Bad Study... Go Away: Suppressing Evidence In The Environmental Discussion

Whatcom County in Washington State is home to a holy body of water.

The water must be holy because nothing else can explain the almost religious fervor exhibited by the pop environmental movement as it mounts battle after battle over what the movement appears to consider the sanctity of the holy water flowing through the lake and on into Puget Sound.

Whatcom County residents discuss Lake Whatcom water quality

Controversy has surrounded use of the lake for at least the last two decades.  Anyone reading the history of discussions regarding the lake would think they’d been transported back to the days of the Crusades as the knights of the lake raise huge sums of money to outfit yet another attack on the infidels occupying the shores of the holy waterway.

The discussion regarding Lake Whatcom over the years serves to illustrate a serious problem with most discussions about environmental issues in recent times; science has become something to be manipulated for result and, if the result cannot be manipulated, science is to be suppressed.

That on-going attacks on science by the environmental movement would be the cornerstone of the future movement first came into clear focus for me when, nearly 20 years ago, I attended the Clinton Forest Summit in Portland, Oregon as an analyst for a number of forest products industry oriented trade magazines.

The experience was a stunning one in a number of ways, especially since I was considerably more naïve in those days regarding the environmental movement and some of its approaches; I still thought that science and reason mattered when it came to environmental issues and that the excesses of the pop-environmental movement mostly came from lack of information.

So I was pretty optimistic about the Summit.  It was billed as a science based, rational look at environmental issues surrounding the health and use of the forests of our nation.

The event was held in Portland’s convention center.  Reporters, including myself, were allotted space at tables surrounded by broadcast trucks sent in by the major U.S. and regional media.  Around the edges of the Convention Center floor were several hundred stations manned by activist groups providing studies, brochures, letters, press releases and other material designed to influence the reporters at the event.

Had I not known in advance the Summit was about forestry I’d have thought I was attending a druid’s convention.  At least 80% of the materials provided by “environmental activists” had to do with Earth Mother Gaia, the sacred ocean or some other religious enterprise involving how trees scream when they are cut down and so on. 

Almost nothing involving forest health, responsible harvest, fire reduction strategies or any other aspect of the actual point of the Summit was offered.

Even worse, twenty years ago the Northern Spotted Owl was all the rage, or at least everyone was all enraged, over the controversy surrounding the little bird.

The timber industry in the United States was in the process of being decimated with the need to protect the Spotted Owl being used as an excuse to suspend logging over huge expanses of timber land.

But wait!  Scientists had discovered in the years immediately preceding the conference that the Spotted Owl was not only far less endangered than had been thought, the little creature could also survive nicely in second growth timber stands; a cornerstone relied on by the pop-environmental movement to prop up their end of the discussion had been removed.

Whoops!

Guess what?  Evidence regarding the potential widespread occurrence of the bird in ranges previously thought unsuitable was very specifically banned from discussion.  Only discussion revolving around the need to preserve old growth forest to save the Spotted Owl was allowed to be presented.



The Pop-environmental View - Nothing Should Ever Change



Back to holy water.

Near the turn of the century, after years of discussion about Lake Whatcom, a highly respected engineering firm was hired by local authorities to prepare a report at assembled all of the various studies about Lake Whatcom, analyze them, then draw conclusions regarding the entirety of the data about the lake, especially in terms of the Lake’s being used for drinking water.

Well, unfortunately, the firm hired to do the analysis was infested by engineers and scientists who hadn’t been informed about the desire outcome of the study.  That meant the draft was based on science.  The final report was particularly disdainful of some of the work being done by the local university so, when a preliminary draft was circulated to a small number of local officials, the proverbial excrement hit the fan.  In very short order the report was fitted with concrete boots and “disappeared,” to use a term often attributed to gangsters eliminating a rival. 

Similar studies in recent years have suffered the same fate as the jihad against any use of land around the lake has continued. 

The experience with Lake Whatcom data is, of course, not unique.  More and more we see science being cooked to match emotional needs rather than as a learning tool. 

The essence of drawing conclusions about any issue is the attempt to use observable fact and rational thought to inform decision-making.  Often, properly done studies will point to data allowing for differences of opinion.  We learn when we, from the differing perspectives we all have, discuss, comprehend and arrive at agreement with the data in mind.

The problem comes when data is deliberately suppressed so that pre-determined decisions can be supported.  If only data supporting one point of view or another is allowed in the discussion we get only one result; the wrong one. 

The larger problem comes in that suppressing data that might be in opposition to a desired conclusion is no longer seen as particularly inappropriate by the environmental industry.