Science
and the
Environment

Dr Paul Grayshan

1. Science in Our Daily Lives

Science pervades - well, governs - our daily lives. Nearly everything around us has been touched by the hand of science. Consider the vehicle in which you travel, the fuel it uses, your clothes, detergents for cleaning self and clothes, cosmetics, food, the farming which produced it, the pc on which this has been written, paper and ink, paint and wall paper, carpets and fabrics, and so on. Even the paracetamol you take, to cure the headache you got from thinking about all this, was the outcome of applied science.

2. Confusion Abounds

This has been a difficult presentation to prepare. "Science and the Environment" is a big subject. It would be all too easy to get carried away and produce huge amounts of verbiage (though it might be argued that this article is exactly that!) It has been necessary therefore just to select a few topics which will help to show how science and the environment have been in interaction. It is hoped that this has not lead to too fragmentary a narrative.

It seems that many people have an ambivalent attitude to science - it is seen both as "good" and "bad", and science and scientists have not in recent years had a very good press. However, science is neither good nor bad; the problems arise from the way mankind chooses to use or misuse it.

The writer is a scientist, possibly even an expert in his field. But an expert is a person who knows more and more about less and less. Eventually there comes a point where a person comes to know everything about nothing. This sort of person we call "a pundit".

What is the difference between a scientist and a green activist? A scientist is a person who doesn't know all the answers.... We live in strange times. A Yorkshire Assembly has been proposed. It will never work - if you put two Yorkshiremen in a room together, they will never agree about anything! Scientists are a bit like this. When it comes to the environment, they are a lot like this. When you add in pundits, green activists, vested interests, rampant media, a highly complex and possibly misleading picture results, and it is not surprising that "ordinary folks" get confused and angry, and suspicious of scientists and politicians.

3. Environmental Science

"Environmental Science" as a subject for study is a relatively new concept. It is by no means an exact science, but a complex subject with a wide scope. Just the thing for the various interest groups, with their various agendas, to "climb on the bandwagon". It doesn't help us much, but it certainly sells newspapers!

4. The Lack of Consensus

Among scientists, there are still those who argue that we don't have environmental problems at all. (It is tempting to suggest that these are in the pay of the US government!) There are those who think that what we are seeing is part of the Earth's cycle of changes, which occur over aeons, and about which we have little knowledge and over which we can exercise no control. For example, if what Bill Bryson has written concerning Yellowstone Park is correct, our days are numbered anyway. Yellowstone Park is apparently the cap of a super-volcano, about 70 km across, that blows up about every 600 million years. If, or when, this blows, it will wipe out most of life on earth. This event is "overdue".

However, it does seem that a majority of scientists are coming to the view that whatever is happening to the planet, mankind is not helping. The problem is that we are nowhere near achieving a consensus about remedying the situation we find ourselves in. What is even more worrying is that the real decision makers are the politicians and global corporations, and they have their own agendas. Science and scientists have been relegated, at best, to an advisory role.

5. The Problem of Perception

If you look around, the evidence you perceive does tend to give a different, vastly improved impression of the environment compared to memories of a generation ago. The writer, living in Bramley, has on occasion come across a toad or a newt in the garden. Ten minutes down the lane on the Leeds and Liverpool canal, swans are now nesting. One Sunday (28 Sept) there was a kingfisher disporting himself on the stretch of canal near Newlay. Herons are a not uncommon sighting. Herons and kingfishers eat fish, so our water courses must be quite healthy. Indeed anglers are now active (if that is the right word!) on the River Aire at Kirkstall, something unthinkable only a few years ago. The supermarkets are stuffed with a super-abundance of food from all over the globe.

6. The Global Environment

However, data from such sources as the UN tells us that our local perception of the environment is not valid on a global basis. Hunger and want still affect a large proportion of the world's human population.

The UN has recently published a World Water Development Report, a combined effort from 23 UN agencies. Basically this report says that the world is facing a serious water crisis, and the signs are that it will get worse by the middle of the century.

The best case scenario - with the right action - predicts that 2 billion people in 48 countries are likely to be affected by water shortages. Governments world-wide are, as you will be aware, falling over themselves to take the right action, of course.

Alas, the UN is but a paper tiger. Unscrupulous governments and politicians use the UN as a delaying mechanism, that is when they choose to regard it at all. Recent examples include the current "problems" in Sudan, or the behaviour of the (US backed) Israeli government, or indeed the behaviour of the UK and USA governments in relation to Iraq.

