“Late Lessons from Early Warnings:
some insights on science, law.
anticipation and innovation.
David Gee, formerly Senior Adviser, Science,
Policy, Emerging Issues,
European Environment Agency, 1995-2013
Copenhagen.
Visiting Fellow, Institute of Environment,
Health and Societies, Brunel University,
London..
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Institute of Environment, Health and Societies, Brunel University
A case for creating a new
Nobel Prize in
Transdisciplinary Science
David Gee
Genevieve Dewez
Susan Jobling
Institute of Environment, Health and
Societies
Environmental facts are not neutral..
..”the process of finding facts is always
driven by a particular purpose, and you
should reflect on what those purposes
are in evaluating environmental laws”
Prof Liz Fisher, Oxford University, in
“Environmental Law: Text, cases and
Materials”, 2013.
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“Structured knowledge”: frameworks of
understanding. A response to:
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“information overload”
“Data rich, knowledge poor” societies
Ecosystems complexity
Biological complexity
Socio-political complexity
An added value niche for the EEA
Exs of SK: DPSIR; SOER; “Late Lessons
from Early Warnings” reports.
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The “Late Lessons from Early
Warnings” reports, 2001, 2013
• Contents, approach, conclusions
• Inertia and innovation in Scientific
knowledge
• Some case studies
• Precaution, Evidence, Innovation
• Radical & “responsible innovation”?
Homo Sapiens (tragicus?) as slow learners
Two volumes
2001
2013
34 case studies
‘Environmental
chemicals’
• Beryllium
• PCBs
• CFCs
• TBT antifoulants
• Mercury
• Environmental
Tobacco
• Perchlorethylene
• Booster biocides
• DBCP
• DDT
• Vinyl chloride
• Bisphenol A
Ecosystems
• Ecosystems resilience
• Great Lakes pollution
• Fish stock collapse
• Acid rain
• Bee decline, France
• Invasive alien species
• Floods
• Climate change
Transport fuel additives
• Benzene
• MBTE
• Lead
‘Micro technologies’
• Nano
• GMOs
Animal feed additives
• BSE, ‘mad cow disease’
• Beef hormones
• Antibiotics
• Asbestos
Pharmaceuticals
• Contraceptive pill
• DES
Radiations
• X-rays
• Mobile phones
• Nuclear accidents
Plus 8 “horizontal “ chapters….
• the “12 late lessons” from vol 1…
..and in vol 2:
• precautionary science;
• costs of inaction;
• the precautionary principle;
• false positives
• protecting early warners & late victims;
• why businesses ignore early warnings;
• Conclusions.
When was first plausible early
warning?
1896 radiation; climate change;
1897 benzene;
1898 asbestos;
1925 leaded petrol;
1965 antibiotics in animal feed;
1992/3 Goucho pesticide and bee
decline;
1999 mobile phones
Why are early warnings routinely ignored?
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Powerful economic/political stakes in status quo
Unethical behaviour, e.g. greed
“We don’t want to know” / “Don’t spoil the party”
Early warners sidelined or silenced
Uncertainties lead to real and “manufactured” doubt
“Group think”
Lack of Imagination
Limited use of scenarios
“Things are different now”*
See also “Collapse”, J. Diamond, 2005 ; “The March of Folly”, B Tuchman, 1984;
“Fishing for Truth”, Finlayson,1994; “Sustainability or Collapse?”, Costanza et al
2007; “A users guide to the Crisis of Civilisation and how to save it”, Ahmed;2010
*“This time its different : 8 Centuries of Financial Folly” Reinhart & Rogoff,2009.
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“Manufacturing Scientific Doubt”
“Doubt is our product since it is the best
means of competing with the ‘body of fact’
that exists in the mind of the general public.”
From an executive at Brown & Williamson, Tobacco
Company, 1969.
See EEA chapters on Beryllium,tobacco, leaded petrol,
climate change etc. And Michaels 2009: Oreskes,2010
on manufacturing doubt.
Late Lessons from Vol 1
• “Acknowledge & respond to ignorance as well
as uncertainty and risk
• Provide adequate research and long term
monitoring into early warnings
• Account for real world conditions
• Take full account for assumptions & values
• Adopt diverse and adaptable technologies to
minimise costs of “surprises” and maximise
benefits of innovation”
• Plus 5 others….
