Five Days to Go: Disinformation has Consequences

My latest Seed column is up, and it dovetails so nicely with some of the themes I've been trying to enunciate in relation to the paperback release that I'd like to call it to your attention. Entitled "Thank You for Polluting," it's a piece about my battles with Congressman Jim Gibbons of Nevada, and it narrates how my critiques of a contrarian report on mercury pollution put out by Gibbons have actually ended up being picked up by the local media now that Gibbons is running for governor in his state--thereby forcing Gibbons to respond, generating greater controversy, and so forth. Look at how the issue mushroomed:

On Earth Day, both Democratic candidates in the Nevada gubernatorial race, Dina Titus and Jim Gibson, released statements challenging Gibbons' environmental record and mercury contrarianism. The Las Vegas Review Journal, the state's leading paper, did a major article on Gibbons' increasingly controversial report, while Nevada News Makers, a public-affairs television program, quoted criticisms of the report to the candidate himself and asked him to respond. Gibbons once again professed that he was a scientist--and then, in a kind of Ronald Reagan moment, suggested that the real source of mercury danger was from volcanoes rather than from human activities. "One volcano in Hawaii, one volcano in Indonesia, produces enough gases in the atmosphere, which include those natural elements that are in the Earth's crust, that, uh, kind of make all the, you know, the science that we have about what we produce, moot," Gibbons said. The truth is that mercury, a potent neurotoxin, has both natural and human sources. Just because it comes from volcanoes doesn't mean we shouldn't also worry about its coming out of coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources. Gibbons was continuing to mislead the voters of Nevada.

Now, why is this significant? Well, because a scientific integrity issue, one that I discuss in The Republican War on Science, has now been inserted directly into an ongoing campaign in the 2006 electoral season. It wasn't particularly hard to do, either. Gibbons had a bad record on mercury, I attacked it, emailed my critiques around, and people just started talking about it. (It didn't hurt that some environmental groups had also criticized the report.) Then Gibbons had to defend himself, thereby digging a bigger hole, and so on.

Now, is mercury going to be the issue that prevents Gibbons from getting elected governor? I have no idea--probably not. Still, it has become a significant campaign issue. And for my money, that makes this a good model for how defenders of science can start to demand greater scientific integrity from their politicians. It's a carrot and stick method, one that lets these politicians know that if they attack science in some way during their tenure in office, they may have to deal with the consequences the next time they find themselves on the campaign trail.

As I conclude the piece by explaining, the point is that the integrity of science is just like any other political issue, and ought to be treated that way:

....guess what--it is never acceptable for a politician to mislead the public, about science or anything else (the causes for war, for example, or the percentage of a tax cut that reaches the middle class). It's all disinformation, and politicians need to be held accountable for engaging in such activity--even if, as in the case of mercury pollution, the issues are scientifically complex and therefore harder to convey to the public.

So maybe, just maybe, Jim Gibbons will become the new poster boy for the following slogan: "Disinformation has consequences." At the very least, perhaps he's wishing he hadn't put out that silly, denialist report on mercury pollution. Here's hoping that in congressional and gubernatorial races across the United States this November, other politicians have a similar experience.

Can this really happen? I'm not sure. But I do know one thing. While it's damn nigh impossible to swing a presidential election, sometimes it doesn't take much more than a small nudge to change the course of a close local race. This suggests a political arithmetic in which, if we start punishing them for misusing, abusing, and attacking science, at least some politicians are going to feel they have to respond with changed behavior. And that's precisely the goal in the first place.

So, with the paperback release of The Republican War on Science, I want to draw particular attention to the potential role of science in electoral dynamics. Gibbons is just the first case study of many, and as the 2006 election approaches, my guess is that we will hear more about science popping up in some of these races....