Environmental Health Tools – Addicted to Oil: U.S. Oil Policy Simulation

A paper published last year by Resources for the Future made the point that our oil vulnerability has less to do with the amount we import than simply with the staggering amounts we consume period. In addition, energy independence, a favorite rallying cry of politicians, is an unachievable myth.

Energy independence has been a rhetorical and political rallying cry for nearly 40 years—President Nixon presided over the massive 1974 Project Independence Report—and it is as flaccid a concept today as it has been over the decades.

There are for sure excellent reasons for reducing dependence on oil, particularly imported from unfriendly or unstable countries. If you are interested in understanding better what’s involved with moving towards reduced dependence on oil, you’ll want to check out this cool tool I heard about from reading the Water Cooler Games web site. This is a simulation game (a sim) that’s available free from Forio Business Simulations. In this sim, you have the goal to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil within a specified time period.

In this sim, you are the President of the United States. You’ve been elected on a platform of reducing U.S. dependence on oil imports. There are a variety of options available to you to alternately reduce consumption and increase production. These range from opening oil fields in Alaska to mandating improved fuel efficiency of new vehicles. After selecting your policy options, you write a speech to the American people outlining your policies and click the “start” button. The simulation then shows if you were able to achieve your goals.

These are the policy options:

Transportation Initiatives

- Alternative fuels research.
- Encourge production of hybrid vehicles.
- Launch a nationwide promoting carpooling.
- Improve jet engine and airplane technology to reduce airline fuel consumption.
- Convert trucks and trains running diesel to biodiesel or other alternative fuels.

Domestic Supply Initiatives
- Open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development.

Residential and Commercial Initiatives
- Launch a campaign to encourage Americans to lower their thermostats during the winter.
- Sponsor a nationwide conservation program to reduce residential and commercial uses of petroleum.

Industrial Initiatives
- Sponsor a nationwide program to replace industrial use of petroleum with synthetic alternatives.

Electric Utility Initiatives
- Convert oil-based electrical generation to natural gas, solar and wind technologies, and nuclear power

The goal is to reduce oil imports by 25% of the 2005 level by 2025. Here are some simulation results with various scenarios I tried, along with the percent increase or decrease in oil imports, and the percent of U.S. oil that comes from imports:

1. Do Nothing – 43% increase in imports, 72% of U.S. oil will be imported in 2025. This requires no sacrifices from Americans, but fails to meet the simulation goal.

2. Open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil production starting in 2008 (in three years) – 29% increase in imports, 65% of U.S. oil will be imported in 2025. Again, this requires no sacrifices from Americans, but also fails to meet the simulation goal (ANWR performed better than I had expected – I had thought it was the proverbial “drop in the barrel”).

3. Implement all initiatives to improve transportation energy use except for conservation (carpooling). This represents a relatively modest improvement in energy efficient transportation, though probably not from the political perspective: 1) in 2007 (in two years), start selling new vehicles that run on ethanol, cellulosic ethanol or biodiesel - 25% of all new vehicles sold will run on alternative fuels within three years of the start date (i.e. by 2010); 2) in 2007 (in two years), start selling hybrids that achieve 50 miles per gallon fuel efficiency, to be achieved within three years of the start date (by 2010); 3) starting in 2008 (in three years), reduce jet fuel use by 25%, to be achieved within four years of the start date (2012 – the airlines and aircraft manufacturers have better lobbyists); 4) in 2008 (in three years), reduce diesel consumption in trucks and trains by 25%, to be achieved within three years (2011 – Congress takes pity on the trucking and rail industries). This doesn’t involve much sacrifice on the part of most Americans, except perhaps for some new taxes for incentives and research, and possibly some job dislocations (layoffs or relocations), but reduces oil imports by 21%. There is still 58% of U.S. oil consumption being imported.

3a. As a variant, I tried more aggressive measures to reduce transportation energy use (doubling all of the goals to 50%). This does achieve the goal, reducing oil imports by 42%. However, 51% of U.S. oil consumption is still imported in 2025. Moreover, the simulation does not explore the technical feasibility of, say, reducing jet fuel consumption by 50%, much less the political feasibility. There probably would be some sacrifices required of Americans to achieve this goal because the research, engineering and manufacturing effort required to reshape the transportation sector probably would rival the Manhattan Project.