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Late Lessons from vol 2..
• Give more weight to natural, human, & social capitals
than economic/financial capital via more use of
precaution, prevention, control at source and polluter
pays principles (EU Treaty)
• Acknowledge complexity & multi-causality when
inferring causality
• Use lower strengths of evidence for precautionary
actions
• Seek & use lay, local, professional knowledge &
citizen science
• Develop broader more transparent risk assessments
• Build more effective, adaptable, participatory and
cooperative systems of governance of innovation.
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Need for greater public engagement
• In hazard/risk/options/alternatives
assessments
• In choosing strengths of evidence for
action & “acceptable” risk
• In choosing strategic innovation
pathways to 2050 on energy, agriculture,&
consumer chemicals.
• In nature & directions of research: eg
the product/ hazard ratio
“Misplaced Certainties” of safety ..
…were a dominant cause of tragedy in the Late
Lessons case studies….
..similar to elsewhere in science… and medicine:
“Chalmers identified the variety of strategies of
persons who derived their authority from power
rather than knowledge…to discredit studies that yield
results that challenge their certainties”
Fox D.M. on the strong influence on clinicians of Chalmers et al
in publishing the systematic review ,”Effective Care in Pregnancy
& Childbirth”, 1989; in “Systematic Reviews and Health Policy”,
Milbank Quarterly, v 89,3,2011.
Casual and self interested science even
within clinical medicine……..
“some scientists have a remarkably casual
attitude to…evidence..drawing
conclusions..based more on factors such as
their gender and how they make a living than
on the ..evidence”
..disguising their bias and self interest in the
rhetoric of science”
Chalmers et al in “Effective Care in Pregnancy
& Childbirth”, 1989.
Exposures always expand over time…
• Asbestos/DBCP/Be producers, users,
bystanders eg insulators: plantation workers:
passive smokers
• Domestic: wives & children of asbestos
workers; passive smokers
• Environmental: near asbestos & lead mines
and factories; teachers from asbestos; DBCP in
plantation workers & water;
• Consumers: BPA
• Next generations: radiations, Mercury at
Minamata, DES, PCBs
• Target to non target species: Goucho & Bees;;
oysters from TBT; fish from the Pill;
The Nature of Harm always expands over time…
• Asbestos: 1929 asbestosis; 1954 lung cancer;
1959 mesothelioma, 2012 throat & other cancers
• Tobacco: 1951 lung cancer; 2012 many cancers,
foetal harm; heart disease
• PCBs: 1960s bird reproduction;2012s neurological
harm in children; soil contamination
• Lead: 1979 brain damage in children; 2012 heart
disease in adults
• Minamata: 1950 brain damage & neurological;
1960s birth defects 1990s children’s IQ &
behavioural
• DES: 1970 vaginal cancer; 1980s reproductive
problems; 2012 breast cancer; reproductive harm to
DES sons; and to grandchildren (“Late Lessons” vol
1 update, 2013)
And harm is always found to be caused
at lower & lower levels of exposure…
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Asbestos (no safe level,2001,WTO)
Lead (“no safe level”, EFSA ,2010)
PCBs
Mercury
TBT
Radiations
BPA
Benzene…& others.
Observing, inferring, & understanding
scientific revolutions…and time.
1854 Snow’s reliable observation and inference about polluted
water causing cholera…
1885 Koch provides the mechanistic understanding….for Snow’s
observations and inference.
Most case studies have similarly long gaps between robust
observations & accepted understanding (tobacco, DES, leaded
petrol)
Timely precaution requires action on reliable observation &
inference before there is understanding about how causality
works….
……..this is a value choice
Expect inconsistency from variability
"Consistency in nature does not require that all,
or even a majority of studies find the same effect.
If all studies of lead showed the same
relationship between variables, one would be
startled, perhaps justifiably suspicious“
Needlemann (1995) ”Making Models of Real World events: the use and abuse of
inference, Neurotoxicology and Teratology, vol 17, no. 3.
“No evidence of Harm” is not the same
as “evidence of no harm”……
...because no relevant or reliable
research is available,
..or because of the limitations on what
could be known with existing scientific
methods, under complexity and multicausality; and
...ecological/biological effects can take a
very long time to appear.
Research: how much on developing
products v on anticipating hazards?