7. Applied Science

Mankind has, unwittingly at first, used applied science and technology from very early times. Consider (in no special order of priority):-

• woodworking
• building and construction - brick-making, quarrying and shaping of stone
• pottery and glass making
• textiles and dyeing
• mining of metals, metal ores, and other minerals, including coal
• refining of metals
• paper and writing/printing
• tool making, including weapons
• transport - horse drawn vehicles, shipbuilding
• agriculture - animal and plant breeding, use of fertilisers

These are random examples. Their development has usually been interdependent, and the growth of these and other technologies has increased through the ages, accelerating sharply from the start, around the 18th Century, of what we now call "The Industrial Revolution"

It is safe to assume that environmental impact has always been apparent, but it is only in relatively recent times that we have been able to apply these technologies on such a massive scale that the impact has become not just localised, region-wide or country-wide, but global.

An early example of environmental impact concerns the dye "Tyrian Purple". This was used quite extensively in early Roman times. The dye, a derivative of indigo (containing bromine), comes from a marine mollusc found along the Mediterranean coastline. Eventually over-fishing of the mollusc caused the dye to become scarce and expensive, and it was then reserved solely for the use of the emperor.

Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the rise of the Industrial Revolution occurred at a time known as "The Age of Enlightenment". Only the wealthy could afford to be enlightened of course, and they are the people who write history. In fact the age was one of shocking barbarism - wars on an increasingly destructive scale, empire building and exploitation, poverty, want, and disease among workers and their families.

8. The Chemical Industry in the UK

The chemical industry was no less culpable than other heavy industry with regard to pollution. Factories churned out noxious fumes into the atmosphere, produced masses of solid waste that had to be dumped, and polluted the water courses. The effects were known from early in the Industrial Revolution period, and continued until well into the 20th century. Many of you will remember the lifeless state of the River Aire, the detergent foams blowing in the wind.

These excesses of industry are to a large extent history now; partly through legislation and the work of government agencies, the Factory Inspectorate, the Environmental Agency, and so on, and partly because much of the heavy industry responsible has disappeared from the UK - coal mining, steel making, ship building, textile mills. These have moved to other parts of the globe, together, it is surmised, with their associated environmental problems.

In the chemicals sector, industrial activity these days is tightly controlled, and indeed now has excellent green credentials. Two sets of regulations are worth mentioning:-

The COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazards) regulations which came into force in 1999 were a response to major incidents that have occurred from time to time over the years. Through the Health and Safety Executive, sites of potential major hazard are identified and monitored, with a view to identifying and minimising risk. Such sites are mainly within the chemical industry but some storage, explosives, and nuclear facilities are also covered by the regulations. These regulations are mainly aimed at safety, though of course the results of a major incident would probably have severe environmental consequences as well.

The IPPC (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) regulations, monitored by the Environmental Agency, perform a similar function, but with a different focus, as implied by the name. These regulations are being introduced throughout Europe, with a target date for full implementation by 2007.

Companies have to be licensed under COMAH and IPPC, and the licences are not cheap - tens of thousands of pounds at the outset, then annual renewal fees, which are of course rather less. For a large company making multi-million pound investments in new plant, these costs are relatively minor, but they can be a distinct disincentive for SMEs ("Small to Medium Sized Enterprises"), not just for the cost, but for the concomitant bureaucracy. There is a mass of data collection and form-filling.

New EC proposals, called REACH (Registration, Evaluation, and Authorisation of CHemicals), are also soon to be introduced Europe-wide. These have caused fierce controversy, not to say downright opposition, within the Chemical Industry. Essentially, the EC wishes to ensure that all chemicals entering "the public domain" have been safety tested. A further rider is that when materials are found to be especially hazardous, efforts should be made to replace them, if possible, with something more benign. The proposals cover materials produced in quantities greater than one tonne, and cover all chemicals, including products already in use, and those imported into the EC from other countries. The proposals allow for evaluation over a period of several years.

It is not unreasonable to ask companies to take responsibility for their products' safety. Presumably many of the materials used over the years have provided healthy profits.

