The public perception of science,
and thus the role of science
in governing society risk
acceptance, is a dynamic interplay
that changes proportionally with
the expansion of the information-society,
involving the public’s general educational
level, access to information,
and speed of organization, for example,
through the Internet. This process
has, together with expanding economic
markets, paved the way for the Precautionary
Principle/Approach (PP/A).
This article will take us on a scientific
journey that has led to this dynamic
situation with respect to environmental
risks.
The Chinese technological development
was centuries ahead of the
European when Marco Polo made his
way to China in 1271. The Chinese
philosophy of science and technological
innovation was based on association
rather than causation. Association
is the interrelationship between phenomena,
determined on a purely
empirical basis, without interpretation
of the relationship expressed as natural
laws. The Chinese used “trial and
error”, rather than modeling causality
and investigation of natural laws.
Figure 1
Figure 2
The European scientific development
relies on causation, with its origins
in Greek culture (Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, etc.). What was outstanding,
was that, besides the development of
technology, interpretation of nature
occurred, and the concept of ontology
was born, that allows exploration of
scientific laws. Sir Isaac Newton made
a giant leap forward in this process in
contribution to classical physics,
chemistry, and biology. With this
approach European science and technology
rapidly surpassed the Chinese.
The Newtonian physics were subsequently
interpreted in deterministic
terms prompted by Aguste Comte in the late 1800s and refined by the
Vienna school after World War I, a
time when fascism also surfaced in
Europe. According to the deterministic
and positivistic philosophy, Nature can
“talk”, and we just need to record the
data; there is ultimately right and
wrong. Figure 1, shows the assumed
clear border between what is known
and what is not.
However, these deterministic ideologies
were dismantled by Sir Karl
Popper in the 1930s, with his falsification
theory, which states that to be considered
science, there has to be a formulated,
falsifiable hypothesis – nothing
is ever 100% right. Moreover,
Bohr, together with Heisenberg, formulated
Quantum Mechanics in the
1920s, which showed that basic
physics, the centre of deterministic
success, developed beyond Newtonian
physics, in which the stochastic elements
overshadow the deterministic
predictability. This resulted in basic
questions relating to inadequacy and
scientific adherence to determinism
being put to rest nearly a century ago.
Figure 2, shows the contemporary
view that knowledge fades through
uncertainty into ignorance.
In 1962, Thomas S. Kuhn published
his book “The Structure Of Scientific
Revolutions”, and the bottom line is
that Popper is too idealistic in his
demands to falsification. We use
imperfect theories ad hoc all the time,
as long as they perform their role in
society to satisfaction – in other words,
it is a poor craftsman who blames his
tools.
Moreover, the reality is that scientists
tend to care for their theories and
the time and effort they put into their
work, so they do not rejoice over falsification
of their theories and concepts
following decades of work. In using
scientific theories ad hoc, Kuhn points
out that we construct paradigms and
these change as science progresses or
the societal requirements to the paradigm
change. The Swiss psychologist
Piaget’s theories of social and radical
constructivism surfaced in the 1970s.
His theories, which mainly govern the
social sciences, state that all knowledge
is a human construction, that
reality is not accessible to human
knowledge, and that knowledge is
always very context dependent.
The core behind this philosophy
springs from the dialectics in our
brain-structure (left and right) and language
which is typically constructed
around dialectic concepts (whiteblack,
hot-cold, on-off, etc.) and the
lack of ability, conceptionally, to grasp all the intermediates between. Their
conclusion is that all knowledge, more
or less, is the construction we have
adapted to our societal needs and
development.
The German sociologist, Ulrich
Beck, diagnosed the post-modern era
we live in as a Risk Society. Beck summarized
the threats of individually
uncontrollable severe environmental
risks, public knowledge of scientific
uncertainty, the information society,
and social constructivism. Beck’s conclusion
was that science is disqualified
from solving environmental risks,
because it is science which has driven
the technological development that
creates environmental risks. Science is
part of the problem – not the solution.
On top of this development is rapid
expansion of international trade and
political conglomeration that may
intentionally, or not intentionally, produce
barriers to trade, through implementation
of the Precautionary Principle/
Approach.
The Precautionary Principle/
Approach has been implemented in the
European Union (EU) since 2000, and
in Canada since 2003. The conclusion
for both is that PP/A is a legitimate
part of decision-making and should be
implemented via the existing risk
assessment and risk management paradigm.
