BOOKS

Demythologizîng Environmental Risks

Reviewed by Vernon Leslie Grose

"The time is coming when men will not tolerate wholesome teaching. They will want something to tickle their own fancies, and they will col­lect teachers who will speak what they want to hear. They will no longer listen to the truth, but will wander off after man-made myths." (II Timothy 4:4-5)

Bombarded in the popular media almost daily with shocking new rev­elations of risks that purportedly threaten human existence, we seem blind or immune to evidence that runs counter to apocalyptic thought. It is apparently more chic, sophisti­cated, or political to engage in en­vironmental doomsaying than to carefully examine the current state of human life—and the direction it is headed.

There is no paucity of books that warn everyone about how the hu­man race—deliberately or inadver­tently—is destroying itself by self­ish desecration of a once-pristine Earth. And by its title, Melvin A. Benarde's latest book seems to en­sure continuance of that trend.

Yet "Our Precarious Habitat" pro­vides a refreshing contrast to the litany of tomes by environmental alarmists and scaremongers. Benar­de's objective—"to provide readers with a broad spectrum of accurate and reliable information that can assist in placing attitudes and be­liefs about environmental impacts in clearer perspective"—aims at a long-neglected societal need. Public perception is so often widely diver­gent from scientific knowledge about Earth, its chemical character, and its interrelatedness with human sur­vivability—and it needs correction.

How did we get to this dichoto­my between what Sheldon Krimsky and Alonzo Plough in their recent book "Environmental Hazards: Com­municating Risks as a Social Pro­cess" call "technical rationality" and "cultural rationality" (C&EN, Jan. 30 page 27)? From the beginning of

Public perception often is widely divergent from

scientific knowledge regarding the risks to human survivability

"Our Precarious Habitat: Fifteen Years Later" by Melvin A. Benarde, John Wiley & Sons, 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10158, 1989, 622 pages, $24.95

modern science, there probably was some disparity between scientific and popular perceptions of nature. However, the genesis of the present chasm separating popular belief from scientific fact about risk may be traced to the early 1970s, when we had just landed on the moon, thereby supposedly proving that vir­tually anything was technological­ly possible. Failing to recognize the narrowness of that achievement, technologists and politicians alike arose in a chorus to propose solv­ing a wide variety of problems fac­ing society in the same manner as going to the moon.

Asked to address the 1st West­ern Space Congress in 1970 in sup­port of that thesis, I spoke instead about many constraints we would face in applying Project Apollo methodology to socio-economic-political problems. Not many wanted to hear that message then. How­ever, my prophecy was almost im­mediately fulfilled by an antitech-nology backlash spearheaded by those alarmed about environmental issues rooted in science and tech­nology. Federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission sprang into existence to counteract—in the public interest—whatever scientists and technologists (through corpo­rations) apparently were bent to wreak unthinkingly on humanity. Predictions by Nobel Laureate George Wald, the Club of Rome, and others with eminence in science that the world would end by the year 2000 even lent insider validity to apoca­lyptic alarmism.

Benarde, a professor of epidemi­ology in Temple University's Col­lege of Engineering, believes that much of this emotional invective of the 1970s has gradually cooled. However, it has displaced the pub­lic psyche regarding environmen­tal risks, in his opinion, to a fixed and fearful position far from what factual evidence validates. His book is intended to mobilize public opin­ion and move it away from that position to a realistic one.

So, in a sense, Benarde's book must be evaluated against his avowed intention—exploding popular myths. How is that done? What kind of a book accomplishes that?

Certainly knowledge is important. "Our Precarious Habitat'' is almost encyclopedic in providing meaning­ful (and very interesting—even en­tertaining) information on 13 classes of risk to human survivability that include cancer; birth and infant mor­tality rates; air, water, and noise pol-

December 11,1989 C&EN 47

Books

lution; hazardous wastes; chemicals in food; and pesticides. But more than knowledge, information, and data are needed to destroy ingrained illusions. As I asked the 1970 Space Congress, "If we know what is right, will we necessarily do what is right?" Books alone change nothing. They must be read, believed, assimilated, and ultimately translated into new mindsets.

The late futurist Herman Kahn once said that there are three pri­mary opinion-forming voices in society—the news media, courts, and academia. Although written in a re­laxed and inviting style, "Our Pre­carious Habitat" is obviously con­ceived from the perspective and for the consumption of academia and is thus aligned to mobilize change in public opinion primarily in that arena. It is truly a valuable and insightful collection of knowledge useful to researchers, students, and professors.

Academia, of course, changes pub­lic opinion much slower than the news media or the courts. So to de-mythologize beyond academia, the book might have been written in a quite different style and aimed at a broader audience. From my profes­sional expertise—applying systems methodology to controlling diverse types of risk—the book would have been more persuasive in attaining Benarde's objective if it had met several additional criteria.

