Your detailed and thorough post due by Wednesday@MIDNIGHT for full credit (A). Partial credit (C) can be earned by posting late, which is better than a ZERO.
Remember, weekly blogging is worth 1/3 of your entire semester grade.
Be sure to communicate with Dr. W as needed - rob.williams@madriver.com.
Read and blog MAKING ENVIRONMENTAL DECISIONS: INTRODUCTION, Chapters 4-6.
1) THESIS: IYOW, post a single sentence that captures the thesis for EACH CHAPTER of our reading.
2) EVIDENCE: Post and number THREE specific observations from EACH CHAPTER of our reading(s) that supports your thesis.
Use 2-3 sentences for each observation, and combine direct quotations from the text (AUTHOR's LAST NAME, 27), with IYOW analysis.
3) QUESTION: Include in your post a SINGLE SPECIFIC question you'd ask the class based on our readings.
Chapter 4: Consequences of our actions are often too complex to predict, so determining the level that is “safe” is inherently flawed.
ReplyDelete1. “Scientific studies are not good at determining how much of a stressful activity can be “handled” by a particular ecosystem or how much dioxin is “safe” for some animal out in the world” (59). Our earth’s ecosystems are just too intricate for us to put something as simple as a safety cap on something that is inherently damaging.
2. 4 main realities make it impossible to determine safety: a hazardous activity or substance may cause many different adverse effects, the adverse effects of a hazardous substance or activity are in addition to effects from other substances or activities, organisms have differing inherited abilities to cope and unique histories of exposure to hazards, and we don’t understand all indirect and interrelated consequences within our complex environment.
3. “We can only try to be more careful of how we treat the world and each other; we can only try to walk more lightly on the Earth than we are now walking” (73). Since we cannot truly calculate acceptable levels of damaging impacts, we need to focus on just treating the world more carefully and focusing on the best alternative instead of the least restrictive regulations.
Chapter 5: link to come
Chapter 6: In most cases, people realize that there are likely better alternatives, but this takes effort and research so they choose to stick with business as usual.
1. We pretend that we cannot think of anything better. In order to sit back and take less time and action in bettering a practice, we justify what we are already doing and making that “safer” instead of finding a fundamentally safer option.
2. For example, the incineration of hazardous waste happens all over the world but is a major issue within the US as we have a lot of chemical refuse. Alternatives include reducing toxic chemicals in the first place, bioremediation, and above ground storage, but we continue to see incinerating the chemicals as the best and quickest way of “properly” discarding the waste.
3. Furthermore, many agricultural operations grow crops in soil fumigated with methyl bromide which is a known environmental contaminant. There are a multitude of known practices that are much better alternatives include rotating crops, letting land lie unplanted, using organic mulch material, growing plants in soils unsuitable for its pests, flooding against pests, planting cover crops, breeding pest resistant plants, and biofumigating. There is no shortage of information on alternatives, but there is a shortage in the time willing to be put into adapting to a new practice.
Question: If we cannot truly determine what is safe for an ecosystem, can the best alternative even be chosen with certainty?
https://1drv.ms/p/s!ArCT3bUgkjD7gyvM6miU44QwlPxL
DeleteChapter 4
ReplyDeleteThesis: Safety is not what is being tested in risk assessment.
1. Risk assessments are not developed to actually understand how unsafe and risky a certain substance or activity is. The scientific assessments determine risk but not how much of this risk is able to be handled. “Instead, they are developed primarily to estimate how much of a hazardous substance or activity does not pose risk for living organisms out in the real world.” (59).
2. One of the major flaws of risk assessments is that there is no way that they can calculate all of the adverse effects of substance or activity. There are many examples throughout history of detrimental adverse effects happening that no one had calculated or imagined could have happened. “As the above examples show, no scientists can accurately say that is hazardous activity is safe because all consequences cannot have been considered.”(69).
3. The word safe does not mean what we think when regarding risk assessment. It is a term used by representatives of environmental groups when saying that something is less dangerous than it could be. “Accuracy will be better served if the word ‘safer’ or the phrase ‘less hazardous’ ‘less harmful’ or ‘more productive’ is used.” (72).
Chapter 5
Thesis: We should be evaluating alternatives or different goals in order to limit risks.
1. Congress and legislation have degraded our environment and public health overtime. This has been through contamination of natural systems and the elimination of habitats, extinction of species. “To the extent the governments and others encourage population growth, they support a major source of environmental impacts.” (78).
2. “There are, of course, numerous reasons to question the reality or strength of the ultimate, often thoughtlessly assumed, ‘benefits’ justification for a hazardous activity.” (79). The reasons we do these risk assessments and allow for unsafe activities to take place is because we presume that the benefit outweighs the harm. We should be evaluated more whether or not these benefits are really goals that we want to achieve or if there's an alternative.
3. “However, current laws sometimes preclude consideration of alternatives when decisions are being made about hazardous activities.” (80). The government and businesses are supposed to lessen the risk as much as possible, however they should be broadening their view and trying to find alternatives to the activity instead of just a less harmful version.
Chapter 6
Thesis: There are alternatives to the environmental degradation and harm we inflict on our bodies that our society is not open to and need to embrace.
