My Point of View by Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

Science is about consensus, not certainty.

This room for doubt is precisely what people who have resisted regulation of smoking, leaded gasoline, DDT and other products that affect air and water quality have manipulated for decades. They inflate the doubt inherent in all findings of science.

This was true of tobacco company executives who were well aware that cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke increased the risk of lung cancer and other respiratory diseases but still fought it with industry-funded research, public relations campaigns and lawyers. Their internal motto was “Doubt is our product.”

While doubt cannot be eliminated, scientific research goes through a critical peer review process before it is published in top journals. Inquiry and further research continues from there. Conclusions that stand up to this rigorous vetting process eventually lead to consensus.

The overwhelming scientific consensus around climate change is that it’s happening, and it’s primarily caused by human activities.

The “human activities” part is what makes climate change so controversial. When markets and science intersect, facts are not always welcome. In the case of climate change, mammoth profits will potentially be disrupted in efforts to curb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. In 2012 and 2013, the Big Five oil and gas companies — ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips — had combined profits of $120 and $93 billion. They have a huge interest in continued consumption of fossil fuels.

Between 1998 and 2012, ExxonMobil spent over $25 million on entities promoting and spreading climate change denial. (It has since curtailed this funding). Koch Industries (also oil and gas) has spent over twice that much. One recipient is the Heartland Institute, which cut its teeth denying the health impacts of secondhand smoke and the contributions of industrial pollution to acid rain in the 1980s. This libertarian think tank is not interested in sound science unless it points away from regulation.

People against regulation of industry often couch their arguments in terms of protecting individual liberty and free markets. Many take a “free market fundamentalism” approach. This is the idea that unregulated capitalism can solve our problems and create widespread prosperity. It doesn’t hold water for numerous reasons.

Capitalism and the middle class fully bloomed in the mid-1900s with the support of judicious government regulations, taxation and investments. Before the government became more involved in the economy, the U.S. experienced frequent boom and bust cycles (at least eight panics between 1819 and 1907), working conditions were often abysmal for adults and children and toxic industrial wastes poured directly into rivers. During the “Gilded Age” of the late 1800s, income inequality was extraordinarily high. Most of the benefits accrued to a few, while misery was spread among many.

The costs of business not accounted for in making and selling a product are called negative externalities. They are negative in that they cause harm, and they are external because somebody else pays for them — whether it is a boy struggling to breathe during an asthma attack triggered by smog particulates, a mother in close proximity to a natural gas well experiencing daily headaches and dizziness or people in Alaska preparing to abandon their homes as the rising sea erodes the land under their village. The list goes on.

Meanwhile, the people who benefit the most from economic activities that create pollution and climate change are the ones best able to insulate themselves from the damaging effects. Is that a fair distribution?

One purpose of effective government is to bring negative externalities onto the balance sheet so that people who use and profit from products are the ones who pay their costs. This is not a “freedom grab.” It protects average citizens’ freedom — to live with less sickness, injury, dislocation and other risks.

It makes no sense for the government to place unnecessary restrictions on business. In the absence of a problem, the government gains more tax revenue when businesses make more money. Even when there are potential threats, government isn’t necessarily quick to put public health ahead of industry profits. Due to lobbying, campaign contributions and the revolving door of people between government agencies and the industries they oversee, industry has heavy influence on Congress and many regulatory bodies.

We need to take power back, not give more to industry. Government is not the enemy; it is ultimately controlled by us. It should act in the public interest, not be paralyzed by industry-hyped doubt.

Despite years of manufactured controversy, who would tell their children or grandchildren today that smoking cigarettes is probably safe? It’s time to act on our scientific understanding of climate change, if not for our own benefit, then for the people whose futures we want to protect.

 

Albert Lea resident Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.