EU Public Research
1994-2013
“Products”
“Protection”
Nanotechnology (20022013)
5 billion
112 million (2%)
Biotechnology(19942013)
7.5billion
273 million (4%)
Information
Communications
Technology/EMF(20072013)
19 billion
18 million (0.09%)
Scientific Inertia in chemicals research
• There were 15,000 articles published
between 2000-2009 on lead, mercury and
DDT alone.
• Only 352 articles researched 8 of the 13
emerging, large production chemicals
identified as priorities by the US EPA, eg
1,3-Dichlorobenzene.
• There were no articles on five other
priority chemicals.
Some case studies
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UK Court of Appeal on foreseeability of
mesothelioma…..1996
“Liability would arise where the applicant
should reasonably have foreseen a risk of
some pulmonary injury, not necessarily
mesothelioma”
Owen McIntyre,in “Protecting early warners & late victims”
Carl Cranor, LLEW, EEA,2013
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The DBCP pesticide: An early
warning…1958
“We understand that Dow
chemical have similar data
(testes shrunk and sterility in
rats) and we are very upset by
the effects noted on the testes”
Lykken, Shell, See “The pesticide DBCP and male infertility”,
Bingham E, Monforton, C., in Late Lessons, EEA,2013
Effects of DBCP on Plantation
workers
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• 16, 000 S American plantation workers get
/don’t get compensation, 1990s -2010.
• Dole Co tries to ban Swedish documentary
“Bananas”, but fails after widespread
outcry,2009/10
• US court awards costs and freedom to
screen,2010
• “Big boys gone Bananas” film, 2011, about
that episode.
2013: Environmental pollution
from DBCP
• The early warning: “DBCP’s relatively low
vapour pressure and high density assures
a long residence time in the soil”
depending on method of application.
(Torkelson,1961)
• Widespread DBCP water contamination of
IARC possible carcinogen (1999) in
California & elsewhere: 191 water systems in
18 US States above exposure limit of 0.2ppb.
Climate Change
• Arrhenius (1896) estimated that a doubling of
the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere would
raise the average global temperature of about
5°C.
• The US National Academy of Sciences report
on global warming (Charney et al.,1979)
concluded that the impact of doubled
atmospheric CO2 concentrations, would
increase global mean equilibrium surface
temperature increase of between 1.5°C and
4.5°C.
• Largely confirmed by IPCC in 2007 & 2014:
likely range 2.0 to 4.5°C.
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Climate Change not a priority for
CEOs
• Climate change did not make the first
19 top priorities for concern……
• Top priority was “over regulation”……….
PricewaterhouseCoopers 18th annual CEO
survey, 2015.
Willfull blindness? Institutional stupidity?
Economic/Political short termism?
“Now, under my administration, America is
producing more oil today than at any time in the
last eight years. Over the last three years, I’ve
directed my administration to open up millions of
acres for gas and oil exploration across 23
different states. We’re opening up more than 75
percent of our potential oil resources offshore.
We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to
a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and
gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then
some.”
Obama, Cushing, Oklahoma, 2013.
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The early warning on Leaded petrol at the
one day “trial” of leaded petrol, May 1925
“conditions will grow worse so gradually , and
the development of lead poisoning will
come on so insidiously ..that leaded petrol
will be in nearly universal use..before the
public and the government awakens to the
situation.”
Yendell Henderson, Professor of Physiology at Yale.
“Universal use” became global: & the public
awakening took some 60 years….
“Lead makes the mind give way: lead in petrol”
Needleman & Gee, Late Lessons, EEA, 2013
US Law helps to ban leaded petrol…
• “the regulatory action under this
precautionary statute (Clean Air Act 1970 )
should precede and hopefully prevent the
perceived harm”
• Action is needed at the “frontiers of
scientific knowledge”
• The EPA is “not required to limit the danger
from just lead additives but to the
cumulative impact of lead additives with
other sources of human exposure to lead”
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Costs of Leaded petrol 2013
• Multi biological impacts in children and adults
with no safe level (EFSA 2010)
• Costs mainly from lost lifetime productivity
from reduced IQ in children• Current estimate is 1.5 Euro per gram of
lead/litre in urban areas from petrol
• Giving annual costs of 4-6% GDP over the
leaded years.
See “Costs of inaction” Skou Andersen
and Clubb; EEA ,2013.
