Editorial: Environmental Goals Blurred by Data Smog

David Shenk copyrighted Data Smog in 1997. Yet the message portrayed in that title is, if anything, more real today than it ever was. Basically, Shenk’s message was that, even in 1997, we were being deluged with far more information that we could handle.

Since the early 1970s, we have been bombarded by information about environmental goals, some realistic, some not. Some realistic goals don’t get much financial support and the attention they need. Some less realistic goals are propped up with stories as wild as Chicken Little’s fib. There are environmental questions absolutely confusing to many of us because the scientists who are supposed to know the answers disagree. In the matter of global warming, for instance, almost everyone agrees it’s real, but there is great disagreement over the greatest cause and how to solve it.

Greenhouse gases, for instance, are produced in nature as well as by humans, the late Dixie Lee Ray wrote in Trashing The Planet. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) comes naturally from the respiration of all living organisms and from decaying vegetation. She suggested that the greatest source of CO₂ might be termites, whose digestive activities are responsible for 50 billion tons of CO₂ and methane annually. Oceans, which represent 73 percent of the earth’s surface, hold 60 percent more CO₂ than the atmosphere. It is hard to understand scientists, she wrote, who talk “global” and ignore 73 percent of the globe. It would be hard these days to conceive of scientists ignoring ocean temperatures.

Presently, the emphasis of many environmentalists is on reducing the use of fossil fuels, although we don’t know precisely what percent of CO₂ in the atmosphere is contributed by using them. A recent global warning from the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that warming could cause mass extinctions. In the last 118 years, the earth’s average temperature has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit. The panel’s report suggested we reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 80 percent by 2050, or about 2 percent a year. Will that produce a noticeable impact, or will it be just a drop in the bucket?

Environmentalists are pleased to know Ray agreed that we should do all we can to reduce the use of fossil fuels. She suggested in 1990 the use of nuclear power—a power source that has no adverse effect on the atmosphere. Critics killed that notion years ago following two nuclear plant events. The pendulum has swung back, and nuclear power is coming back into vogue.

Ray reported that the public furor over globing warming was triggered in June 1988 “when NASA scientist James Hansen testified in the U.S. Senate that the greenhouse effect is changing the climate now.” Hansen told the Senate that he was 99 percent sure of it and that 1988 would be the warmest year on record, “unless there is some remarkable, improbable cooling in the remainder of the year.” Almost as he spoke, she wrote, the eastern Pacific Ocean underwent a remarkable, improbable cooling—a sudden drop in temperature of 7 degrees. (Remember, oceans make up 73 percent of the earth’s surface.) Though no one knew why it happened, the phenomenon was known as La Nina. Unfortunately, Hansen’s computer program did not consider ocean temperatures.

The problem with environmental data smog is that a large percentage of it is pseudoscience, that is, it is not scientifically proven information at all. Nevertheless, it gets picked up and repeated and cited and repeated again until many of us don’t know which way is up.

Much of the information used in our modern world is developed from computer models, too many unproven. Yet, as the computer industry explained years ago, GIGO—garbage in, garbage out. It was the feeling of river industry leaders that much of the data used in computer models related to the operations of the Upper Mississippi was just that—garbage.

It would be worthwhile to work more enthusiastically with programs that are more realistic, such as reducing the pollutants going into our waterways. We might re-evaluate ethanol to see if it is counterproductive, as some say it is. We could concentrate more on developing clean-coal technology, since coal is the most available energy source we have, and since at this point in time emissions are still not pollution free.

Above all, it would be prudent to set priorities for spending federal dollars so that we concentrate only on realistic goals, those that promise at least a ghost of a chance of being attained. If we are to reduce our dependence on oil, foreign or domestic, our goals must be practical and pursued energetically.

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