4. Vice President Cheney said in 2001 "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy". So how about it? The conservation scenario involves: 1) instituting carpooling starting in 2007 (two years out) in order to reduce an individual’s vehicle-miles traveled by 25% with two years; 2) turning down thermostats 5 degrees, starting in 2007 (two years out), and instituting a residential and small business conservation program starting in 2009 (four years out) to reduce petroleum consumption by 25% within three years of the start of the program. Conservation results in reduced oil consumption, but petroleum imports still increased 16%, with 67% of U.S. oil consumption being imported by 2025. When you double the percentages conserved (to 50%), oil consumption is reduced by 6.67 million barrels per day, but overall imports only decrease by 8%, and 62% of oil consumption is imported. [Wingnut note: before you shout heh, indeedy – Vice President Cheney is right, be aware that conservation when combined with technology initiatives is probably the edge we need for energy independence, and what do you have against personal virtue anyway?]. However, this would involve considerable reshaping of our work and leisure lives, so there would be significant sacrifices involved with conservation alternatives.

5. Large manufacturing and utilities scenario: this involves 1) industries finding substitutes for petroleum feedstocks and fuels starting in 2008 (three years out – they have better lobbyists), achieving 25% reduction in petroleum consumption in four years (2012); 2) utilities replacing petroleum-fired electrical plants with natural gas, solar, wind and nuclear starting in 2008 (three years out), within 5 years. The sacrifices involved may include higher prices and utility rates, since this again may involve a Manhattan Project-style effort. And, it isn’t terribly effective by comparison, with oil imports increasing 31% by 2025, and 70 % of our oil consumption coming from imports. This makes some sense – a relatively small fraction of total petroleum use goes to industrial feedstocks, and fuels such as coal and natural gas are already the major generators of electricity.

There is a wide range of scenarios that you can try out, but it becomes clear how much we need to do in terms of reorienting our lifestyles if the goal is to reduce dependence on imported oil. It’s a consistent message with the Hirsch report, which recommends that we get off our asses now and start working on implementing strategies to reduce oil consumption. This game may help some understand better what’s involved.

This is an example of a “serious game” which can be helpful in understanding a complex issue such as the outcomes energy policy choices (Forio provides some additional information here). “Addicted to Oil” is a bit on the dry side, but probably highly useful as a classroom demonstration. However, Forio does sell web simulation tools, so those who are inclined probably could try to jazz it up a bit (check out their web site for other user-created sims). In addition, I’m always interested in “looking under the hood” and checking out the equations and assumptions used in the modeling – but the game does provide references to its data, and presumably a subscription gets you access to the model equations. However, at the end of the day, I agree with Clive Thompson about sims such as “Addicted to Oil” for understanding environmental problems:

This, ultimately, is the brilliance of using game-like simulations to teach people about politics. Because the best way to learn about a complex system is by poking and prodding it. Indeed, that might be the only way to truly internalize something really complex: You have to experience it for yourself. If you'd explained to me, in words, just how hard-core our conservation would have to be to truly reduce oil usage, I probably wouldn't have believed you. But after playing around with the sim for a while I'm kind of stunned into re-appreciating the magnitude of our oil problem.

Don’t Send and Attorney – An Update on Air Toxics Emissions

I wanted to quickly return to this topic, before I go out on the road again, and before it gets lost amidst more urgent matters (cell phone- and obesity-induced disappearing honeybee terrorism global warming metabolic syndrome, or something like that).

Last month, I took to task the Environmental Integrity Project for presenting an incomplete picture of the risks from emissions of toxic substances to the air from oil refineries. The Project’s report Refined Hazard" discusses the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reports submitted to EPA specifically from oil refineries. Specifically, the report examines "OSHA carcinogens", which refers to whether or not a chemical will be identified on the Material Safety Data Sheet as a carcinogen. It provides a "top ten" list of refineries in terms of emissions of OSHA carcinogens, and concludes that, while emissions of carcinogens have declined on an industry-wide basis between 1999 and 2004, there have been substantial increases at some facilities over the same time period. Finally, the report raises questions regarding the accuracy of TRI reporting.