1. “Risk assessment is not a legitimate process of assessing possible harms of activities when the only activities being assessed are harmful.” (89). The process of risk assessment is assuming that we have no other option but to cause harm. Our society has made many decisions to cause harm such as incineration of hazardous waste and many others.
2. Another Harmful activity that we participate in that we don't need to is making our paper blinding white using chlorine compounds. “The existence commercially sound alternatives to conventional paper production shows the narrowness of alternatives we consider while we expend major effort on assessing and debating their risks.” (94). There are other countries that are using products other than trees to make paper as well as our paper does not need to be this white.
3. “Our industrialized societies systematic and unnecessary pollution of water begins with our own bodies, even though we have alternatives.”(99). We spend so much time finding out how much hazer and harmful actions our planet and our bodies can take instead of focusing on how we can eliminate these actions.
Question: Why is our society refusing to accept alternatives to our harmful behaviors that other countries have already embraced?
THESIS: Science has limitations, and therefor cannot predict every factor of human or environmental behavior needed to conduct a true risk assessment.
ReplyDelete1. In the world of risk assessment, science tests how much of a substance or activity is not a threat to the community or individuals in question, and not how much is, or what the real world consequences may be. “Industry and government enthusiastically rely on the conclusions of many such partial risk assessments. The results are generally destructive, and often fatal” (O’Brien 60). Using science alone cannot determine how much of a substance is truly going to impact a system. Also, what science may consider an “insignificant impact” may be a very significant impact on an individual level.
2. Science can also fail to recognise factors outside the experiment that may be present in the real world. O’Brien uses the example of testing how many bloody marys a person can safely drink. “…outside the experiment, the same Bloody Mary might render a person unconscious if he or she has already been drinking all evening and hasn’t eaten much food” (63). This shows some of the limitations of science, and the unpredictability of how individuals will actually respond to substances or activities.
3. Companies take advantage of skewed risk assessments by marketing their products or activities as “safe”. “Many in the public have a strong emotional attachment to “safe” as a word or concept, so it is tempting to use the word in connection with campaigns to improve human behavior” (O’Brien 73). This gives people false ideas about the impacts of a product, activity, or solution, and creates a false narrative of safety. Better words to use would be “safer” or “less hazardous” than possible alternatives.
THESIS: Decision makers are interested in profits, and therefor do not consider alternatives to the way risk-assessments are conducted, because they are benefitted by the current process.
1. Decision makers are swayed by looming “success” or guaranteed profits. This gives them incentive to permit dangerous activities and skew risk assessments in their favor and putting public health on the back burner. “…permitting of dangerous activities has always been ultimately based on the assumption or the supposition that someone benefits from those activities” (O’Brien 79).
2. In raising the question of morality, it is important to not safety limitations. “It is impossible to undertake most businesses or government activities without posing some hazard to workers, the community, wildlife, or the environment” (O’Brien 80). With this being said, there is a constitutional obligation to favor least-harm alternatives over profitable and shoddy risk-assessed solutions. As of now, risk-assessments are not designed for finding or selecting those least-harm alternatives.
3. “…risk assessment raises questions about our commitment to democratic values” (O’Brien 83). O’Brien discusses how risk assessment threatens democracy. She talks about inaccessibility, the burden of proof being placed on those negatively impacted, and the use of public money. All of these factors make risk assessment a threat to democracy, as well as a violation of ethical standards that should be present in the United States.
QUESTION: Is there a way to actually involve communities in risk assessment, or is the power division within the system too defined to make that breakthrough?
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Deletehttps://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BYbzh1F6Lfcajm94ReY6TQpna2l47wMUdopxomawC4M/edit?usp=sharing
DeleteChap 4.
ReplyDeleteThesis: Partial risk assessments often lead to dangerous results
“The major scientific flaw of most risk assessment is that their goal is not really to warn of damages that might occur, as the word “risk” would imply. Instead, they are developed primarily to estimate how much of hazardous substance or activity does not pose risk for living organisms out in the real world” (O’Brien, 59) This encourages the idea that only the amount of damage living organisms can handle should be considered. This is an incorrect way to practice of “risk” assessment.
“The results of an experiment in which a healthy forest is grazed lightly by cattle, then, may not be relevant to another forest in which many other forest-stressing human activities are also taking place” (O’Brien, 64). Just because an experiment is conducted on a specific topic, does not mean that the results can be applied to all scenarios involving the same topic.
“Neither more realistic risk assessments nor reductions in pesticide residues will make remaining pesticide mixtures on infants’ and children’s food “safe” (O’Brien, 72). Even if risk assessments are treated in the way their name implies, those assessments made now would not fix the damage that has already been caused by partial risk assessments conducted beforehand.
Chap 5.
Thesis: Actions known to cause unnecessary harm are being permitted in order to avoid the struggle that is creating alternatives.
“Farmers and public agencies receive permits to release toxic pesticides out of airplanes, hoses, and underground shafts” (O’Brien, 75). Everyone is being affected by toxic waste that is being legally disposed of in places where vulnerable groups of people are as well as into shared resources like water and air.
“The medical establishment has been permitted to use large x-ray doses for mammograms and other diagnostic purposes...these appear to have been a major cause of the current increased rates of breast cancer” (O’Brien, 77). It is legal for doctors to expose women to high doses of radiation in order to provide them with what is considered preliminary care. Which is now known to give them the cancer they were testing for.
