Tide turns against the chicken littles - lack of scientific evidence undermines claims for environmental regulations - Column

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 17, 1993 | by S. Fred Singer

The late columnist Warren Brookes really started something -- a tradition of environmental skepticism that has now reached a full flowering. Even the Washington Post and the gray, old New York Times have joined in questioning what environmental activists have long passed off as scientific wisdom. The big stories are no longer written by advocates but by journalists who pay attention to science and economics.

One by one, the environmental icons are falling: asbestos, dioxin, Alar, pesticides and all the rest. We no longer believe that a single molecule can kill -- the basis of the infamous Delaney Clause. Journalists such as Ron Bailey and Mike Fumento have documented the hype passing as science in the recently published books Eco-Scam and Science Under Siege.

And now it seems that ozone depletion has gotten its comeuppance -- and on the front page of the Washington Post! Michael Oppenheimer, an activist-scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, comes clean and admits that "current and projected levels of ozone depletion do not represent a catastrophe."

Other scientists, not quoted by name, explain -- finally -- that the natural variability of ozone is so great that any small trend would be difficult if not impossible to discern. And even if ozone were depleted by a few percent, as predicted by theory, and if biologically effective ultraviolet radiation were to increase as a result, the effect of this increase would be equivalent to that of moving only a few miles closer to the equator -- where, because of the higher sun angle, ultraviolet radiation levels are normally 5,000 percent greater than at the poles.

By inverted logic, this sudden disappearance of the ozone "threat" is ascribed -- most recently by Carol Browner, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency -- to the phaseout of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, and the prospective phaseout of other halocarbons. It seems not to have occurred to Browner that there might not have been a problem to begin with -- and that all these international control measures are either superfluous or at best premature.

Most of the hype has been devoted to the Antarctic ozone hole, a thinning of the ozone layer near the South Pole that lasts for a few weeks around October of each year. Even if chlorine atoms from CFCs are the villains responsible, the hole seems to be controlled by climate changes and not by the CFC level in the atmosphere. In any case, as NASA ozone researcher Richard Stolarski observes, "We can't show ... that anything catastrophic will happen in the future." He reminds us also that "ozone is a renewable resource."

Yet the public is still being scared out of its wits by tales of blind sheep and rabbits in far-off Patagonia. Al Gore's best-seller, Earth in the Balance, perpetuates some of these same myths. But nothing can top CNN's International Hour, which trotted out a whitecoated Chilean, identified only as a "doctor," who informed CNN's viewers that "our babies are dying of melanoma."

Unfortunately, regardless of scientific evidence to the contrary, policy marches on. Policy wonks are known to wear blinders. And once the policy machinery is in gear, nothing can slow it down, much less reverse it. This is particularly true after international agreements have been reached. There is always the pressure on the United States to show "leadership." Remember how poor George Bush was lambasted by activists, and even by his own EPA administrator, for not falling in line immediately on the greenhouse issue? When the United States finally did sign the Climate Convention in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June, Bush was criticized for not signing the biodiversity treaty.

And who can forget February 1992 -- an eventful month in ozone history? NASA announced with great fanfare that it had just observed the highest concentration ever of stratospheric chlorine monoxide and hinted at the occurrence of an arctic ozone hole. The hole was even featured on the cover of Time magazine. The trouble was that the chlorine peak had already passed by the time NASA announced it and that the hole never developed. However, project scientist James Anderson, a Harvard professor, said the hole might develop "sometime in the next decade" Then why the need for a press conference? Well, the headlines and public panic got the Senate to pass a unanimous resolution, and a few days later the White House decided to phase out CFCs by 1996, five years before the internationally agreed-upon date. Now that's leadership -- under pressure, to be sure.

There are some things so appealing about international agreements, not the least of which are the continuous rounds of conferences in attractive cities and resort hotels and the camaraderie of like-minded bureaucrats -- living it up at taxpayers' expense -- who see their purpose in life as getting signatures on protocols, agreements, treaties and whatnot.

And so it is with our own Environmental Protection Agency In 36 closely spaced pages in the May 18 Federal Register, the EPA sets out its plan to protect stratospheric ozone. It is all about phasing out the nasty halocarbons before their chlorine or bromine atoms damage ozone -- at least according to theory. The EPA soberly discusses the law, the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, the inputs from environmental organizations asking for immediate phaseout of almost everything, and the admonitions from industry groups that point out the drastic consequences for the American economy and no significant environmental benefits. But the EPA, in its wisdom, sticks with the phaseout dates fixed by international bureaucrats -- which doesn't require too much thinking or weighing of costs and benefits.