The report acknowledges that TRI data do not reveal actual levels of public exposure to those chemicals. However, this understanding appears to be honored more in the breach; for example, statements such as these can be found in the report:

For example, the La Gloria refinery in Tyler, Texas, was the fourth largest emitter of OSHA carcinogens in 2004, but at 55,000 barrels per day, it is ranked 95th in overall production capacity. La Gloria’s 2004 releases of benzene, a known human carcinogen, at 117,890 pounds, far exceeded those from refineries several times its size. Two small Kansas refineries, National Cooperative Refining Association (“NCRA”) and Coffeyville Resources Refining and Marketing, were also notable for their disproportionately high releases of OSHA carcinogens.

Ok, so we can see that emissions controls may not be as tight in smaller facilities compared with larger facilities run by the major oil companies. Not a real surprise. But what's this mean in terms of potential human exposure?

Probably not as much as you would think. Two major well-conducted studies on exposure to airborne contaminants, the TEAM (Total Exposure Assessment Methodology) Study, completed by the EPA in the 1980s, and the Relationships of Indoor, Outdoor, and Personal Air (RIOPA), published in 2005, suggest that outdoor emission sources might not dominate our exposure to emissions to the air from stationary sources such as refineries. Some sound bites from the RIOPA report:

The investigators measured indoor, outdoor and personal exposure concentrations (from air sampling monitors that people wore) in adult residents in each of three cities with different air pollutant sources and weather conditions: Los Angeles, CA, Houston, TX and Elizabeth, NJ. Homes were selected by distance from various sources.

The homes and subjects selected did not proportionally represent the greater population. Rather, homes close to sources were preferentially sampled in order to examine the impact of possibly high exposures.

So, this study was designed to evaluate the potential influences of stationary source emissions on exposure to air toxics. What it concluded was:

With a few exceptions, mean and median personal exposures and indoor concentrations of VOCs and carbonyls were higher than the outdoor concentrations within each city and for the whole data set. Personal PM2.5 concentrations were higher than indoor and outdoor concentrations. The finding that personal exposure concentrations were higher than outdoor concentrations for many compounds indicates that indoor sources contribute to and in some cases dominate, personal exposures; this is consistent with the results from other studies.

This is consistent with the TEAM study results, which concluded that bringing home dry cleaning, using self-serve gas stations and storing gas cans in your garage, using municipal water supplies that were chlorinated, and having “moth balls” in your home were more important sources of inhalation exposure to tetrachloroethylene (perc), benzene, chloroform and para-dichlorobenzene, than industrial sources. I have yet to see these findings reflected in air toxics control strategies (which are focused on reducing stationary source emissions), and to this day, I don’t understand why that is.

Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder and the Decline of Pollinators

Buried amidst all of the scare stories this week about cell phones causing Colony Collapse Disorder in honeybees is a more important point: populations of pollinators have been in decline for years. The importance of pollinators to humans should be obvious. If it isn’t, let me restate the pull quote from the recent National Academy of Sciences report:

About three-quarters of the world’s flowering plant species rely on pollinators—insects, birds, bats, and other animals—to carry pollen from the male to the female parts of flowers for reproduction. There is direct evidence for decline of some pollinator species in North America. For many species, there has not been enough monitoring over time to determine whether or not there has been a population decline.

Honeybees are essential in the production of numerous food crops, especially the more nutritious fruits and vegetables, they’ve been slowly disappearing for years, and we have not been investing enough resources to better understand their biology. This is a collection of facts that doesn’t speak highly to our intelligence as a species. Dr. May Berenbaum of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is one of the authors of the NAS report, and also gave testimony to Congress last month on CCD. Dr. Berenbaum’s testimony frames the issue nicely:

Honey bees are in effect six-legged livestock that both manufacture agricultural commodities – honey and wax – and, more importantly, contribute agricultural services – pollination. Close to 100 crop species in the U.S. rely to some degree on pollination services provided by this one species – collectively, these crops make up approximately 1/3 of the U.S. diet, including the majority of high-value crops that contribute to healthy diets. Although economists differ in calculating the exact dollar value of honey bee pollination to American agriculture, virtually all estimates are in the range of billions of dollars. It is difficult in fact to think of any other multi-billion-dollar agricultural enterprise that is so casually monitored.