“Nevertheless, permitting of dangerous activities has always been ultimately based on the assumption or the supposition that someone benefits or from those activities” (O’Brien, 79). The notion that the benefits of someone somewhere makes the harm of many worthwhile is why there are no alternatives being searched for. We deem one benefit worthwhile and ignore the rest during risk assessment.
Chap 6.
Thesis: Society ignores alternatives in order to sustain the narrative that harm is inevitable.
“This means we can throw massive quantities of diverse chemical mixtures into a really hot incinerator, and harmless gases and benign ash will come out the other end” (O’Brien, 89). The idea that incinerators are successful at disposing of toxic chemicals is a dangerous one. If chemicals are burned where do the now toxic ash and gas go? Right into waterways and landfills. They didn’t want to consider alternative ways to dispose of this waste, of which there are many.
“In this case, the most toxic contaminant known (i.e., dioxin) is being produced by one of the most unnecessary industrial processes imaginable (making paper blinding white with chlorine dioxide)” (O’Brien, 93). Sweden already has the technology and has been using it to create chlorine-free white paper, but we need “blinding” white paper. This allows us to keep avoiding alternatives, because the one that exists doesn't do what we need.
“Our industrialized societies’’ systematic and unnecessary pollution of water begins with our own bodies, even though we have alternatives” (O’Brien, 99). Human waste leaves a mark on the quality of Earth's water. We see it in our own lake. Dogs are dying from algae that grow due to the dumping of bodily waste.
Question: As humans, we care the most about ourselves. With this being said, why do we actively sabotage humanity's future in the guise of risk assessment?
Chapter 4
ReplyDeleteThesis: Risk assessors attempt to estimate the safety of a hazardous activity which is redundant because hazard implies danger which is the opposite of safety.
“...they are developed primarily to estimate how much of a hazardous substance or activity does not pose a risk for living organisms out in the real world” (O’Brien 59). The problem with this sentence is the word estimate. An estimate is a guess coming from a source of bias. A risk assessor can sway numbers to make anything seem safe.
“While a single activity, such as grazing a few livestock in a forest, may not be terribly detrimental to a forest that periodically burns, the combinations of suppressing fires and grazing numerous cattle and spraying insects may be too much for the forest” (O’Brien 63). This excerpt explains why some experiments cannot properly measure risk. If you are measuring just grazing cattle in a forest one time, that clearly causes insignificant damage. However, when you add in the complexities of the world, including fires and pesticides the damage that occurs is insurmountable.
“How many risk assessments of a pesticide, for instance, consider all possible effects on the immune system or the nervous system, plus effects on the sexual hormone systems of a developing embryo, plus all possible interactions with chromosomes and DNA, plus effects on the emotional states of humans, plus effects on vision and hearing, plus effects on the intellectual development of embryos and infants? Answer: None” (O’Brien 67). Essentially, risk assessments do not consider all impacts of a specific activity because if you consider systems thinking, everything is connected, even things you wouldn;t initially consider.
Chapter 5
Thesis: When making a decision based on a risk assessment, there is a moral facet when exposing someone to harm without their knowledge or consent.
“A preponderance of the way our environmental and public health are degraded results from activities that Congress has authorized through legislation and government permits” (O’Brien 75). Politicians have used risk assessments to validate their reasoning behind causing damage to the environment. The contamination of water, elimination of habitat, rapid extinction of species, and rising rates of breast cancer have all been linked to policies that inaccurately state the harm specific actions cause.
“...the concept of acceptability of hazardous activities is ultimately underlain, at least implicitly, by the assumption that the hazardous activities are also beneficial” (O’Brien 78). The reason so much damage is happening to humans and the environment is because the activities doing the damage are justified by some sort of benefit, usually economic.
“...bureaucrats and the private sector routinely “get away” with this premieditated murder because the victims are individually anonymous” (O’Brien 80). The reason is it accepted in society to cause harm without consent is because the people or animals who are affected by this harm are often anonymous. Often times it is not known who will get cancer from contaminated water, it is just known as a possibility. This is what prevents people from caring enough to stop the harmful behavior.
Chapter 6
DeleteThesis: Risk assessment exists because society often acts as through there aren’t other alternatives. This Chapter talks about instances in ehic there are better alternatives but humans have ignored them.
“The society has become aware that when we dispose of these wastes into rivers and lakes, the entire receiving aquatic system becomes polluted and damaged” (O’Brien 89). Incineration of waste creates compounds that are more difficult to break down. There are alternatives to this! Lessen the use of toxic chemicals, bioremediation and chemical treatments, above-ground on-site storage.
“Making paper with chlorine compounds vs making paper with wood” (O’Brien 92). Chlorine compounds and trees are non-essential for the manufacturing of paper. Other alternatives have been discovered and implemented by other countries outside of the US using rice, barley straw, sugarcane waste, and hemp.
“And then we go into a bathroom and deposit our feces and urine in clear, clean water, as do hundreds of millions of other people” (O’Brien 96). WHY DO WE POOP IN CLEAN WATER I AM MAD! There are other alternatives for this like dry treatment systems.
Question: How can we replace risk assessment with alternative assessments?
