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Over the last 20 years, there has been a quiet revolution in the environmental movement. Where those wanting to document and resolve environmental problems once embraced scientific methodologies, the passion for science has cooled. As the large, easily characterized problems have been eliminated, the very institutions of scientific inquiry -- transparency, rigorous standards of evidence, and communication of uncertainty -- have all come under fire as environmental advocates push for policies that often transcend environmental safety or healthfulness and embody a quest for environmental purity. Some groups have even gone so far as to warn their policy activists to minimize the involvement of scientists in the policy development process, since they are not as likely to go along with proposals that are not supported by scientifically rigorous findings. In a publication of the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste, for example, would-be activists are warned that … "Relying on the strength of scientific information rather than organizing can … cause problems. For one thing, it leads to "dueling experts syndrome" instead of campaigns based on common sense." The divorce between environmental activism and environmental science isn't complete: activists still cite scientific findings when proclaiming a problem. But science is clearly ghettoized in the laboratory and gamed in the policy process. |