Dr. Berenbaum points out that grain crops, the primary supply of dietary energy, do not rely on pollinators. So, at least we’re not going to go hungry in terms of calories. However, declines in pollinators will affect the availability of fruits, nuts and vegetables which provide the bulk of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients. This is the environmental health angle to CCD.

Just weeks before Dr. Berenbaum’s testimony, the Centers for Disease Control published a survey of fruit and vegetable consumption among adults, conducted as part of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). A diet high in fruits and vegetables is associated with decreased risk for chronic diseases. In addition, lots of fruits and vegetables in the diet are important for maintaining a healthy weight, because the have low energy density (i.e., few calories relative to volume). In simple terms, the survey concluded that Americans do not eat enough fruits and vegetables, a fact that perversely does not come to the surface in all of the hand-wringing about health insurance. With this in mind, we don’t really need another excuse such as higher prices to avoid eating more fruits and vegetables.

The discussions of pollinators and CCD come at a time when the Farm Bill is up for renewal in Congress. Dr. Berenbaum chronicled the dismal state of agricultural research: where the National Research Initiative, the USDA’s tool for basic biological research, is funded for a paltry $180 million, for all grants; where there is no ongoing systematic surveillance program to monitor pollinator health, an astonishing state of affairs given their importance to agriculture; where members of the Colony Collapse Disorder Working Group have been donating time and resources to study this increasingly urgent problem – the season in which crops need to be pollinated is fast approaching, and there still aren’t any good answers yet about causes or prevention of CCD.

It’s hard to know if, with the din of other matters both important and trivial, this is going to receive the attention it deserves. It’s too early to tell, but we should watch the news of CCD closely because it might provide an example of just what an ecological disaster looks like.

So Perhaps Now We’ll Take Global Climate Change Seriously?

It has always easy for our current Administration to ignore global climate change as long as it remained an environmental problem. When the realization began to grow that it was becoming an economic problem and a business driver, the Bushies needed to at least acknowledge it, because major corporations were getting more involved. Not that acknowledgement meant they had to address it, because climate change still wasn’t the hot button national security was.

Apparently that’s beginning to change. Tomorrow, the CNA Corporation will release a report written by several retired military officials concluding that global climate change presents a serious national security threat that could affect Americans at home, impact U.S. military operations and heighten global tensions.

No kidding.

Nearly ten years ago, Thomas Homer-Dixon began studying the relationships between environmental stress in poor countries, particularly scarcities of cropland, forests, and fresh water, and outbreaks of violent conflict, such as insurgency and ethnic strife. Those studies can be accessed at the Project on Environment, Population, and Security and at the Project on Environmental Scarcities, State Capacity, and Civil Violence. In 2003, Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall wrote a paper for the Pentagon discussing the national security implications of “abrupt” climate change which could potentially destabilize the geopolitical environment, leading to skirmishes, battles, and even wars due to resource constraints including food shortages brought about by decreases in net global agricultural production, decreased availability and quality of fresh water in key regions through changing precipitation patterns, causing more frequent floods and droughts, and disruptions in transportation of energy supplies due to extensive sea ice and storminess (the report can be downloaded from Grist). Environmental causes such as drought and desertification may be contributing factors to the war in Darfur.

So the only real news here is that important people in government have been able to resolutely ignore years of warning signs.

The CNA report explores ways projected climate change is a “threat multiplier” in already fragile regions of the world, exacerbating conditions that lead to failed states which are the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism.

As part of its five specific recommendations for action, the Military Advisory Board stated that “the path to mitigating the worst security consequences of climate change involves reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.” According to retired General Gordon R. Sullivan, former Army Chief of Staff, “There is a relationship between carbon emissions and our national security”.

Others put it a little more starkly:

“We will pay for this one way or another,” stated retired Marine Corps General Anthony C. Zinni, former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East. “We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or, we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll.”

The report identifies the potential impacts from environmental threats, including massive migrations, increased border tensions, increased need for humanitarian relief operations, and conflicts over important resources, including food and water. It discusses the military and national security implications on a region-by-region basis.