Ch 4
ReplyDeleteThesis- Risk assessment is based more in estimating how much of, “a hazardous substance or activity does not pose a risk for living organisms” (O’Brien, 59) , instead of actually warning people of the damages or “risks” that may occur in the activity being assessed.
1. Sometimes the formulas and models used to assess risk do not take into account certain minority groups of people. When this occurs these groups are unwarned and ignored, leaving them at risk.
2. Additionally, “hazardous activity or substances may cause many different adverse effects” (O’Brien, 67), and so in declaring a hazardous activity as “safe” through risk assessment it is very well possible that, “all potential impacts of that activity” (O’Brien, 67), were not considered.
3. As humans, we also don’t fully understand the complex nature of, “interrelated consequences”, (O’Brien, 71) within our environment. Moreover, the adverse effects suspected through hazardous substances or activity, are only, “in addition to effects from other hazardous substances or activities” (O’Brien, 69).
Ch 5
Thesis: Risk assessment must always err on the side of morality especially in the world of policy.
1. When citizens rightfully object to activities they find hazardous they are continuously met with, “formulas, models, quantification of data”(O’Brien, 84) , etcetera instead of people who have the ability to answer their important fundamental questions.
2. In the world of environmental policy, “most risk assessments assume that potentially damaging behaviors are innocent until proven guilty” (O’Brien, 84), which is extremely dangerous considering that the behaviors and actions in question are potentially dangerous/ hazardous to the public, animals, and the environment.
3. In the past, many risk assessments that should have occured and were based on rightful claims did not end up happening due to the fact that lawmakers and politicians have said that risk assessments are not worth the money which is publicly funded; in other words they are using, “public money to justify harm to the public” (O’Brien, 85).
Ch 6
Thesis: Although there are viable alternatives to various environmentally hazardous/ dangerous actions that continue to occur, our current system ignores these alternatives.
1. In the case of incinerating hazardous waste, O’Brien points out that there is science backing the harm, we know what incentives are possible, so the idea of, “a team of risk assessors that determine why a community or a region shouldn’t worry about the presence of a hazardous-waste incinerator” (O’Brien, 92), seems pretty trivial.
2. Another example in this chapter is an alternative paper making method currently used in Sweden in which their paper mills produce, “totally chlorine-free (TCF) paper” (O’Brien, 93), at a rate that is still profitable. Here in America policy makers have refused to even attempt exploring this more sustainable and healthier method because the paper produced is, “no blinding white” (O’Brien, 93).
3.Lastly chapter six focuses on the agriculture sector, where farmers continue to grow in, “soil fumigated with methyl bromide” (O’Brien, 94). Methyl bromide is not only a pesticide, but also, “a potent depleter of the ozone layer, and is highly toxic, capable of causing severe neurological damage or even death to farm workers or fumigation workers exposed to it” (O’Brien, 94). Although we know many alternatives, American farmers are still not willing to make the switch because they are not willing to commit to the overhaul necessary to completely switch to a new system.
Question: Are risk assessors held responsible if a person is negatively affected by a situation that was specifically deemed as “safe” or not a risk?
Chapter Four
ReplyDeleteScience has the potential to be beneficial in risk assessment
“The point of these examples is that people and other animals and plants vary a lot when they begin life, and get variously damaged as life goes on. These individualistic variations in genes and life history cannot be accounted for in a risk assessment. What may be “safe” for one individual in a species may be highly dangerous for another individual of that same species”(70,O’Brien).
“Despite all of the above reasons why scientists cannot determine safety through risk assessment, the term “safe” is regularly used by business and government representatives, by politicians, and even by representatives of environmental groups”(72, O’Brien).
“Many in the public have a strong emotional attachment to “safe” as a word or concept, so it is tempting to use the word in connection with campaigns to improve human behavior”(73, O’Brien). My concept on the idea of something being “safe” feels more skewed after these chapters. How are we ever supposed to get a realistic idea around what pesticides should be used in our agricultural production?
Why is it so easy to weaponize the open ended aspects of scientific discovery?
Chapter Five
Risk assessment or lack of allows for businesses and corporations to indirectly murder people as long as they are benefiting from it economicaly.
1)“Industrial facilities and businesses receive permits to produce discharge and “dispose of” toxic chemicals into communities and ecosystems; citizens are permitted to dispose of their bodily wastes into water; wealthy communities and countries receive permits to dispose of their toxic waste in poor communities, often minority, and in poorer countries”(75, Obrien).
2)”This process of permitting dangerous activities on the basis of risk assessment means that someone is judging for others that the damage those others will suffer at the hands of someone is objectively acceptable”(79, O’Brien).
3)“In other words, registration of a carcinogenic pesticide cannot legally be denied on the basis that less murderous pesticides exist. Thus, the national pesticide law authorizes premeditated murder because carcinogenic pesticides must be registered as long as their benefits outweigh their costs”(81, O, Brien).
How successful does a corporation have to be to get this license to kill?
Chapter Six
ReplyDeleteThe solutions to these issues posed by risk assessors are still very likely to be rejected.
1)“We are gradually facing the reality that when we dispose of these wastes in landfills and deep wells, persistent chemical pollutants eventually migrate out into groundwater, surface water, air, and food chains to poison living beings” (89,O’Brien).
