Excellent overview of the colliding issues of science and economics regarding pollution control.
Daniel Weintraub: Science alone can't guide air pollution decisions
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, July 8, 2007
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent sacking of Robert Sawyer, the state's top air pollution regulator, has prompted critics to demand that the governor defer to scientists to make decisions about mitigating the effect of human industrial activity on the air we breathe. Sawyer is a respected UC Berkeley professor of environmental and energy science who did not want to take direction from the governor or his staff.
In at least one case, involving smog in the San Joaquin Valley, Schwarzenegger says he wanted to move faster than Sawyer, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, was willing to go. In another case, involving implementation of the state's global warming bill, Sawyer was pushing to move more quickly than the governor's staff thought was wise.
But whether Schwarzenegger wanted to go faster or slow the pace of regulation, it is a comfortable myth to think that these kinds of decisions can be left to science alone.
Regulating pollution is not only about science. It is also about economics. And scientists, no matter how smart or educated they may be, are not necessarily the best people to tell us how their findings should be weighed against the other needs of society.
If the state really wanted to fight smog, for instance, it could ban the private automobile. But no one (or almost no one) is recommending such a thing. The reason: The car is an integral part of our lives, and without it, the economy would grind to a halt. Millions of people would be far worse off, even if a few might live longer if they were not exposed to the tailpipe exhausts that cars emit.
Banning the car is an extreme example. But the point is that nearly every regulatory decision involves trade-offs that science alone cannot resolve.