The report includes several formal findings:

- Projected climate change poses a serious threat to America's national security.
- Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world.
- Projected climate change will add to tensions even in stable regions of the world.
- Climate change, national security and energy dependence are a related set of global challenges.

The report also made several specific recommendations:

- The national security consequences of climate change should be fully integrated into national security and national defense strategies.
- The U.S. should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate changes at levels that will avoid significant disruption to global security and stability.
- The U.S. should commit to global partnerships that help less developed nations build the capacity and resiliency to better manage climate impacts.
- The Department of Defense should enhance its operational capability by accelerating the adoption of improved business processes and innovative technologies that result in improved U.S. combat power through energy efficiency.
- DoD should conduct an assessment of the impact on US military installations worldwide of rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and other possible climate change impacts over the next thirty to forty years.

These come from the Military Advisory Board that is composed of eleven of the nation's most senior former officers and national security experts. It’s going to be interesting now to watch the Bush Administration beat the drums for the Global War on Terror and not talk about mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

Pediatric Environmental Health Tools from the Physicians for Social Responsibility

The Physicians for Social Responsibility have a nice page of environmental health information on their web site. First among these is a Pediatric Environmental Health Tool Kit that combines a reference guide and "anticipatory guide" for health providers with educational materials for parents on preventing chemical exposures that can affect infant and child health. According to PSR’s web site, the tool kit is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The Reference Guide, a four page table of information on several chemical substances of concern for pediatric health, provides reasonable introductions to each substance. However, as with any document that provides an extremely tight summary of hazard information, some useful information is left out, such as what levels of exposure in the body or environment are of concern. It’s an inevitable result of the process of producing a readable summary, and it may be useful to also point health providers to the next layer of detail about specific chemicals, such as the resources provided by ATSDR, including ToxFAQs and the toxicological profiles.

The Anticipatory Guidance Pocket Card is a handy item that:

. . . fits in a large pocket for handy use during a well child visit. The topics on the pocket card are both developmentally appropriate and take advantage of “teachable moments.” For example, at a newborn visit, the provider will naturally discuss infant feeding. Exchanging mercury thermometers for safer digital ones is another easy step that a provider can mention at an early visit. These flexible guidance points provide clinicians with an age appropriate menu of choices to discuss during routine visits.

The advice on it is linked to various development stages. For example, advice during prenatal development includes “avoid eating fish high in mercury or PCBs/dioxins”. Advice for parents with newborns includes “encourage breastfeeding” and “avoid polycarbonate bottles which may leach plasticizers”. There are also safety tips covering carbon monoxide detectors and smoke detectors, encouragement to avoid pesticide use, as well as mention of indoor air pollutants including radon and molds, lead exposure, childhood poisoning prevention, prevention of overexposure to sunlight, healthy eating, TV watching, physical activity, noise exposure, and tobacco use and substance abuse. It’s more of a checklist, without any details on what to do regarding each of these hazards, and presumably the pediatrician provides the specifics during wellness visits. About the only omissions I observed were that it doesn’t mention brominated fire retardants and allergens that could provoke childhood asthma; I call these out because previous studies suggest that carpet dust can be a reservoir for both BFRs and allergens, which should trigger a reminder regarding vacuuming carpets.

However, the 4 page paper “Key Concepts in Pediatric Environmental Health” does include mention of BFRs and asthma. This paper also highlights childrens’ vulnerabilities to toxic substances based on their higher rates of exposure and lesser-developed metabolic defense mechanisms. It mentions the influences of food choices and the built environment on health, setting the stage for preventing childhood obesity. It also focuses on preventing exposure pathways in the built environment, mentioning dust as an exposure medium for pollutants (PCBs, BFRs and lead) and allergens. Other topics addressed in this paper include body burden and breast feeding, “acceptable risk” (or as the paper states it, the declining threshold of harm) and higher risk communities, with low-income or minority populations who experience higher levels of exposure to air pollutants or other hazardous substances.

