Archive for the ‘Risk Communication’ Category
Climate hawks can get annoying with their “why you don’t see the danger that I see” message. And, I’m saying this as one of the allies – we’re long overdue for acting affirmatively about climate change, and our options are probably down to hunkering down and adapting to the hammering we’ll get from Gaia. Another annoying message that’s part of the climate hawk conventional wisdom is that people dismiss climate change because their unable to understand it. Confronting that conventional wisdom is a new paper, “The Tragedy of the Risk Perception Commons”, published by a group of risk communicators (one the names I recognize is Paul Slovic, at Oregon University). I saw this browsing through Scienceblogs, with the findings being characterized as “troubling”, and something’s not quite right”.
I’m surprised there is any surprise that education and numeracy doesn’t necessarily translate into concern about climate change. A few observations come to mind: the science around assessing climate change hazards is dominated by uncertainties – that’s not a bad thing, it just is when it comes to using the findings for decision making. The research published by Tversky and Kahaneman indicates that we’re generally really bad at making decisions with uncertainty. The research published by Gerd Gigerenzer indicates that even smart people aren’t as numerate about risks as they think. As an aside, it’s probably a fallacy to think that all educated people will converge onto one answer, regardless of other cultural factors.
The simple issue with climate change is that the mitigation and adaptation that might be needed is going to require society-transforming changes and the leadership to compel or persuade a lot of people to take actions that aren’t in their short term interest, for the benefit of future generations. And, we don’t even know if any of this is necessary – but, by the time we’re more certain, it may be too late and we as a species (particularly in Western societies) will be screwed. That seems to be the key issue, and more education about climate science is unlikely to help resolve this dilemma.
One line of inquiry Jim Hrynyshyn might consider is how opinions about climate change correlated with income and education – people who are well-off are the ones who will be asked to make the most significant changes to their lives (i.e. give up stuff they already have) to achieve climate mitigation or adaptation.
Mehmet Oz is a physician who’s made the most of the opportunities afforded him as a television celebrity. He supports complementary and alternative medicine, which draws in criticism from advocates for evidence-based medicine. Dr. Oz most recently emerged in the news with a “study” highlighting the health risks from arsenic in fruit juices, which given the size of his megaphone engendered nationwide controversy. The FDA took him to task over it, and I picked it up from reading PZ Myer’s blog. PZ does a public service drawing attention to the issue and in particular highlighting FDA’s opinion of Dr. Oz’s data, but didn’t convey anything about the nature of the risks, either significant or insignificant, about arsenic in apple juices. Deborah Blum has a great story about what real arsenic risks look like, depicting arsenism in Bangladesh including a brain-curdling picture of someone with an arsenic-related hyperkeratosis (a disabling thickening and roughening of the skin). She also takes Dr. Oz to task for doing bad risk assessment and bad risk communication. Read the rest of this entry »
Over a glass of wine this week with a colleague from the office, we got to talking about television and how neither of us watch much any longer. I confessed to my Internet surfing habit, which had become a TV replacement, and about as unhealthy for my intellect and use of time. However, my internet habits are changing. At one time, I found myself frequenting lefty political blogs. I even posted to the Great Orange Satan for several years, until I stopped three years ago became convinced it simply an echo chamber and that most of the folks commenting on my posts weren’t being terribly insightful or thoughtful. Hard on the few folks who are trying to think and engage meaningfully, I know, but there really are better uses for my time. And, as with many, I’ve fallen into the intellectual trap of not reading broadly across the spectrum of political and social thought, outlined by Susan Jacoby in a book I’m currently reading, The Age of American Unreason. But this is tempered by my growing awareness that most commentary on the Internet is wholly unreadable. So, when I can summon the will, I’ve stopped reading most of it. By extension, its arguable this essay is also unreadable. But that’s ok, I think, because it’s unlikely to be read.
That needs some context. The group blog Lawyers, Guns and Money, which was a regular reading stop for me until they added as a writer obesity denier Paul Campos, recently posted a blog item about the impact of the meltdown of the Fukashima reactor in the United States. It was the standard cut-and-paste from another blog item which alleges that an apparent increase in infant mortality in the Pacific Northwest, reported on by the Centers for Disease Control, is associated with fallout from the meltdown of the Fukushima reactor. The item gets debunked multiple times in the comments, an example of the self-correcting nature of the Internet, and comments raise the typical issues about the original source (I skim Counterpunch for many things, but not thoughtful commentary). But there are other issues with regard to giving wider distribution to this piece. The original sourcing is understandable – the authors are anti-nuclear activists, though what they’ve written reflects badly on anti-nuclear activists as a whole. The placement is understandable – Counterpunch is a strongly leftist publication, one that I go to for leads or dirt but not thoughtful commentary. What is less understandable is how the item got apparently wider distribution, including Al Jazeera. It’s a statement and not a complimentary one about the judgment and questioning attitude on the part of journalists and Internet commenters.
