Ignoring science
Several years ago Steven Milloy co-authored a book called Silencing Science in which he accused others of committing this offense. But Mr. Milloy himself is a master of one method of silencing science, simply ignoring it. Let's look at how he uses the technique in his latest Fox News commentary "Chesapeake Bay Needs Science, Not Slogans" (July 23, 2004). Milloy begins:
"Progress on reducing the pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay, North America's largest estuary, has been 'significantly overstated,' The Washington Post hyperventilated in a front-page story this week."
Note that even though the commentary was posted on the internet, no link was provided to the story. Nor was there a date, title or author. Was Mr. Milloy trying to make it hard to find this story? Here are the vital statistics. Bay Pollution Progress Overstated: Government Program's Computer Model Proved Too Optimistic by Peter Whoriskey, July 18, 2004, page A01. (In a second article Whoriskey reported that there is also controversy about measurements of dissolved oxygen levels.) Whoriskey's actual statement was that "Those reports, however, significantly overstated the environmental achievements." Hard to see how anyone could interpret this as hyperventilating, but let's move on.
It seems that the allegedly erroneous estimates of pollution reduction were based on faulty computer modeling, not actual sampling of bay water. Politicians from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia were partially to blame, suggested the Post, as they were more concerned about saving themselves and their bureaucrat regulator buddies from environmentalist and media criticism than they were about "saving the bay" — the local mantra.
The group involved was the Chesapeake Bay Program, a group Milloy does not even mention. And it is hard to see how he can claim that anything is alleged. Whoriskey reported that "Several scientists affiliated with the Chesapeake Bay Program said the water monitoring reports offer a more reliable measure of pollution reduction than the computer estimates that the program has used." A further minor nit, the measurements were made of water entering the bay, not from water in the bay itself.
I don't doubt that local politicians and regulators have been quite happy to take credit for any sort of progress toward "saving the bay," whether real or imagined. But it is the wide-eyed public — manipulated by cynical environmentalists and their media allies — that is more blameworthy.The public has made exceedingly unrealistic demands upon government officials by clamoring for "restoration" of the Chesapeake Bay. What does "restoration" really mean? Does it mean a return of the Chesapeake Bay and environs to pristine pre-Jamestown settlement conditions, circa 1607? That will be difficult to do given a current regional population numbering in the tens of millions that places tremendous commercial, agricultural, residential and recreational demands on bay resources.
Are 1900, 1950 or 2000 more reasonable baseline dates for "restoration?" Hardly. It really doesn't matter, in fact, what baseline timeframe is selected. "Restoration" will always be impossible because of continually growing and impossible-to-restrict uses and pressures placed on the Chesapeake Bay. Just like a 65-year-old person can't stop the aging process, much less go back to being an 18-year-old, we can't stop human and natural impacts on the Chesapeake or restore it to pre-civilization conditions.
Over the years, slogans have been used for a variety of reasons: to sell products ("Coke is it."), promote political candidates ("I like Ike"), rally the troops ("Remember the Alamo, the Maine, Pearl Harbor") promote ideas ("Save the whales.") etc. But now Milloy seems to have come up with a whole new use for slogans: the Slogan Defense. And there you have it, the "politicians" (actually the Chesapeake Bay Program) are not to blame, the public, and especially the "cynical environmentalists" are for using slogans and for making unrealistic demands. But "restore" has a number of definitions, and it is clear that here it does not mean a return to some arbitrary year but to a healthier state. (In fact the goals for restoration have been spelled out in great detail.)
This does not mean, however, that steps cannot be taken to reduce harmful impacts on the bay and extend its beauty and bounty for generations to come. Such potentially more realistic goals, however, will take a major change in mindset, one that no doubt will be opposed by environmental activists. Sound science and reasonable expectations are needed, not sloganeering (Save the Bay!) and unachievable eco-fantasies (e.g., "restoration").One of the major challenges facing the Chesapeake Bay — and virtually all other such estuaries in heavily populated areas — is eutrophication, the loading of water from land runoff and air deposition with nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen that contribute to algae growth and a subsequent decline in water quality. It was the alleged exaggeration of reductions in phosphorus and nitrogen loadings that was the focus of the Washington Post report.