The most important feature for me is the statement in the paper that “[p]hysicians can protect their pediatric patients by taking environmental/occupational histories of parents and caregivers, and offering appropriate recommendations”. Again, I feel that physicians can be provided with more information regarding the appropriate recommendations, but overall this paper as advertised discusses the “key concepts”.

For the parents, there is a fact sheet “Rx for Prevention”, which goes through the hazards and prevention steps at different developmental stages, and refrigerator magnets and posters with prevention messages. PSR also sponsors training events around the country for health providers.

On a little more political note, PSR also provides a “Prescription for a Secure and Healthy World”, focusing on issues of ending dependence on foreign oil, global climate change and proliferation of nuclear weapons. It contains an online petition that PSR will send to members of Congress, and a resource guide. Another feature of the “prescription” is the “Comprehensive Briefing Book on Key Environmental Health Issues”, addressed to the members of Congress, but a good source of talking points for anyone on fifteen key environmental health issues.

Update on Environmental Health Perspectives

I’ve posted a story over on Daily Kos about the efforts of the NIEHS director to neuter the effectiveness of Environmental Health Perspectives (over in the blogroll), the premier scientific journal on all matters related to the health effects from toxic substances in the environment, global climate change and other matters related to environmental health.

The best sound-bite about this matter is the news that the NIEHS director David Schwartz wanted to outsource publication of EHP because its budget could be better spent on other things — especially research. According to the Society of Environmental Journalists, the plan is to cut EHP's annual budget from over $3 million in 2005 down to about $500,000. That is about half of what Director Schwartz spent remodeling his office after he arrived at NIEHS — an office that had just been remodeled.

Hat tip to Effect Measure and SEJ for being on top of this story.

Memo to Ezra Klein: How Not to Cite a Health Study

Question for Ezra Klein. Why are you getting your health data from the Cato Institute? It was headache-making for me to read the progression from a rather limited study. . .

Rational decision-makers will take into account forecasts of longevity and quality of life in making their work and savings decisions. Public policy must account for this as well. Every additional year of life after age 65 is associated with about $15,000 of social security and medical care spending, and years spent disabled result in substantially greater medical spending than years spent without disability. . . .

. . . to one sweeping generalization . . .

Americans are getting healthier in spite of a little extra flab.

. . . to another. . .

Americans are actually becoming substantially healthier, even as our waistlines expand.

Let’s first review the quantitative results from the Cutler, Glaeser and Rosen study, and then look at where the authors might have overstated their conclusions a bit based on those findings. First, the results (from the summary):

For the population aged 25-74, the 10 year probability of death fell from 9.8 percent in 1971-75 to 8.4 percent in 1999-2002. Among the population aged 55-74, the 10 year risk of death fell from 25.7 percent to 21.7 percent. The largest contributors to these changes were the reduction in smoking and better control of blood pressure.

So, there’s a reduction in overall mortality, and it might be related to people smoking less and better blood pressure medication (I’m fairly sure people aren’t controlling their blood pressure better using exercise and diet. . . ). However, the authors don’t make clear how this translates to:

Examining these factors as a whole, we show significant improvements in the health risk profile of the U.S. population between the early 1970s and the early 2000s. Reduced smoking, better control of medical risk factors such as hypertension and cholesterol, and better education among the older population have been more important for mortality than the substantial increase in obesity.

Reduction in mortality doesn’t translate directly to “significant improvement in the health risk profile”. For example, the authors didn’t go into why they feel we’re getting healthier if the overall prevalence of diabetes is increasing over time, and if we’re spending more to treat it. I have to wonder if Ezra and the Cato Institute are implying that we’re getting healthier because we spend more money to keep at bay a lifestyle-related chronic degenerative disease. Shades of Mad Hatter economics. . . .

While the underlying purpose for the study isn’t mentioned in the paper, it is interesting to note that it was funded by the Social Security Administration. I have to wonder if it’s intended to figure out how much of an impact there’s going to be to the Fund from the reduced mortality. For example, the Centers for Disease Control have reported:

At least 80% of seniors have at least one chronic condition, and 50% have at least two. These conditions can cause years of pain, disability, and loss of function. About 12 million seniors living at home report that chronic conditions limit their activities. Three million older adults say they cannot perform basic activities of daily living, such as bathing, shopping, dressing, or eating. Their quality of life suffers as a result, and demands on family and caregivers can be challenging.