2)“Cleanup technologies that do not rely on incineration, such as bioremediation, and chemical treatments could be used. Development of such technologies can be focused on those hazardous wastes that have already been released into the environment. In addition, the development of these technologies can be focused on wastes that are produced during manufacture of products widely regarded by the society as essential”(91,O’Brien). So much effort gets put into developing these technologies that ultimately goes wasted due to stubborn laziness.
3)“In this case, the most toxic contomaninet known (dioxin) is being produced by one of the most unnecessary industrial processes imaginable (making paper blinding white with chlorine or chlorine dioxide). The EPAs stated excuse for failing to require TCF pulp mill processes is that the paper would not be white enough to meet ISO 90”(93, Obrien).
How white does the EPA need their paper? Why does this not feel like a reasonable response from the EPA? Does the P now stand for paper?
Chapter 4: Risk Assessments can deem a product or chemical “safe” when there should less confident language used.
ReplyDelete-”Without fire, or with cattle removing the tree-limiting grasses and forbs, a crowded and disease-prone forest builds up. Then, when fire does come, it can be much more destruc- tive than it would have been in a more open forest with fewer trees.”(pg.63 O’Brien) Often risk assessments overlook serious factors that can lead to serious to the practice, environment, and community.
-”As the above examples show, no scientist can accurately say that a hazardous activity is safe because all consequences cannot have been considered.”(pg.69 O’Brien) The complex effects of these chemicals are incredibly difficult to predict, therefore a risk assessment for how much is “safe” is mostly a formality.
-”Many in the public have a strong emotional attachment to “safe” as a word or concept, so it is tempting to use the word in connection with cam- paigns to improve human behavior.”(pg.73 O’Brien) The word safe is often used too freely to describe products that aren’t harmless and could have serious effects.
Chapter 5: Companies are able to get permits to pollute through risk assessments
- “Of course, the concept of “acceptability” of hazardous activities is ulti- mately underlain, at least implicitly, by the assumption that the hazardous activities are also beneficial.”(pg.78 O’Brien) companies are given permits that allow them to use hazardous and harmful business practices. This is because the perceived benefit of the actions outweighs the risks.
-”No-alternative laws allow and direct government employees to act immorally toward the environment and their fellow citizens and allow businesses to behave immorally under cover of being “legal.”(pg.81 O’Brien) Companies are able to knowingly poison local communities with protection from specific laws created to protect their practice.
-”This raises the question whether it is legitimate to assess only harmful activities and exclude benign activities when the public not only is paying for the assessments but also will most likely be harmed by the permitted activities.”(pg.85 O’Brien) Governments use taxpayer money on risk assessments that subsequently are poisoning and polluting those that paid for it.
Chapter 6: Risk assessments released by the companies are often unable to predict the complex nature of their situation and overlook critical risks, which they realize after the damage has been done.
-”They say that the risk of releasing toxic materials is low, that if toxic materials are released they will be released in such small amounts that it doesn’t matter, and that if damage is caused it will be minimal or “acceptable.”(pg.91 O’Brien) Citizens are insured that the toxic waste incinerators released materials will have an ‘acceptable’ effect. I don’t see how citizens are supposed to feel relieved around this kind of toxic waste.
-”More than 80 percent of the trees cut in the United States are reduced to building materials and paper. On the other hand, 300 mills around the world are making paper without wood.”(pg.93 O’Brien) The alternative assessment to creating blindingly white paper could be paper out of rice or hemp. Waltere are using unnecessary amount of these highly toxic chemicals to create products we could easily create with an alternative approach.
-”Then we undertake risk assessments of how much “bio- logical oxygen demand” (of decomposition of organic material) we can place on our rivers without strangling river organisms, what quantity of nutrients we can add to the rivers without clogging them with algae, and how much fecal bacteria we can swim among without getting sick.”(pg.99 O’Brien) These risk assessments often cause damage until it is significant enough to cause outrage. Riding the lines of acceptable exposure is incredibly dangerous and puts many innocent lives at risk.
QUESTION: How can we move away from risk assessment and into alternatives?
Crushing RISK ASSESSMENT here, team ENP!
ReplyDeleteDr. Rob
chapter 4
ReplyDeletethesis: Despite its lack of reliable ability to scientifically determine possible risks and damages of harmful substances activity and prepare legitimate solutions to mitigate them, risk assessment is often used to allow otherwise inexcusable behavior by businesses, governments, and individuals.
1. “A hazardous activity or substance may cause many different adverse effects. A risk assessment pronouncing a hazardous activity “safe” or “insignificant” will not have considered all potential impacts of that activity” (O’Brien, 67). Even if something is deemed “safe” for one individual or thing may be “unsafe” for another within the same system, something which is not accounted for in risk assessment. Not only that, but over time effects will alter and change the way they are impacting the system, and may become more or less harmful. There is no way for humans to predict and consider every possible impact, because there is no way for us to know every possible impact in order to consider its effects, an idea which makes it difficult to accurately assess every aspect of risk or hazard in every situation.
