Certain
science-based phenomena have come to light in recent decades that adversely
affect human health or damage the environment.
Rigorous study showed that, in each case, products or practices of large
corporations turned out to be responsible.
Those commercial interests sought to raise questions about the
scientific results in the minds of the public, rather than continue further
research to develop sound solutions to the problems.
We
humans have benefited from the advances provided by science and
technology. We cannot justifiably select
the science we like and dismiss the science that we don’t.
Benedict (Benny to his friends) is waking slowly,
after having stayed late at a party last night.
He’s already enveloped in the soothing sounds of his favorite music,
Sounds from Space, that invariably puts him in a mellow mood. His radio came on with the music using an
alarm setting. He also plays music on his CD player; over the
years he’s accumulated an extensive library of CDs. His tastes run quite eclectic.
At last Benny swings himself out of bed and hops on
to his Stair Stepper for a workout. It’s
equipped with a TV monitor so he can watch the latest news as he exercises.
After a leisurely breakfast, he gets ready to head
out for his weekly frisbee match.
After the vigorous physical exertion of the game, he
comes home and turns on his air conditioner to make his apartment more
comfortable. Air conditioners are
effective because they lower the air temperature, but equally importantly, they
remove some humidity from the air. Lower
humidity makes the body feel cooler because its perspiration evaporates more
easily, cooling the skin.
Later, that afternoon, Benny has decided to attend a
lecture at the local library on the shoreline habitats for all manner of
wildlife. Lately he’s become even more interested in the natural world, and how
different species interact in their habitats.
The lecturer is using a computer-driven digital projector, and he
emphasizes his discussion as he goes along using a laser pointer.
In the evening, Benny and Valerie, his girlfriend,
went out for dinner and came back to relax with a movie streamed over the
internet.
* * * * *
Benny’s day, a rather routine one in today’s world,
benefited from many products that rely on developments in science and
technology. Here we’ll discuss two
classes of appliance, and a third that because of careful scientific
investigation, became quite controversial.
Telegraph, and radio and television. For all of history before the industrial
revolution, news, books and artwork traveled only as fast as humans could carry
them. Walking and travel by horseback
could transmit physical objects, whereas drumbeats, smoke signals and semaphore
signaling could communicate more terse messages.
In the 1830’s and 1840’s clusters of inventors in
the U.S. and England separately developed the telegraph. In the U. S., one of those was Samuel
Morse. The previous post
mentioned that nineteenth century physicists developed an understanding of the
reciprocal interactions between electricity and magnetism. With the telegraph, a key pressed by a sender
completed an electric circuit so that current could instantaneously flow as far
as a conducting wire could be strung. At
the destination, the current activated an electromagnet to sound a click. In addition to developing the technology
Morse invented Morse code, by which the spacing between clicks permitted coding
every letter of the alphabet. The
technology developed into the Western Union Company (cofounded by Ezra Cornell,
for whom the university is named) which strung wires across the U. S. This revolutionary technology liberated the transmission
of information from the historical limits of personal or visual/auditory
messaging.
The telephone built on the electromagnetic
transmission of coded messages to the direct, immediate transmission of sound,
especially the human voice.
The laws of physics relating to
electromagnetism also led to radio and television transmission. Perhaps, if you live in an older home, you’ve
noticed that a window sash will buzz or vibrate in its track as an airplane or
a truck passes by. The window sash has
its own characteristic vibration. The
sound from the passing plane or truck can set the window vibrating, but only if
the vibrations of the sound waves have the same pitch as the natural vibration
of the window sash. This is variously
called forced vibration or sympathetic vibration.
Radio and TV transmission and reception
work the same way. A radio transmitter
is designed to emit radio waves at a specific vibration frequency. If a specific receiver circuit in a radio or
TV is adjusted to vibrate at the same frequency, the broadcast signal is picked
up by the receiver, amplified, and delivers sound and picture images. If the tuner is not adjusted to the
appropriate frequency it will not receive the broadcast signal.
Benny’s air conditioner is filled with a
refrigerant gas, a chlorofluorocarbon. The technological principles underlying
operation of refrigerators and air conditioners were explained in the preceding post.