The first thing to understand is that eutrophication is a natural process — it was even happening when Pocahontas paddled in the Chesapeake region's waters 400 years ago. There is no question that modern human activities (waste water discharges and agricultural run-off, for example) have significantly augmented always-occurring natural phosphorus and nitrogen loadings. But exactly how much and to what effect is largely unknown.
Eutrophication is natural in some cases but not in others. If nutrients are washed out faster than they are added, no euttrophication will occur. This was almost certainly the case in the bay when Pocahontas was around. The process can be greatly accelerated by human activities, resulting in cultural eutrophication. This was the main problem with Lake Erie when the slogan was "Lake Erie is dying". And the amount and effects are reasonably well known. Whoriskey reported that the bay has suffered "precipitous drops in its prized blue crab and oyster harvests, and at times its desolate 'dead zone'grew." These effects are largely the result of eutrophication.
According to the water sample data reported in The Washington Post, manmade phosphorus and nitrogen loadings have increased in some areas of the bay, decreased in some areas, but for the most part don't seem to have changed since 1985. Given the significant increase in human activity and development in the Chesapeake Bay region over the last 20 years, it would seem that we are making progress, relatively speaking, in reducing manmade phosphorus and nitrogen loadings to the bay.
So no change is now progress? Wow.
The question remains, however, how much lower, if at all, do manmade phosphorus and nitrogen loadings need to be reduced to prevent undesirable eutrophication? How much eutrophication is tolerable in the first place? These are questions to which no one seems to have satisfactory answers — short of the expected and knee-jerk, "eutrophication, bad/save the bay, good."
How does Milloy know that no one has the answers? Did he talk to the experts? Read the reports? Do a web search? If he did any of these he does not tell his readers about it. In fact it was easy for me to find that extensive research has been done on the bay, and that clean up goals are based on the best science, not slogans and fanaticism. Here is how the Chesapeake Bay Program explains the process:
How did you conclude that your nutrient reduction goals will be protective of living resources?The new nutrient reduction goals are the result of nearly three years of work by researchers from federal and state governments, universities and conservation organizations from across the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The best science available tells us that meeting the new nutrient reduction goals will provide the water quality necessary to protect living resources. Bay scientists confirmed this through a series of computer model runs that simulate future water quality conditions resulting from possible management practices implemented throughout the watershed. Science drove the development of these criteria, not political or financial limitations.
Back to Milloy:
Local governments agreed in 1987 to reduce the amount of manmade nutrients flowing into the bay by 40 percent by the year 2000. The target reduction was subsequently reduced to 20 percent for nitrogen and 31 percent for phosphorus after officials decided to exclude emission from cars and certain other sources. These targets, however, are essentially arbitrary in nature. There's no hard scientific data and analysis demonstrating that reducing nutrient loading from manmade sources by 20 percent or 40 percent — or even 80 percent, for that matter — will or won't make a difference in bay eutrophication.
Milloy tries again to claim that the goals are arbitrary, but they are not.
Chesapeake Bay policymakers just seem to be laboring in the dark, and establishing arbitrary goals in response to pressure from always-dubious environmental activists and other self-appointed Chesapeake Bay vigilantes.The sooner we stop the "Save the Bay" eco-drama and adopt a more level-headed approach to tackling the bay's problems, the sooner we'll make genuine progress — indisputable even to The Washington Post
That we need "sound science" (or some variant) has become one of the favorite mantras of the do nothing crowd. Years of research and planning can be dismissed with a few words. This is exactly what Milloy is doing here, but in this case he is stating that the science does not even exist, which is simply not true.
Written by Jim Norton
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