The rules for PP/A have to be
intelligible and transparent.
The background for PP/A is to
increase public trust in the risk management
process and the politicians.
Public participation is important to
increase trust, and to inform decisionmakers
relating to publically acceptable
risks and effects. It is realized that
the public, given the adequate information
on the pros and cons associated
with an activity or technology, have a
much better perception of risks than
previously assumed by the decisionmakers
and specialists in risk assessment
and management. It is when the
information is asymmetrical and inadequate
on pros and cons, that the public
reacts with fear, risk aversion, and
unrealistic wishes for action. With
PP/A, decisions are made adaptive, so
when more and better knowledge is
available, decisions may be changed,
either relaxed or the opposite relating
to risk acceptability. Decisions based
on PP/A have to be least trade restrictive,
more cost-effective, and proportional
to the severity of the risk. In
Canada, PP/A should be applied when
there is:
a) need for a decision;
b) risk of serious or irreversible harm;
c) lack of scientific certainty.
The party that markets the activity
under revision must produce data to
mitigate risk (reversed burden of
proof). It is realized that in key tenets
for governing society and risk acceptability,
economy and science, ethics
are systematically removed from these
realms, and that sustainability is often
not economically viable in the shortterm
analysis, as environmental externalities
are rarely internalized in
cost/price analyses.
So, politicians and decision-makers
need a tool for implementation and
fast tracking of sustainable and ethical
decision-making, to optimize resource
allocation between environmental science
and policy-making – and restore
public trust – thus PP/A. Key aspects
in the PP/A process are ambiguity and denial associated with scientific uncertainty
and severity of risks; these can
only be addressed successfully through
a democratic process and consensus.
Notable is the regulation of
biosolids, which have been subjected
to changes due to PP/A implementation.
In Switzerland, a total ban has
been laid on the application of
biosolids from meat processing plants
and slaughterhouses, due to concerns
of spreading BSE and Mad Cow
Disease. As of 2006, all biosolids in
Switzerland will have to be incinerated
at an extra cost of some 40 million
Canadian dollars per year.
In Denmark, a voluntary phase out
of Nonylphenol (a non-ionic surfactant)
by the soap and detergent industry
by 2000, allowed 75% of all
biosolids to be applied to Danish farmland.
Nonylphenol is an endocrine disrupting
compound (estrogen-mimicking)
present in biosolids, and had been
found to resist degradation when not
exposed to oxygen. Swiss studies
showed that a build-up could occur in
soils treated with biosolids. Nonylphenol
is unwanted due to lack of scientific
certainty relating to the human
and wildlife effects it may have
through mimicking estrogen. This triggered
the use of PP/A in Denmark.
These cases raise questions regarding
the Canadian regulation of
biosolids. Do biosolids fulfill the three
main tenets for invocation, as mentioned
above, in Canada? If yes, which
actions should be taken? A significant
conclusion is that public perception
and regulatory demands in addressing
environmental risks change at a much
faster rate than science and most scientists
realize. This change shapes environmental
science today and for the
future.
A general comment could be that
we accept that human and environmental
health are interlinked, yet we accept
different levels of proof and causality
for actions. In human health issues, we
rightly tend to be very proactive and
act on concerns relating to symptoms;
whereas, when relating to environmental
health issues, we are more reactive
and tend to require strong evidence
before we act. The requirements to
causality (cause and effect) in human
health issues are, typically, to identify
a cause, whereas in environmental
issues the requirements, typically, are
determining the cause, before actions
are taken.
It would seem logical to apply more
coherent demands to causality between
the two, levelling the requirements to
environmental health issues closer to
human health concerns. This should be
done instead of focussing on searching
for the cause of unwanted adverse
effects, when appropriate, and when
they are clearly interconnected, or ethical
and ecosystem functions require
this from us. We should perhaps focus
more on multiple causes and use
weight of evidence in our decisionmaking.
Dedicated to my friend and mentor Poul
Harremoës.
Adapted from a presentation given at
the Water Environment Association of
Ontario Biosolids Seminar, February,
2004.
Hans Sanderson is with the
Centre for Toxicology at the University
of Guelph. Contact, e-mail:
hsander@uoguelph.ca.
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