Methyl Bromide has and has not been phased out, see:

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/mbr/

Kyoto is not analogous to the EPA lawsuit as it is international. For most of its supporters, whether or not it makes sense as a policy has far less to do with its actual effects on the climate than its effects on the politics of the issue.

Thanks!

I see a clear analogy to Kyoto and post-Kyoto: it’s not good enough even as originally planned, it’s not meeting its planned target, and yet it’s still a far better policy outcome than not trying to decrease and eliminate this pollutant.

http://www.law.capital.edu/Tobacco/News/2005/20050831TPPCNews.asp

Can scientists be involved in court cases in ways that go beyond politics, when they contend with ‘advocacy science’ that is biasing and confusing public policy, arguing that truth has a place in science and politics?

http://tc.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/15/suppl_4/iv1

You know some of the advocacy scientists involved in that case.

” “Doubt is our product,” as a candid Brown & Williamson document puts it.2 A decade of doubt means billions of dollars in profits. …”

Any parallels in policy?

Wealth is but one of many values that people think are important. Advocacy occurs in pursuit of these values, as well as wealth.

It is a mistake to think that the only values that matter are money and the only actors that matter are companies.

There is nothing wrong with advocacy, it is fundamental to democracy. But taking on an advocacy role does raise some interesting questions for scientists, including those situations where money is involved, but also others.

Thanks!

Of the amicus briefs, have you identified any as being from people who are taking funds from big companies, to opine in this case?

Do you believe all of them are funded by big companies, overtly or covertly?

Have you noticed any amici presenting arguments made in the past by authors hired by big companies to present advocacy science?

The British Medical Journal study of court tactics seems quite relevant == they compare arguments paid for by big companies presented in court to the arguments published by industry-funded scientists in science journals.

Is ‘Public Health’ always, to you, a political advocacy role?

http://tc.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/suppl_4/iv68?ct

I fear the slope will be slippery, if the Court decides EPA has authority to regulate CO2. Carbon dioxide is the most ubiquitous byproduct of industrial civilization. Whatever the ideological leanings of Bush’s EPA appointees, who are here today and gone tomorrow, the agency has an institutional interest in getting its regulatory hooks into CO2. Nothing would do more to expand its power over the U.S. economy.

Further, if the Court decides in favor of plaintiffs, I cannot see the Administrator arguing that there’s no point in regulating CO2 because U.S. auto emissions constitute only a small part of a larger “problem.” All Clean Air Act target emissions created by sources that individually pose no risk to health or welfare–that has never stopped EPA from pulling the regulatory trigger.

The AGs even speak to the point in their brief, arguing that although a NAAQS for CO2 would not be a “complete” solution to global warming, an incomplete solution is better than none, if only because it would encourage and complement other countries’ incomplete solutions. Again, I suspect that many career people at EPA are itching to act on just such reasoning.

Thanks for the quick response to my post. Keep up the great work. — Marlo

Thanks again. I am going to respond like a professor (sorry!) and ask you to take a look at two articles.

The first is by Dan Sarewitz and it explains why it is that efforts to have the “best science” are confounded by the very diversity of science as well as the numerous societal ends to which science might be legitimately put:

http://www.cspo.org/products/articles/excess.objectivity.html

The second is a paper that I worte that critiques the use by the IPCC of the FCCC definition of climate change, which has important political consequences (like deemphasizing adaptation):

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2005. Misdefining ‘‘climate change’’: consequences for science and action, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 8, pp. 548-561.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1841-2004.10.pdf

Thanks!

Thanks much for your comments. I understand what you are saying. I do think that the ozone precedent suggests the need for legislative action, but I am not 100% convinced.

Even so, I don’t think that the slippery slope is as slippery as you suggest. Consider the following:

Taking a look at data from the US EIA (http://www.eia.doe.gov/):

It projects out to 2030 that the accumlated global carbon dioxide emissions will be 235 GtC. It also projects that of this total about 15 GtC will come from the use of petroleum in the United States. Lets assume all of this comes from cars. Lets further assume the EPA regulates carbon dioxide such that no emissions are allowed.

This would reduce the global total emissions of carbon dioxide from 235 to 220 GtC by 2020. Can don’t think that current cliamte models are able to differentate bewteen a world with these two values of carbon dioxide emissions, much less predict how one might be different than another.

I can envision a scenario where EPA has authority but the judgment of the EPA administrator might be that the marginal difference between 220 GtC and 235 GtC (i.e., what EPA has authority over), would not amount to a conclusion that the marginal US carbon dioxide emissions from cars “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

Thanks!

This continues to be an interesting discussion and the various comments and replies are helping me to clarify what I am trying to do.

“An Inconvenient Truth” opened here just last week (well behind the US opening) and was reviewed on TV by Australia’s most respected movie reviewers (www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s1720229.htm). At the end of the review one of the reviewers said “…if there is doubt about what Gore is claiming…surely it’s possible to set up a body that doesn’t have any vested interest in either outcome, you know, that just wants to know the truth and finding out what the truth is.”

Their web site was beseiged by comments (I suspect many just included the four-letter word “IPCC”) and the reviewer then added a thank you note for this input at the end of the review, along with a link to the IPCC website.

My point in recounting this story, apart from the fact that I am amused by it, is that some members of the public, as well as some scientists, do believe that we can and should intervene in the (partisan) political to ensure that science is not misrepresented or misused. And that this is possible.

Whether IPCC or an amicus brief is the most effective way to do this is clearly a topic for debate, but the question of whether a scientist can/should intervene in a topical discussion without having an interest other than ensuring the best science is used to resolve the question is surely unquestionable.

Cheers,
Neville

You write, “you say that by striving to achieve an ideal of science-based arguments that are non-political in their content, we are contributing, unavoidably even, to the pathological politicization of [science].” Yes (if indeed it was science that you meant as the last word and not politics!!], this is exactly what I am saying.

Do have a look at the Sarewitz article, he makes this point far better than I do:

Sarewitz, D., 2004. How Science makes environmental controversies worse, Environmental Science & Policy, volume 7, pp. 385-403.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/publications/special/sarewitz_how_science_makes_environmental_controversies_worse.pdf