prepared by the 13-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program, tells a grim but important story, clearly and with lots of powerful maps and charts. I encourage you to check it out to see how climate change will affect your area of the country.

Here are some of the “business-as-usual” projections that my colleagues and I find most striking and disturbing:

You think August is hot now?

By the end of this century, we could be in for much more severe summers all across the country (see maps that follow).

• If you live in New Hampshire, summer could feel like it does today in North Carolina (p.107).
• If you live in Michigan, brace yourself for summers that feel like today’s summers in Oklahoma (p 117).
• And if you live in Texas, you now experience 10 to 20 days a year over 100 °F. By the last two decades of this century, look for 100 such days - that’s more than three months (p. 90).

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Yesterday’s Post-Dispatch had a story on the front page of the Business section that immediately caught my eye: St. Louis-based agribiz giant Monsanto has started blogging (and Twittering and YouTube-ing).

That’s right: Monsanto, the company many of us in the sustainability sphere love to hate, has entered the conversation.

That, on the surface, is a good thing.

Of course, the devil’s in the details.  As occasional contributor Max Gladwell pointed out in “10 Ways that Social Media and Sustainability Line Up,” social media can provide a high return on investment for a business… provided its efforts are grounded in transparency. I’d add that such efforts must also be based in a genuine desire to interact: social media is conversation, and all parties have to both talk and listen. Without these elements, a corporate blog will strike its intended audience as just another effort at message control.

Monsanto’s blog also seems to validate another of Max’s points: much of the content so far has consisted of responses to grassroots criticisms of the company ventures into biotechnology, particularly genetic engineering of crop seeds. As blogger and public affairs manager John Combest told the P-D, “”There was this big conversation going on (on the Internet), and we weren’t a part of it.”

So, how’s the company doing in its initial forray into the blogosphere?

At this point, I’d argue they still have a lot to learn.

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Editor’s note: This post was written by Max Ajl, and originally published on Wednesday, March 25, at SolveClimate.

A couple of weeks ago, we discussed the possibilities of biochar - burning organic waste, such as wood chips, left-over crop residue or even manure at extremely low oxygen levels and high temperatures in order to produce charcoal and biogas. The charcoal would go into the ground, increasing soil fertility, while the gas would be an effective energy source, making good use of detritus that would otherwise decompose, returning its carbon to the atmosphere.

I suggested that although the technology was still distant from full-scale implementation, it had considerable promise as a way to draw-down carbon from the atmosphere.

Well, environmental writer George Monbiot has demurred. He wrote in the Guardian yesterday that biochar advocates have been “suckered.” They promote “an even crazier use of woodchips.” They wish to “turn the planet’s surface into charcoal.” They are a wild band of “magical thinkers” who wish to “destroy the biosphere in order to save it.”

Remember, this is Monbiot, a serious analyst of anthropogenic global warming, not Bjorn Lomborg or a mercenary from the Heartland Institute. This man isn’t “supposedly” in the coalition to avert disastrous warming - he’s part of it, through and through.

So what’s he in a tizzy about? A lot of nothing, it turns out, since he’s battling with a straw-man that most biochar researchers don’t take even remotely seriously.

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