The regulations do imply considerable cost. Testing of individual chemicals can cost £100,000 to £150,000, so a company making many untested products is facing a not insubstantial bill over the next few years. Companies have been complaining of this cost, and warning that the EC chemical industry will collapse, with tens of thousands of jobs being lost. The EC accuses the industry of scare mongering. Ironically, EC regulations mean that all the chemicals will have to be tested on animals, and at least one publication (Speciality Chemicals magazine) predicted that this would keep companies such as Huntingdon Life Sciences going for at least 50 years!

Another argument put forward is that materials which have been used for many years must be safe, or dangers would have become apparent by now. But "innocent until proven guilty" is not valid reasoning, especially when, on occasion, health risks of chemicals have become known, but have somehow the information has been slow to enter the public domain! Asbestos is one example. Beta-naphthyalmine and benzidine, associated with bladder cancer, are two more compounds known to the writer whose use was banned in the 60s.

Incidentally, one reason why scientists do not always give definitive answers about hazards, or seem to be "hedging", is that the data tends to be statistical. For example, the incidence of bladder cancer was about 50 times higher amongst workers who used beta-naphthyalmine compared to those who didn't. However, not all workers who used beta-naphthyalmine got the disease, just as not all smokers get lung cancer. Thus you can't quite say, "beta-naphthyalmine causes bladder cancer". But do you want to take the risk?

More information is to be found on the web sites of the Environmental Agency, the Factory Inspectorate, EU Business etc.

9. An Unexpected By-product of Green Activism

Green activists are, on the whole, very well intentioned people; I exclude those at the extreme margins, who are basically facist - the inevitable end of rigidly following a single-issue agenda. However, there has been an unanticipated result of green legislation, which has been counter-productive. Environmental problems have not been entirely cured - they have been transferred to different parts of the globe. Unfortunately, these newer areas of industrialisation are less well regulated, and coupled with the fact that wages are much lower, this "green" activity has increased problems, by undermining our (i.e. western) manufacturing base, reducing standards of living, and widening the division between rich and poor to an even greater extent than before.

It can be argued that we are becoming, in the UK and the USA, "neo-Stalinist" societies - a small privileged group controlling the supply of goods and services, media bodies owned by this group and controlling and indeed "interpreting" news coverage, a large poor underclass of "proles", and excess wealth created being used to fund peripheral wars (eg Iraq). Nineteen Eighty-Four come to life.

This is a generalisation - but the trends are there, and we ignore them at our peril.

10. Where Do We Go From Here?

Having been rude about it earlier, punditry must now be avoided. It is felt that we have many environmental problems, local and global, notably to do with water and oil. We should be taking action now; we need to find ways to live in balance with the Earth.

Nuclear power, from fission, is being put forward again as a way of meeting our energy needs. The writer feels that this is unacceptable - the waste is just too dangerous, the time scale for storage too long.

Scientists, who after all are only people who have decided to study science, as distinct, say, from plumbing or the law, can and will help. We need more studies to develop greater understanding of the ecosphere, and how it operates. We need to study and apply energy efficiency and conservation measures, to develop renewable energy sources, to improve and expand recycling. We could do with controlling or reducing the human population. We need to reduce the amount of travelling we do, and all those foreign holidays - yes, that's a tough one, isn't it?

We should get rid of accountants.... Seriously, one of the real bars to progress is that we seem to want to resolve every problem by asking, "How much does it cost". We can't go on doing that, because what is cheap now may prove to be very expensive at a later date. New technologies are not cheap to develop and introduce, but we cannot go on allowing this to be an excuse for maintaining the status quo. Short term profit is a real enemy of mankind.

A review of the roles of politicians and the global corporations is well overdue. Here is a suggestion to counter "globalisation".

How about "Localisation"? This is not exactly a new idea; it is after all what we did before we had mass transport. But the concept can be refined. We should be encouraging local agriculture. We can even grow significant amounts of food in our own gardens; it is not organic food that tastes so good, it is fresh food! We could eat less meat (to produce 400 lbs, of beef, about 3000 pounds of grain is required).

There is much more that can be written about "Science and the Environment" - refer to the attached appendices if interested. Just where all this is taking us is uncertain, but on one thing we can be sure - the Earth is not going to compromise.

-- Paul Grayshan, 5 Oct 2004

Appendix 1. Some further notes on Water

The UN World Water Development Report predicts that population growth, industrialisation, and climate change will all increase demand and reduce supply to such an extent that the amount of water available per person will fall by one third by 2020. That is only 16 years hence.