And, the introduction of the Cutler, Glaeser and Rosen study does state:

Every additional year of life after age 65 is associated with about $15,000 of social security and medical care spending, and years spent disabled result in substantially greater medical spending than years spent without disability.

So, is the Cutler, Glaeser and Rosen study is one piece of information about the impact of increased longevity on social security and medical spending? The study doesn’t really say that, but it’s not an unreasonable inference. But it is a broad overstatement to say the Cutler, Glaeser and Rosen paper is evidence that we’re getting healthier even as we get fatter.

It’s no surprise to me that the Cato Institute would go there. However, I am surprised that Ezra Klein would fall for it.

We’re Right, Who Cares if We’re Boring?

PZ Myers issues a bit of a screed about scientists framing messages, and why scientists are perceived at being bad at “communicating”. His conclusion is that scientists shouldn’t need to speak so slowly and use such small words in order to frame their topics properly, and that the media and public need to claw their way to the deeper understanding of nature that scientists have.

He implores, “[j]ust don't ask us to do all of a huge subject like evolution in a couple of snazzy sentences. . . .” I would ask, why not? You could start the elevator message with the importance of understanding evolution is, as citizens, to be able to participate in the public debate about a range of issues, including endangered species, global climate impacts, genetically modified foods, pesticides in agriculture. You can’t be a good citizen if you don’t understand evolution. (Here’s some supplemental reading on “elevator messages”, for those who are interested).

How about that for starters? After you get that across, then you can start telling stories about natural history, with themes related to evolution. I’ve always liked how Stephen J. Gould makes natural history and by extension, evolutionary biology, come alive. More scientists could stand to learn to interact with the public in the same way he did.

PZ even has the start of an elevator message:

In the battleground I play in, the evolution/creation wars, I know that the majority of the public are victims. We share common values: they are promoting their particular beliefs not because they are stupid or evil, but because they care about living in a good society, because they want their children to grow up economically successful and personally happy, and they are convinced that evolution threatens their personal bliss. (They're wrong, of course, because they've been lied to, but they don't know that.) One effective tactic for our side is to hammer on those shared values, and point out that good science is essential for economic competitiveness, for medical progress, and to improve everything from agriculture to reproductive biology.

A practical suggestion I would have in crafting this message is that people may not be inclined to listen if they feel that their intelligence is being insulted. This observation is based on my experience with risk communication and public involvement associated with hazardous waste site cleanups – the fact that we experts knew more than the community members about the technical topics actually matters very little in the process of engaging them as stakeholders and trying to get their acceptance of a particular cleanup option.

In the original Matthew Nisbet and Chris Mooney paper that Myers is commenting on, it says:

On these highly politicized topics, scientists need to stop thinking that technical knowledge, alone, suffices to drive decision-making or change minds. That's simply not how the media works, or how the public perceives and processes information. The article (which I'll post as soon as available) ends with this coda:

Some readers may consider our proposals too Orwellian, preferring the traditional model of safely sticking to the facts. Yet scientists must realize that these facts will be repeatedly misapplied and twisted in direct proportion to their relevance to the political debate and decision-making. In short, as unnatural as it might feel, in many cases, scientists should strategically avoid emphasizing the technical details of science when trying to defend it.

This is an astonishing admission to make nearly 50 years after “The Two Cultures”. Flawed as it might have been, Snow’s essay still should have been a wakeup call for those scientists interested in the social relevance of their work to find tools for communicating to tough audiences.

PZ also takes the media to task for why scientists are perceived as poor communicators:

Now we may suck at giving the attention-grabbing 15-second sound bite, but that's not what we do. We are experts at explaining complex subjects which do not fit into the format expected of television news, but hasn't everyone noticed that television news is utterly useless at transmitting substantive information? Instead of complaining that our culture's class of experts at technical subjects aren't sufficiently pithy for a dumbed-down, low-bandwidth, superficial medium, why aren't we fastening the blame on the media for inappropriately using our experts' talents?