2. “We don’t understand all indirect and interrelated consequences within our complex environment” (O’Brien, 71). As O’Brien goes on to state, scientists do not yet understand every linkage and relationship between living and non-living systems and organisms in the world, and so particular substances and activities cannot be deemed “safe” or “unsafe” due to lack of knowledge. Yet, governments, businesses, politicians, and other parties interested in carrying out risk assessments to meet a certain goal all use the term regularly. There is no way for us to completely understand every system in our environment, so we can work to protect and become experts on the ones we are familiar with, rather than destroying them for capital and personal gain.
3. “Generally the word “safe” is not defensible. “Safer” or “less hazardous” appropriately connotes an understanding that we humans can have destructive effects on many webs of life, in ways we have not even begun to fathom. We can only try to be more careful of how we treat the world and each other; we can only try to walk more lightly on the Earth than we are now walking” (O’Brien, 73). If we continue down the path we have paved for ourselves, there will be no more ground to cover. We will have completely obliterated our planet’s resources and ourselves before we have exceeded our capacity to advance technologically or scientifically. What good is advancement if there is nowhere to enjoy or prosper from those advancements? O’Brien describes the paradigm of understanding our environment only to destroy it beautifully in this chapter.
QUESTION: Why are we so comfortable allowing businesses and governments to basically lie to us for their own benefit? How can we stop this cycle?
chapter 5
ReplyDeletethesis: Risk assessment usually causes unnecessary harm to an innocent party who will not benefit from the harm, an aspect which must be considered when carrying them out.
1. “Those who bear direct hazards of a given activity may obtain no direct or indirect benefits from the activity” (O’Brien 79). Often, populations bearing the burden of environmental hazards are marginalized in some way already, and environmental injustice is just another piece in the puzzle of oppression and discrimination negatively affecting quality of life and prosperity. However, going up against big corporations and wealthy individuals to fight for justice can seem to be an impossible feat when you lack the voice, tools, and resources necessary to move forward.
2. “This process of permitting dangerous activities on the basis of risk assessment means that someone is judging for others that the damage those others will suffer at the hands of someone is objectively acceptable” (O’Brien, 79). The party conducting the hazardous activities and risk assessments are often not directly intending to be malicious to those they are directing damage towards, however the lack of consideration and understanding of social and environmental struggles are harmful to say the least. Not to mention the fact that some groups in our society are judged differently than others, and deemed deserving of more suffering or lesser quality of life, a judgement then backed up by risk assessments weighed down by the money of large corporate investors.
3. “Communities should be involved in risk-assessment processes affecting their communities, but there is a major barrier to such participation: Most citizens cannot read a formal risk assessment” (O’Brien, 83). Expecting people to get involved with something impacting them directly is perfectly reasonable and even respectable. Expecting them to know the scientific and mathematical jargon within a risk assessment in order to participate and understand their part in the process is ridiculous and demeaning. Inviting communities to be involved in risk-assessment processes which affect their homes and families while simultaneously making sure they cannot understand said risk-assessments is more of a slap in the face than not inviting them to be involved at all.
QUESTION: Has there always been a lack of compassion regarding environmental justice, corporate greed, and legitimate kindness or has it grown as our nation grows more politically and economically divided?
chapter 6
ReplyDeletethesis: Corrupt risk assessments can be more harmful than no risk assessment at all, and it is rare to have a completely uninfluenced and objective risk assessment.
1. “Risk assessment is not a legitimate process of assessing possible harms of activities when the only activities being assessed are harmful” (O’Brien 89). Often, businesses, governments, and wealthy individuals sway risk assessments to serve in their favor, rather than to actually assess the risks and possible hazards to public and environmental health in the short and long-term. This practice is incredibly shady and damaging to our ecosystems and society, especially because they get away with it most of the time.
2. “Incinerators create new compounds that are “more difficult to destroy and… more toxic than the parent compound” (US EPA, 1985)” (O’Brien, 90). In many cases, the disposal of something environmentally harmful can be more damaging than the creation or use of the original stressor. Whoever decided that burning garbage would be a practical alternative to burying garbage in the ground (another golden idea), either did not fully think through the consequences of that, or knew they wouldn’t have to deal with them.
3. “Government officials and people in the incineration industry come to town. They explain to the community that the risks posed by a hazardous-waste incinerator won’t be significant. They say that the risk of releasing toxic materials is low, that if toxic materials are released they will be released in such small amounts that it doesn’t matter, and that if damage is caused it will be minimal or “acceptable”” (O’Brien, 91). The lack of respect and dignity that people in situations of environmental injustice are treated with is infuriating, not to mention detrimental to a person’s mental and physical health. Government officials and industry reps seem to be heartless and lacking-morals when it comes down to the decision of whether or not to pollute the environment, or pollute the backyard of someone poorer than those who would benefit from the pollutant.
QUESTION: Why do we allow greed and selfishness cloud our judgement of right and wrong?
Ch. 4: Risk assessment is flawed in that it cannot assess how much of a damaging activity poses no or little threat to living organisms.
ReplyDelete1. “Imagine someone assessing how many Bloody Marys it is “safe” to drink in one day, but measuring only the tomato juice and not the vodka. The assessor might conclude that drinking a gallon of Bloody Marys (i.e., tomato juice) would pose no danger at all” (O’Brien, 59). This example perfectly demonstrates the lack of understanding and misrepresentation of the facts in risk assessment. Real impact is not assessed in risk assessment when profit is involved.