Early Warning scientists personally
harassed for their “inconvenient truths”
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Snow on Cholera
Selikoff on asbestos
Hendersen, Byers, Patterson, Needleman on leaded petrol
Henry Lai, Hardell on RF radiation
Putzei, Chapella, Seralini on GMOs
Dr Hosakawa on Minamata
Schneiderman on Climate Change
others from Bees research
Onur Hamzaoglu on industrial pollution in Turkey
• Dr Stockman in Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People”
(See case study chapters & “Justice for early warners & late victims”,
Cranor, in “Late Lessons” EEA , 2013)
Flawed Risk Assessments on
neonicotinoid pesticides and Bees
• Wrong risk regime: ie for sprayed not sytemic
pesticides.
• “Low” exposures to bees assumed to be safe.
• On Acute effects on bees only cf sub-lethal,
chronic and colony level effects.
• Neglect of systemic effects within hives cf bees
• Inadequate evaluation of multi-causality and
complexity.
• No/little representation of beekeepers & relevant
academic researchers
• Independent critiques of RAs need data access &
transparent evaluations: but these not available
the futile search for the single
cause..of all impacts on bees..
at all levels!?
“The Risk Assessment does not allow us
to demonstrate that maize seed dressing
with Gaucho can be solely responsible, at
national level, for all colony losses,
behavioural troubles, honey bee
mortalities, or general decline in honey
production”
French Commission for Toxic Products , 2002: see “Seed dressing
systemic insecticides and honeybees”, Maxim L. & van der Sluijs,J.,
Late Lessons from Early Warnings, EEA 2013.
or embrace multi-causality….?
“Gaucho…is of concern (on maize)
as one of the explanatory
elements for the weakening of
the bee populations observed
despite the ban of Gaucho in
sunflowers.”
Multifactor study of the Honeybee Colonies
Decline, French Scientific & Technical Committee,
2003, see Late Lessons, Bees chapter
Regulatory Science does not keep pace with
technological innovation…
“the new generation of neonicotinoids
was first marketed in France in 1993, and
new methods for assessing their new
risks for honeybees are still not in
regulatory use today!”
Laura Maxim, co-author of the Bees chapter,
2014
“Lowe's (USA) to eliminate
pesticides that hurt crop
pollinating honeybees”
Reuters, April 2015
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Precaution, Evidence, Innovation
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‘The Irish Potato Famine and
Precaution-1846
"Are you to hesitate in averting famine which may
come, because it possibly may not come?
To consider and calculate how much diarrhoea, and
bloody flux, and dysentery, a people can bear
before it become necessary for you to provide them
with food?
Is it not better to err on the side of precaution
than to neglect it utterly?"
Sir Robert Peel, UK Parliament, 27 March 1846
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Many definitions of the PP
• See PP chapter in Late Lessons for 13 definitions.
• Common elements of justifying action to reduce
harm in face of scientific uncertainty
• But: no explicit clarification of the standard of
evidence needed to justify action…
• And sometimes couched in triple negatives eg
Rio definition..and
• The context, case specificity of actionable
evidence, and proportionality of actions are
only implicit..
The EEA working definition of the Precautionary
Principle based on “Late Lessons” experiences
“The PP provides justification for public policy actions
in situations of scientific complexity, uncertainty
and ignorance, where there may be a need to act in
order to avoid, or reduce, potentially serious or
irreversible threats to health or the environment,
using an appropriate strength of scientific
evidence, taking into account the likely pros and
cons of action and inaction”.
Chapter 27, Late Lessons ,2013.
Some Strengths of Scientific
Evidence….
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Beyond all reasonable doubt (scientific causality
& criminal law)
Reasonable certainty (Int.Panel Climate Change ,
2007)
Balance of probabilities/evidence (IPCC,2001;
civil law)
Strong possibility (IARC on ELF ,2002; on RF
2011)
Reasonable grounds for concern(EU
Communication on PP)
Scientific suspicion of risk (Swedish Chemicals
Law,1975)
“Pertinent information” (WTO justifying member
state actions to protect health)
More Precaution needed with Neurotoxins
& Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals because
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• lessons from the past tragedies with EDCs
(Lead, Mercury,TBT,DES)
• Complexity & multi-causality delays
“sufficient” knowledge of harm...
• And fast technological change overtakes..