The worst case scenario predicts that by the middle of the century 7 billion people in 60 countries will be facing water shortages.

The best case scenario - with the right action - predicts that "only" 2 billion people in 48 countries will be affected.

Water has the potential to become a major source of conflict. The fact that water is in short supply may seem odd, since 70% of the world's surface is covered by water. But only about 2.5% of the water on the earth is potable, and two thirds of that is locked up as ice and snow - at the moment anyway! Much of what is left is "in the wrong places". For example South America has 26% of the world's fresh water, but only 6% of the world's human population, while Asia has 36% of the world's fresh water, but 60% of the world's population. What makes this situation worse is that the demand in Asia is increasing rapidly as industrialisation proceeds.

India, where availability of water is said to have halved (whatever that means) in the last 25 years, needs water for the south and east of the country, and plans to dam or divert 53 rivers in the north east of the country. As a result, Bangladesh predicts that 100 million of it's people will suffer water shortage; the country is already "drying out" after the damming of the Ganges in 1976.

China is also experiencing severe water problems in certain areas. Exceptionally hot weather has left 4.3 million people without enough drinking water, and over 4 million hectares of farm land have been devastated. The Yellow River has been reduced "to a trickle" in some places, after 15 years of drought and increasing water extraction for farming and factories.

Europe is not immune from water shortage. After the hottest summer last year for many years, the River Po was reduced to its lowest level for 100 years. (This does raise a slight doubt about the predicted effects of global warming - the phrase "for 100 years" seems to suggest the river has been this low or lower before, unless of course it means that records are not available before then.) Switzerland experienced its hottest summer for 200 years, and many villages had to be supplied with water by tanker. In France, Germany, and Austria, the summer was so hot and dry that crop yields were down by up to 50%.

We are not immune in the UK. Our uplands are not managed in the way that once they were, and one of the results is that much of the water, instead of filling up subterranean water stores (the aquifers), is running off the land to the rivers and is lost to the sea. Also we have covered up much of our land with tarmacadam, which is obviously impervious to rain water; the surface water from roads, also house roofs, is collected and drained to rivers and the sea. At the same time we have in recent years increased our water usage - dish washers, automatic washing machines. We possibly do have adequate water resources, but the lack of a national water network means that it is not available in the regions of greatest need. And national policy is not helping; privatisation of water authorities is not conducive to the construction of a national water network - it was done to "encourage competition", not co-operation. And there was a recent announcement by the government that they planned to boost house building in the south east, which on the face of it seems sensible, because this is the area of greatest demand and highest house prices. But the water resources in the region only just cope now, and will not be sufficient to support yet more building.

The biggest threat to mankind is not famine, or plague, or war, or terrorism. It is water shortage, because that has the capacity to give rise to all these things.

Appendix 2. More About Applied Science

Study of science seems to be almost as old as its application. Mankind has long studied the stars, has long been interested in the measuring of time, the seasons and the years. Stonehenge comes to mind. We have 60 seconds per minute and 60 minutes per hour because the Babylonians, keen astronomers, used units of sixty for counting. The building of the Pyramids presupposes a good understanding of mathematics. Such studies developed and expanded through the ages. The Greeks developed mathematics and the sciences in the pre-Roman era, though they interested themselves in the main in empirical rather than experimental science. The Middle East continued to be a centre of scientific study until about the 12th or 13th centuries, when scientific study in Europe seems to have become predominant. Such words as "algebra" and "alcohol" are thought to be Arabic in origin. Practical science was advanced by the so-called alchemists, for rather dubious reasons (one of their aims was to "turn base metal into gold"; clearly they did not understand the concept of "supply and demand"!)

The growth in use of applied science during the Industrial Revolution into modern times is largely, it seems, down to serendipity. This is one of the reasons why environmental impact has been so huge - there was no planning, no co-ordination, and no thought to environmental impact at that time or for the future.

It is all too easy to ascribe this growth, and the problems associated with it, to unbridled capitalism, and although this does have a large measure of responsibility, it is not the only factor at work. Early developments were really about the maintenance of political power, essentially feudal in origin. It is a sad fact that much technological development has been made for the purpose of prosecuting wars. Feudalism and capitalism seem to be inherent in man's nature, as functions of his greed and the desire for power. (And I think we have to use the term "man" here as distinct from "woman".)