2. “The purpose of most risk assessments is to estimate levels of a hazardous activity that will cause no damage or no significant adverse effects out in the world. Scientists’ skills and training for showing effects in controlled experiments are simply inadequate for showing that those activities are safe in a complex world” (O’Brien, 63). This is saying that no matter the tests that scientists perform, the real world outside of the lab has innumerable amounts of possible factors and variations to skew any data collected in a lab.
3. “Generally the word “safe” is not defensible. “Safer” or “less hazardous” appropriately connotes an understanding that we humans can have destructive effects on many webs of life, in ways we have not even begun to fathom” (O’Brien, 73). Using the word “safe” in risk assessment is similar to the use of the word “natural” in food and cosmetics. There is no basis behind the word, and yet we use it like it’s certifying it as good.
Ch. 5: Morality becomes involved in risk assessment when choices are made that will result in unnecessary risk to others without their consent.
1. Examples of unnecessary risks without consent include contamination of water, air, soil, the food chain, wildlife,and humans (ex. cancer). Other examples include elimination of critical wildlife habitat, and the rapid extinction of species.
2. “The concept of “acceptibility” of hazardous activities is ultimately underlain, at least implicitly, by the assumption that the hazardous activities are also beneficial” (O’Brien, 78). O’Brien gave an example of this with hurting salmon populations due to the use of dams due to its profit in industry. Another example of this increased asthma rates due to car emissions which we value over the dangers.
3. “Moral decision making would appear to require giving priority to least-harm alternatives that are most beneficial for the environment and for the public interest” (O’Brien, 80). Unfortunately, proper review of less harmful alternatives is often overlooked because of the foundation and hold in politics and industry that hazardous companies possess.
Ch. 6: This chapter discusses the destructive systems humans continue using as if there aren’t better, less harmful options.
ReplyDelete1. The US primarily makes paper with chlorine or chlorine dioxide. These compounds are used to paper whiter and is entirely unnecessary and produces large amounts of waste. “A moderate-size, chlorine-using pulp mill produces 1000 tons of pulp a day. Such a pulp mill also daily releases tens of tons of organochlorine chemicals into air, water, sludge, and its paper products” (O’Brien, 93).
2. In 1993, the US was the largest user of methyl bromide making up 49% of global use and was used primarily in 5 crops: tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, ornamentals/nurseries, and tobacco. The US used methyl bromide as a vapor pesticide to eliminate any pests and unwanted organisms from the soil. When monoculture agriculture is being practiced and the same piece of land is used over and over again for the same crop, pests and problems can easily arise--and this was the US’ solution.
3. “Sewage adds organic nutrients to rivers, which promotes heavy growth of algae and other organisms that naturally live there” (O’Brien, 98). The processed discussed above is called eutrophication and is a big problem due to water toilets and nutrient runoff from farms.
Question: How can we get policy passed to stop unnecessary destructive systems and assess environmental impacts without the corruption of corporations and government officials that push for politics because they were paid off.
Chapter 5: This chapter dwells into the subject of the moral dimension when making risk assessments – meaning that the ones who have to deal with the outcomes are not asked for consent.
ReplyDelete1. “Decisions based on risk assessment involve a moral dimension when they result in subjecting others to unnecessary risks to which they do not consent” (O’Brien, 75). This expresses the importance of consent and public notice of policies. If people, like black and poor communities, are subjugated for toxic chemical plants (which they are), the people living there should be warned BEFORE the plant is put in. But governments don’t do that because then the town will result in abandonment.
2. “A preponderance of the ways our environmental and public health are degraded results from activities that Congress has authorized through legislation and government permits” (O’Brien, 75). Permits are a very risky (hence the pun) because the risk assessment prior to the permit is not usually accurate. With this, a lot of businesses take advantage of risk assessment because it gets them what they want.
3. “Data shows that even after decades of hatchery production, salmon continue to decline” (O’Brien, 76). Salmon is one of my favorite fish and reading this saddens me. Whenever I purchase fish, I always look for the ‘Wild Caught’ label because I try to stay away from farm raised. Now I don’t even know if I should be doing that. This is a prime example the one of the issues we have in our food system, which is a government issue.
Chapter 6: This chapter discusses how risk assessment is not an accurate representation for what it is meant to be.
1. “Risk assessment is not a legitimate process of assessing possible harms of activities when the only activities being assessed are harmful” (O’Brien, 89). With this, people can get a good understanding of how flawed risk assessment is. Basically, all assessments are for a substance or activity that is harmful, so the assessments are pretty useless at that point.
2. “If so many toxic chemicals were not used in industrial and agricultural production, only small amounts, if any, of waste would be produced” (O’Brien, 91). I believe that if the United States alone decreases its mass production of conventional agriculture and lowers the “allowed” amount of toxins to go into our atmosphere, it could be the beginning of true environmental reform.
3. “We are making blinding white paper using chlorine or chlorine-dioxide at approximately 102 pulp mills in the United States and using trees from forests or plantations to make paper at all 325 paper mills in the United States” (O’Brien, 92). This is just ridiculous. Paper does not even need to be produced at the high rates it is right now anymore. We have the internet, which reduces paper usage and helps save energy. Although the internet is flawed, it is a step in the right direction if people understand which direction that is specifically.
