Manufacturing Uncertainty
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Category archives for Manufacturing Uncertainty
Posted by By David Michaels Many people first heard about hexavalent chromium, or chromium 6, from the movie Erin Brockovich, which is based on the true story of a lawsuit over chromium-contaminated groundwater in the town of Hinkley, California. Less well-known is the campaign waged by companies that manufacture or use chromium 6 to convince regulatory agencies…
By David Michaels OSHA has been taking a beating in the press recently and now they’ve started a small campaign to respond. It began with a blistering article (based in part on SKAPP’s work) by Steven Labaton in the New York Times, an article that was then reprinted in several newspapers around the country. Now,…
By David Michaels All of a sudden, America has become acutely aware of the terrible lung disease caused by workplace exposure to artificial butter flavor. Last week, the failure of OSHA to do anything in response to the outbreak of cases across the country was the subject of several powerful newspaper articles (including a front…
For those who’ve been following the investigations into how the Bush Administration interfered with government climate science, the news about political interference into Interior Department science had a familiar ring. Chris Mooney sums it up well: “Substitute for Philip Cooney an Interior Department official named Julie MacDonald, and it’s basically the same story as it was…
By David Michaels “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” – Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1914) According to the Newark Star-Ledger, Lisa B. Jackson, Commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has just issued a tough new standard for removing chromium 6 (a powerful…
By David Michaels The Guardian newspaper reports that The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the think tank/public relations firm, has offered scientists and economists $10,000 to undermine the report on global warming issued today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to the report, AEI “offered the payments for articles that emphasize the shortcomings”…
By David Michaels “Risk assessment data can be like a captured spy: if you torture it long enough, it will tell you anything you want to know.” – William Ruckelshaus, first EPA Administrator, Risk assessment, explicit and implicit, is the motor that drives regulation. It can be a valuable tool for assisting regulatory agencies in…
By David Michaels In today’s Wall Street Journal (sub required), Jeffrey Ball reports that ExxonMobil has decided to stop funding several of the groups that have been in the forefront of attacking the scientific evidence on global warming. The campaign to shame ExxonMobil appears to be working. Earlier this week, the Union of Concerned Scientists…
By David Michaels The Bush Administration is manufacturing uncertainty about global warming, even as its allies in the carbon producing industries are abandoning it. Last week, the Washington Post’s Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin reported that “top executives at many of the nation’s largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and…