On the favorable side, there was some good citizen science done at the blog The Capacity Factor, where a guest poster obtained the raw mortality data and conducted an analysis using the professional-grade statistics freeware package R (I’ve recently downloaded and started learning to use it – R is awesome). Events like this restore my faith in blogging and encourage me to get back out there. But the high-traffic blogs such as LGM remain a major disappointment for the ordinary reader such as myself.
Consumer’s Reports published a report on health risks associated with protein powders, including a discussion of the risks associated with heavy metal contaminants found in some brands of powders. I’ve commented previously on the shortcomings in their reporting of the risks from the heavy metal contaminants, which I predict will do more to alarm and confuse people than inform them.
However, far be it for me to simply criticize CR’s work without making the attempt to try and communicate health risk issues with heavy metals in protein powders more clearly. So, I’ll take a run at talking about cadmium, because I kind of ran arsenic into the ground with the last post (Note that an expanded version of this post, providing a more detailed discussion of cadmium risks from protein powders, can be found here).
Consumer’s Reports published a report on health risks associated with protein powders, including a discussion of the risks associated with heavy metal contaminants found in some brands of powders. I’ve commented previously on the shortcomings in their reporting of the risks from the heavy metal contaminants, which I predict will do more to alarm and confuse people than inform them (Note that a condensed version of this post without all of the geeky risk assessment talk can be found here).
However, far be it for me to simply criticize CR’s work without making the attempt to try and communicate health risk issues with heavy metals in protein powders more clearly. So, I’ll take a run at talking about cadmium, because I kind of ran arsenic into the ground with the last post.
Consumer Reports seems to have stirred up some controversy over protein powders and drinks. These are staples in the fitness world, and while they’re not intended to be a substitute for real food, they are a convenient way to get some protein into you before a workout.
CR’s article is a bit of a scattershot complaint about the nutritional benefits and health risks, much of which I’m not particularly disposed to address. However, CR drew my attention by informing its readers how. . .
“[s]ome protein drinks can even pose health risks, including exposure to potentially harmful heavy metals, if consumed frequently. All drinks in our tests had at least one sample containing one or more of the following contaminants: arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. These metals can have toxic effects on several organs in the body.”
“Harmful.” “Contaminants.” ” Heavy metals.” “Toxic effects.” These are terms that I do not sling around with abandon. And, from my perspective, people who read CR’s report about protein powders, at least the portion that discusses health risks from heavy metal contamination, will come away alarmed, confused, no better educated about this topic than when they picked up the article, and with no roadmap about what kinds of decisions they should make about using protein powders.
Considered to be a probable human carcinogen through inhalation, formaldehyde for several years has been the subject of a risk assessment being conducted by EPA, as well as a candidate for development of emissions standards under the Clean Air Act. Formaldehyde is used in manufacturing of building materials, and the offgassing from new building materials is a source of formaldehyde exposure in indoor air for potentially millions of people.
There have been several signal events related to formaldehyde which have occurred within the past few years. Temporary housing units used by FEMA to house people rendered homeless from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were found to have concentrations of formaldehyde in air at levels that were sufficiently high that public health officials were concerned about potential health risks to the occupants. Recently published epidemiological studies of workers indicate that exposed to formaldehyde is associated with an increased incidence of leukemia (formaldehyde is already thought to be associated with an increased risk of nasal cancers in workers). Senator David Vitter has held up nomination of a key EPA deputy administrator over the formaldehyde risk assessment, insisting that the risk assessment undergo review by the National Academy of Sciences, a step that would delay any regulation of formaldehyde emissions by a few years. Finally, the California Air Resources Board finalized air toxics control measures for the manufacturing of some building materials containing formaldehyde.
Beyond the fact that formaldehyde has been recognized as a human cancer risk and a widespread indoor air contaminant for over two decades, an argument can be made that the existing regulatory frameworks will not produce real reductions in formaldehyde exposure for many years. It is not simply a matter that more information is needed to make a decision. Collecting and analyzing more information can in certain cases create more opportunities to create doubt and distraction. The problem then is defining the kinds of information, messaging and framework that would mobilize enough power to effect changes; in this case, reengineering the manufacturing of building materials to “green” the formaldehyde out of them.
This involves either molding the views of decision makers or creating an enormous groundswell of public opinion. . . . [To be continued]
I ran across this story in Science Progress, a “progressive science blog” which comes across as earnest, involved and. . . dull. Dull and earnest meant that I couldn’t get too worked up about this screed by Chris Mooney about climate change denialism, which mentions the Pew Center statistic that a declining fraction of the American public is concerned about climate change.
However this does raise a good question about why, with the majority of the scientific community that is knowledgeable about the topic of climate change issuing alarms, is climate change risk communication so ineffective. I look at climate change, and see nothing but ways to make capital flow so that lots of people can make money. There’s some kind of a lesson about how being smart and committed about a topic isn’t necessarily enough to galvanize interest and concern about it.
As always, Peter Sandman has some sensible things to say about the problem of climate change apathy and precaution advocacy. However, I recall a few months back something on his blog about him planning to retire soon. I wonder who’s going to be picking up the slack here.