Use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) is an
example where a useful technology turns out to have harmful consequences. When they were developed and entered the
market, the use of CFCs as refrigerants and in other applications became
widespread. During the 1980’s, however, researchers discovered that the amount
of ozone in the stratosphere (a zone centered around 15 mi. above Earth’s
surface) was diminishing compared to earlier years. Stratospheric ozone is beneficial
because it filters out ultraviolet light from incident sunlight. (This should not be confused with ground
level ozone, a health hazard, which is produced by smog on hot days.) If ozone
becomes depleted, more ultraviolet (UV) light can reach the surface of the
earth. The additional UV could increase
the incidence of skin cancer the world over if the ozone depletion were to
continue.
After some years atmospheric scientists showed clearly
that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) caused the ozone depletion. These compounds enter the atmosphere when
refrigeration equipment leaks its refrigerant or is improperly disposed of; when
we use spray cans, such as hair spray; and when CFCs are used as industrial
foaming agents. Even a small amount of
CFCs has a powerful destructive effect because the active component derived
from CFCs is re-used in the chemistry of ozone destruction many times over. For this
discovery, Paul Crutzen, Mario Molina, and Frank Rowland were awarded the Nobel
Prize in 1995.
In light of this new
understanding almost 50 of the world’s nations, the main producers and users of
CFCs, agreed to the Montreal Protocol of 1987 to phase out use of these
compounds.
Corporate Interests
generated doubt and delay.
Early on the manufacture of CFCs, and of the spray cans that use them,
became a lucrative business. Rigorous scientific
research, pursued as a quest for
understanding of basic properties of the natural world, led to evidence showing
that CFCs were responsible for destroying stratospheric ozone. As this evidence was accumulating, however, the
companies sought to neutralize the
impact of the scientific results (Wikipedia;
N. Oreskes and E. M. Conway, “Merchants of Doubt”, 2010, Bloomsbury Press, New
York), without offering scientific evidence to support their position.
In one paper, prepared
by Greenpeace for the 9th meeting of participants in the Montreal
Protocol in 1997, a threefold corporate strategy of disinformation used by a major corporation
was summarized:
Deny that CFCs are
responsible. The corporation wrote in
1979: "No ozone
depletion has ever been detected...all ozone depletion figures to date are
based on a series of uncertain projections."
Delay. In
the years surrounding the signing of the Montreal Protocol, this corporation
sought to delay implementation of its terms by lobbying activities. In 1986 it testified before Congress:
"we believe that there is no immediate crisis that demands unilateral
regulation."
Dominate.
The industry had already developed alternatives to CFCs, closely related
in chemical structure to the banned compounds, by which they intended to
dominate the world market for refrigerants and propellants.
Discussion
This
post and the preceding one, and perhaps a few more to come, strive to point out
that humanity benefits from scientific endeavor, in all its varied subject
matter. Scientists work by pursuing characterization
of our natural world in an open, unbiased fashion. The results of scientific investigations and
the technologies that result from those studies benefit our lives in innumerable
ways. The progress we humans have made
began largely with the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century; it
represents a revolutionary departure from the way of life humans had known
throughout history.
Telegraph and radio communication
point out how scientific development permitted humans to communicate
instantaneously across great distances. Prior
to this time human communication traveled primarily only as fast as we could
move across land and sea.
The example of CFCs used as
refrigerants and propellants likewise shows how research creates new materials
intended to have beneficial properties.
The detrimental aspect of their use, promoting the destruction of
stratospheric ozone, was unforeseen. It
is thanks to further atmospheric research that the mechanism of ozone
destruction was unequivocally identified, and still newer substances that avoid
this downside were created.
(Unfortunately, both CFCs and the newer refrigerants are extremely
potent greenhouse gases. It will require
still further efforts to overcome this detriment.)
When
the drawback of CFCs was identified the powerful corporations that manufactured
them sought to diminish the significance in the mind of the public of the
scientific research underlying the problem.
But science proceeds in the same way regardless of whether we consider
the results to be favorable or harmful.
As shown above, the same scientific process led to potential solutions that
overcame the disadvantages.
The
public at large, and corporate entities impacted by research results, cannot
cherry pick the results they like and dismiss the ones they don’t. Rigorous pursuit of the scientific method is
the only way forward.
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