we would like to think that science can tell us what to do about the environment, we don't need to get into messy politics. But it doesn't work that way:
- science doesn't give us nice neat answers
- we often have to make decisions before the science is entirely clear
- we need the political
process to make reasonable decisions when people have different values
and goals
- in elementary school you learn science as a set of true facts
- next level--science is a method of discovering new true facts
- it often takes a long time
before people agree on the "facts"--when scientists come up with a new
theory there is often a period of controversy before it is accepted
- environmental
science/ecology are fairly young science haven't gotten to the point
yet where scientists agree on a lot
- (next level) is there ever such a thing as a true fact? is Pluto a planet--that is a matter of how you define what a planet is and different definitions have different advantages
- science works--it makes
accurate predictions--but our scientific ideas are one way of
describing the world, not the only way
- is the definition of
species based on underlying reality--you have different species if they
can't reproduce together. But it doesn't actually work that
neatly.
- pilosophers say you can never prove something to be true, though maybe you can prove it to be false (Karl Popper)
- science does not give us
conclusive answers, there is always still room to argue
- it is impossible to teach environmental science in a completely unbiassed way
- different scientists
think different things are important, based on what are issues they
think we should worry about
- you may want to teach about topics where scientists are not yet in agreement
- very often the scientists are not going to be able to come to an agreement in time for the policy decision to be made
- usually there is at least
some disagreement among the experts
- what should you do when you have to make a decision based on incomplete and disputed information?
- we need to have some idea how to evaluate the quality of information and decide what risks we are willing to take
- the political process needs
to set the goals (values) then science/experts can help figure out how
to get there
- take-home point:
science is not nice and neat--political issues about the environment
can't simply be left to science/experts
James Watt
- an example of how
environmental management could become politicized
- Appointed by Ronald Reagan
as Secretary of the Interior (Park Service, Bureau of Land Management,
Geological Survey)
- his goal was development rather than protecting the environment
- some of his actions made
visible divisions hidden in the environmental movement
- consider as an issue
snowmobiles in Yellowstone (or whether to re-introduce wolves)
- allowed on roads--how is
this different from cars in the summer?
- began to expand in the late 1960s
- environmentalists have
fought against this several times
- effect on wildlife
- public use and economic benefits vs. wilderness preservation
- limits: 950 snowmobiles
allowed per day
- ranchers had traditionally
paid small fees to use public land, some limits to how many cattle
allowed
- ranchers who felt they had the right to continue to use federal land the way they had
- mostly land owned by the Bureau of Land Management
- BLM started to raise fees
and further limit the number of grazing animals allowed to protect the
land
- argued for the states to take over federal land
- several states passed laws claiming that federal land was now state land
- Congress refused to accept this
- an example of anti-environmentalists who were encouraged by the Reagan administration
- Reagan could get away with
slowing down environmental protection more than Nixon could because
public opinion was more divided
As opposition becomes more visible, some environmentalists become more radical
Earth First
- a few people who were
very frustrated that the RARE II roadless (wilderness) area review had
recommended
very few new roadless areas except at high altitudes where it would be
difficult to log
- frustrated with mainstream environmental organizations (like the Sierra Club) for compromising, even before Reagan became president
- organizers wanted to
preserve the maximum amount of wilderness
- they wanted not just wilderness preservation but also wilderness recovery--remove roads and dams
- their goal was to be the the shock troops for wilderness
- guerilla theater, demonstrations,
civil disobedience--breaking the law to make a point
- refused to condemn sabotage that didn't harm lives
- Edward Abbey, The Monkey
Wrench Gang, 1975
- spiking trees--sneak in and put large nails in trees, a risk to the loggers cutting them down
- the environmental movement was
doing things that endangered people--bad publicity
- tree-sitting
- organized small regional groups,
not a national organization
- grew in size
- opposition to the
environmental movement became more organized
- became more divided--some
radicals, other groups with other ideas and tactics