Question: How can environmental reform be integrated into risk assessment? Can risk assessment be changed to something more accurate?
Delete4: Thesis. Risk assessment has trouble taking into account everything and this can result in dangerous outcomes.
ReplyDelete“no scientists can accurately say that is hazardous activity is safe because all consequences cannot have been considered.”(69). Or world is a very complex system so while we can take into account a lot of things it is impossible to know what every affect will be. Scientists perform experiments to find out how hazardous a thing is but all oftthouseare done in laboratory conditions where only specific things are being tested.
Building off that “hazardous activity or substances may cause many different adverse effects” (67). Not only is our environment complex but people are also affected differently by such things. Take for example arlergize, while some people can completely interact with some things others get very sick.
We must take steps to minimize and remove potential harms to both us as humans and the entire natural system. “We can only try to be more careful of how we treat the world and each other; we can only try to walk more lightly on the Earth than we are now walking” (73). The best thing to do at least to start is to think of all the possible solutions, not just the ones that we are already using.
5: Thesis. Currently we are taking the easy path and avoiding doing the alternatives because we would rather not have to struggle for true improvement.
Is is much harder to convince people to change how they act if they are benefiting from the current system. Most people tend to think in the short term and even if they don’t few understand the dangers of things like risk assessment. They think more about earning money and personal safety then they do about the global system.
We have used Risk Assessment for a very long time so it is simply easy and comfortable to keep doing so. We don’t have to put in effort when the system is already in place and can instead just continue as normal. Humans are creatures of habit so change can be hard.
Improving oneself very hard as you first need to admit that there is something wrong with you that needs changing. Society is even harder as it requires many people to agree that they are doing something wrong. It is much easier to say that someone else is a fault or doing something wrong.
6: Thesis. Our society ignores alternatives because they are hard or uncomfortable to think about.
Alternatives means making a choice and it is much simpler to let things happen and do nothing then make a choice to stop it. We can ignore the problem and hope that it goes away without us personally doing anything and not feel like we had to give up anything. However what people need to understand is that doing nothing is just as much of a choice as doing something.
Our society today has a lot of echo chambers in it resulting in people being told what they want to hear. If you look for information with the goal of it telling you something specific that is what you will find.
We need a argadime shift for change to happen in this field. It is not so much that we need people to all agree as that would still be an echo chamber but rather we need people to be willing to learn. Learn from one another and let the new ideas change their minds about things.
Question: What is the first step to take to change how people see the world?
CHAPTER 4
ReplyDeleteThesis: Risk assessment cannot assess the how much of a damaging activity poses no or little threat to living organisms.
-“no scientists can accurately say that is hazardous activity is safe because all consequences cannot have been considered.”(69). By assuming that all possible results of an activity have been considered is very ignorant.
-”As humans, we also don’t fully understand the complex nature of, “interrelated consequences `` (71) Again, we have a very isolated field of understanding, due to the nature of everyday western lifestyles, most never have the means to understand the full effects of their actions or actions which have an effect on themselves.
-“We can only try to be more careful of how we treat the world and each other; we can only try to walk more lightly on the Earth than we are now walking” (73). It is up to us as individuals, we must educate ourselves to look at change our own actions and how they adversely affect ourselves, others, and the environment.
CHAPTER 5
Thesis: The word “safe” is not defensible
- “Safer” or “less hazardous” appropriately connotes an understanding that we humans can have destructive effects on many webs of life, in ways we have not even begun to fathom” (O’Brien, 73) Promoting an activity as “safe” is problematic, because there are negative consequences of every action. This is misleading for consumers and innately corrupt for customers and governments to “accept” an activity as “safe.”
-“Nevertheless, permitting of dangerous activities has always been ultimately based on the assumption or the supposition that someone benefits or from those activities” (O’Brien, 79). Ignoring the ability to adopt alternative practices is rooted in a selfish defense. Immediate profits are priority for many.
-:“However, current laws sometimes preclude consideration of alternatives when decisions are being made about hazardous activities” (80). Alternatives are discussed, yet the discussion centered around the provisioning of these risks, and the alternatives are considered a “plan b.”
CHAPTER 6
Thesis: Society ignores alternatives to maintain the pessimistic mindset that harm is inevitable, no matter the method.
-“Government officials and people in the incineration industry come to town. They explain to the community that the risks posed by a hazardous-waste incinerator won’t be significant. They say that the risk of releasing toxic materials is low, that if toxic materials are released they will be released in such small amounts that it doesn’t matter, and that if damage is caused it will be minimal or “acceptable” (O’Brien, 91). Society would rather blindly trust in the assurances of those in power, than worry for their own safety.
-The existence commercially sound alternatives to conventional paper production shows the narrowness of alternatives we consider while we expend major effort on assessing and debating their risks” (94). We tend to be very rooted in our current systems, mostly out of fear of change. The fear of economic disaster lies beneath our inability to initiate major commercial activities.
- “Our industrialized societies systematic and unnecessary pollution of water begins with our own bodies, even though we have alternatives.”(99). We all choose to contribute to the issue if we exist within an industrial society.
Are there any “developed” countries which actively divest from any environmentally damaging or human health damaging practices? Or are these communities niche for all societies?