• ..the slow increase in scientific knowledge
• Plausible evidence of delayed & serious
impacts is now available
• ..requiring exposure reductions based on
“low” strengths of evidence
Cost & benefits of false positives
Costs :
• Mainly economic,
• Action on Swine Flu had serious health effects from
reactions to the vaccinations: and wasted resources due
to bad planning
Benefits
• Sparked innovation within industry, government and
scientific research
• Swine flu lead to a nation-wide disease surveillance
program and a lot was learned about whole and split
vaccines
• Labelling of saccharin lead to the development of several
new artificial non-calorific sweeteners
Use of the Precautionary Principle
stimulates innovation by:
• bringing forward by years /decades
the innovations that were stimulated by
the late regulatory actions
• stimulating debate & action on wider
technological & social options for
meeting needs
• saving billions in damage costs that could
have been spent on innovation.
Benefits of action expands over time…
• CFCs: from ozone “hole” to Climate
Change benefits
• TBT: from local to global benefits
• PCBs: action to gain wildlife benefits
brought some health benefits
• Lead: action to protect children’s IQ
reduced some adult heart disease
Barriers to Precautionary Action: Policy
• Inadequate/conflicting risk assessments
• Market failures ie costs of harm externalised
onto society
• Corporate incentives & power; “manufactured
doubt”; control of research (leaded petrol,
GMOs)
• “Regulatory capture”
• Short termism
• “Losers” mobilise, “gainers” do not
• “Willfull Blindness” (Barbara Tuchman)
• “Institutional stupidity” (Noam Chamsky)
Stupidity & “Institutional Stupidity”
“relying on unexamined assumptions,
entrenched mental habits, or poor
reasoning”
(“Philosophy Now” Award for “Contributions to the Fight
Against Stupidity”)
“Institutional stupidity is stupidity which is
nevertheless rational within the framework
within it operates.” eg “The Rationality of
Collective Suicide”, Chomsky,1986
N Chomsky, winner 4th Phil. Now Award, April, 2015
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Responsible Innovation?
Responsible Innovation: adaptable
technologies with a social purpose…?
• Expect “surprises” so promote diverse, robust,
adaptable, technologies” (EEA,2001)
• Promote responsible research & innovation for
social purposes (EEA,2013)
• With public engagement in choosing strategic
innovation pathways to 2050 eg on food, energy.
• Avoid technological lock in and pathway
dependence
• Promote “midstream modulation” of innovation
pathways
“Innovations for peoples and planet more than for
patents, profits and power” (Gee,2014)
Some moves toward responsible
innovation
• EU Code for responsible nano sciences &
technologies
• Socio-technical integration research
programme: social scientists in labs
looking at “midstream modulation” of
research in line with social & ethical
values
• Value sensitive design
• Constructive technology assessment
• Green chemistry
Which innovation pathway to feed the
world?
“Hungary for Innovation: from GM crops to
agro-ecology”
Chapter 19 ,”Late Lessons”, 2013.
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Should Nuclear be on the innovation
pathway to provide & save energy ?
“Late Lessons from Chernobyl, early
warnings from Fukushima”
Chapter 18 “Late Lessons “ ,2013
Or Fracking……?
See call for Fracking moratorium from House of Commons Env. Audit
Comm., Mar 2015.
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CFCs: Is “one molecule along”
chemical innovation wise?
“more money is now needed to phase out HCFCs..
It would surely have been better to stimulate more
radical changes in technology from the outset….
….focused on prudent long term goals..of
halocarbon-free and energy efficient technologies”
Joe Farman, Late Lessons, 2001, p 81.
Limits to current
“Growth” Model ?
“Shapiro recognizes the world as a closed
system whose limits are already pushing in
on us..”
“If we grow by using more stuff, I'm afraid
we'd better start looking for a new planet.“
Shapiro, Monsanto ,1997, Fortune April 14.
Who looks after the Long term in
Democracies?
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Politicians?
Stock markets?
Most Businesses?
Appointed judges?
Insurance companies?
Long mandate Sustainability Commissions?
Ombudsman/Committees for the Future? Eg
Finland, New Zealand
See “Taking the longer view” Roderick, 2010, Foundation for
Democracy and Sustainable Development.
Thank you
geedavid90@gmail.com
All chapters from both volumes of Late
Lessons available from EEA website: paper
copies from EU Publications office.
Kindle version of vol 2 from EEA website