Ok, at this point, it’s useful to recall the phrase, “never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel” (supposedly from Mark Twain), or its 21st century equivalent, “never pick a fight with someone who buys bandwidth by the gigabit”. If getting your message out is important, you have to know more about what you’re up against.

The news media are in the business to make money, and must deliver a product that their customers desire. The customers of the media are advertisers, and the product being delivere are readers or viewers. If narrative, violence and conflict are what bring the eyeballs to the advertisers, that's what the media outlets are going to provide. The news media are biased towards what's "new" and "fresh", something not oriented to extended analysis of a topic. Visual depictions get more attention than text. Bad news is more compelling than good news. So, for example, melting ice floes don't do much to highlight the story of global climate change. However, add a couple of drowning polar bears to the picture, and people start to take more notice.

For me, the most important thing to understand about the news media is the need for narrative:

The news media cover the news in terms of "stories" that must have a beginning, middle, and end--in other words, a plot with antagonists and protagonists. Much of what happens in our world, however, is ambiguous. The news media apply a narrative structure to ambiguous events suggesting that these events are easily understood and have clear cause-and-effect relationships. Good storytelling requires drama, and so this bias often leads journalists to add, or seek out, drama for the sake of drama. Controversy creates drama. Journalists often seek out the opinions of competing experts or officials in order to present conflict between two sides of an issue (sometimes referred to as the authority-disorder bias). Lastly, narrative bias leads many journalists to create, and then hang on to, master narratives--set story lines with set characters who act in set ways. Once a master narrative has been set, it is very difficult to get journalists to see that their narrative is simply one way, and not necessarily the correct or best way, of viewing people and events.

It is this hardening of news into master narratives, combined with the media's tendency to reinforce the status quo and to appeal to fairness (i.e. presenting both "sides" of an issue, regardless of how wrong one side might be) that thwart the introduction of scientific thought into public discourse. If the master narrative is that there is disagreement among experts about the fact of global climate change, that's going to resonate more than the fact that those who disagree are marginal scientists or being paid to disagree. If the master narrative is that there is a plausible model in addition to evolution and natural selection to explain biodiversity, that combined with the appeal to "fairness" will compel people to give intelligent design a chance, regardless of how scientifically wrong-headed it is.

Overcoming these master narratives, not complaining about them, is the task faced by scientists who want their ideas heard in by the public. So, I'm lining up with Nisbet and Mooney on this one.

Light Posting

I've been traveling all week, and will be traveling extensively in April. so posting is going to be light. So I'll get started again next week. It's interesting to note that another group is drawing attention to industrial emissions from the TRI inventory and just asserting a linkage with health risks. I'm still working on a response to this, but I made some progress this week - I found copies of EPA's TEAM report - published 20 years ago and still the definitive statement about exposure to air toxics. They can't be found except from NTIS, but I downloaded these from EPA's online library, the National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP). Having surfed around it, I think it could take some of the sting out of EPA libraries being closed.

The NAS and PCE

I missed this before. The National Academy of Sciences has been asked by the EPA to conduct a scientific review of the EPA’s external review draft "Toxicological Review of Tetrachloroethylene (Perchloroethylene) CAS No. 127-18-4 in Support of Information on the Integrated Risk Information System". I suppose this is a bit of a timesaver that reflects lessons-learned from the review of TCE. If you recall, the EPA released a draft risk assessment for TCE in 2001 which was shelled by stakeholders including the DOD, solvents and aerospace industries, prompting a year-and-a-half NAS review which was completed in July 2006. By the way, what’s happening with TCE these days? The NAS report on it came out seven months ago. Haven’t heard a peep from EPA about revising the risk assessment. . . .

EPA is getting out ahead of matters this time –the toxicological review document isn’t even out in draft yet (EPA’s web site for PCE is here). It was requested by the Office of Air and Radiation, for purposes of evaluating PCE as a hazardous air pollutant. I suppose that makes sense, to have verified toxicity values for conducting residual risk assessments that assess the effectiveness of control technologies for dry cleaner emissions, implemented under the Clean Air Act.

At the same time, it’s worth raising the question of whether or not spending the better part of two years updating the risk assessment for PCE is necessary to help us manage the risks associated with its use in dry cleaning. Maybe California’s model is the way to go for addressing health risks from PCE.