As "industrialisation" went ahead, the environmental impact was largely ignored. The winning of coal offers a prime example. Safety for miners was a low priority, defiling the environment with spoil heaps was regarded as acceptable. The coal owner apparently didn't care. He lived away from the mine, indeed he bought up large tracts of unspoiled countryside, built a large mansion, and filled it with expensive furniture and objets d'art on the proceeds. The environmental impact of his mine was remote from him. He did not see it as his concern. To working people, the impact was obvious and resented, but attempts by workers to address the problems were vigorously opposed - in the press, in parliament, by direct action, eg use of The Riot Act.

Eventually of course, the widespread burning of coal did have major environmental consequences. In 1956, as a response to the smogs that were common in the post war years, causing major illness and death, the Clean Air Act became law. This was the first major piece of environmental legislation, one of which we ought to be proud, were it not for the fact that it was over 100 years too late.

It has already been noted that the chemical industry in the UK is now tightly regulated, and indeed it has excellent safety and environmental records. But the industry is a diminishing, though still significant, sector of the economy, and remains important within the Yorkshire and Humberside region. There has been considerable change of focus in recent years, however, from the large companies to "SMEs" - small to medium enterprises. "Household Names" from the recent past are disappearing, or the companies have "demerged" and/or "downsized". Activities are changing from larger scale production of commodity chemicals to smaller scale production of more specialised, higher added value materials.

Consider a recent example - the case of Hickson and Welch at Castleford, now called "C6 Solutions Ltd." At the start of the 90s, there was a major incident on the site, an explosion causing several deaths. The bad publicity, together with the loss of production for several months of some important products, caused problems from which this previously profitable company never really recovered. It was eventually taken over by a US company, Arch Chemicals, which was mainly interested in the H & W timber preservation products. The main chemical manufacturing site was eventually sold off, being purchased by "Dunedin Capital Partners", and became an independent business as "C6 Solutions Ltd." in 2003. The site used to employ about 1500 people at its peak; the figure now is fewer than 400.

Appendix 3. More on Future Developments

You may have noted that the writer is somewhat pessimistic about future possibilities for mankind. Human population growth, increasing industrialisation, and an inability for political and corporate leaders to follow anything other than their own agendas renders mankind's situation somewhat precarious.

We are seeing a growth of various kinds of religious fundamentalism; there is a turning away from science. Politicians are increasingly trying to generate an atmosphere of fear.

We need to be addressing these issues now, pursuing solutions, changing the way we have become accustomed to living. Science and scientists can, and want, to help with these issues.

There are still some simple, almost obvious things that we could do now. For example quite significant oil saving can be made. Is it too much to ask motorists to drive at no more than 50 mph? What about car-sharing in towns and cities? (How many single occupancy cars, in relation to multiple occupancy, do you see in the "rush" hour?) Should we phase out the construction of cars with fuel consumptions of less than 50 mpg? "We have the technology". Business travel can be greatly reduced by the use of such things as video conferencing. Public transport could be improved. Goods movement by rail and water might be reconsidered. If we relied on local produce, the need to transport goods around the globe could be much reduced. If sufficient savings could be made in terms of fuel consumption, energy generation from bio-mass becomes more practicable. Insufficient land is available to provide sufficient biomass to meet our current levels of energy consumption.

There is much that can be done too in relation to our buildings, both public and domestic, in terms of insulation, energy efficiency, and energy generation (wind generators, solar panels, and water power can now all be harnessed in quite small "packages".)

As previously stated, there's not much ground for optimism. Will we take the right action, or enough of it, in time? Or will we be submerged in a new age of barbarism in the fight for the earth's diminishing resources? Are we seeing the start of that already, when a major power bloc, of which the UK seems to be a part, is prepared to make war to prop up its own greed for energy supplies at the expense of the rest of mankind?

Footnote - 06/10/04

After this note was written, a further thought came to the writer - the idea of integrating road and rail transport by laying railways along the motorway corridors, and running "Eurostar" type roll on/roll off trains....

This article is based on a talk given by
Paul Grayshan
to the Chapel Allerton Alliance for Green Socialism on 5 October 2004. The AGS thanks Paul for permission to recycle it. The AGS will try to keep it up to date and extend it. Please pass comments, suggestions and updates to Garth Frankland on 293 9288
email mailto:frankland@britishlibrary.net

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