First, although the opening chap­ter acknowledges the importance of treating the environment as a sys­tem, no further reference is made in the book to the interrelatedness of all the human risks discussed. For example, it discusses its 13 cate­gories or aspects of human risk with­out providing the reader with any means to judge whether that listing is global and complete. One cannot help but wonder whether there are not other types of human surviv­ability risk that need to be included— particularly those not as directly re­lated to remote and large-scale ac­tions, such as psychological persua­sion (mass suicide, alcohol/drug consumption, smoking), abortion, genocide, euthanasia, and war.

Likewise, the 13 groups are not ranked for significance to human mortality. So one is obliged to as­

sume that they are all equally consequential—which they are not. If the most important, the second most important, and so on were to be identified, changing public mis-perception would be less formidable than having to attack all 13 groups en masse. To be systematic, the book would need to address and resolve these aspects.

Second, a fascinating and insight­ful chapter on the assessment, com­munication, and politics of risk—one of the best I've read anywhere—is seemingly tacked on at the conclu­sion. How much more meaningful it would have been to allow this chapter to set the stage for the rest of this outstanding work. After all, it is a book on human risk, rather than habitat (contrary to the title).

Without question, "Our Precari-

Security Mechanisms for Computer Networks. Sead Muftic. 195 pages. John Wiley & Sons, 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016.1989. $47.95.

Shape Selective Catalysis in Industrial Applications. N. Y. Chen, William E. Garwood, Francis G. Dwyer. ix + 303 pages. Marcel Dekker, 270 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1989. $99.75.

Simple Inorganic Substances: A New Approach. Robert T. Sanderson, xxv + 500 pages. Robert E. Krieger Pub­lishing Co., P.O. Box 9542, Melbourne, Fla. 32902-9542. 1989. $43.50 hardback, $38.50 paperback.

Solid State Physics: Advances in Re­search and Applications. Vol. 42. Henry Ehrenreich, David Turnbull, editors, xi + 452 pages. Academic Press, 1250 Sixth Ave., San Diego, Calif. 92101.1989. $69.50.

Solids and Surfaces: A Chemist's View of Bonding in Extended Structures. Roald Hoffmann, χ + 142 pages. VCH Publishers, Distribution Center, 303 N.W. 12th Ave., Deerfield Beach, Fla. 33442-1705.1989. $24.95.

Solvay Conference on Surface Science: Invited Lectures and Discussions. F. W. de Wette, editor, xii + 501 pages. Springer-Verlag, New York, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10010. 1988. $63.

Strategies and Tactics in Organic Synthesis. Vol. 2. Thomas Lindberg, editor, xv + 469 pages. Academic Press, 1250 Sixth Ave., San Diego, Calif. 92101.1988. $75.

ous Habitat" is essential reading for scientists and technologists con­cerned about public misconception of environmental risks. How far it will move public thought from such error will depend on how soon Benarde's conclusion is believed: "The pioneering spirit, the creativi­ty, and the inventiveness that made this country great have been lost Risk and vitality have given way to fear—to playing it safe at a time when all indices clearly show the American people to be the healthi­est in history."

Vernon Leslie Grose, chairman of the Arlington, Va., consulting firm Omega Systems Group and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, is author of "Managing Risk: Sys­tematic Loss Prevention for Executives/' published in 1987. Π

Structural Ceramics. Vol. 29: Treatise on Materials Science and Technol­ogy. John B. Wachtman Jr., editor, xii + 388 pages. Academic Press, 1250 Sixth Ave., San Diego, Calif. 92101. 1989. $75.

Sulphur-Containing Drugs and Relat­ed Organic Compounds: Chemistry, Biochemistry and Toxicology. Vol. 1. Pt. B: Metabolism of Sulphur Func­tional Groups. L. A. Damani, editor. 324 pages. John Wiley & Sons, 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1989. $89.95.

Supercomputers and Their Use. Rev. Ed. Christopher Lazou. xi + 263 pages. Oxford University Press, 200 Madi­son Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1988. $55 hardback, $27.50 paperback.

Superconductivity Sourcebook. V. Dan­iel Hunt, χ + 308 pages. John Wiley & Sons, 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016.1989. $39.95.

Surface Mount Technology: Principles and Practice. Ray P. Prasad, xxii + 610 pages. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 115 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10003. 1989. $54.95.

Surfactant-Based Separation Processes. John F. Scamehorn, Jeffrey H. Harwell, editors, χ + 342 pages. Marcel Dekker, 270 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1989. $115 U.S. & Canada, $138 overseas.

Surfactants and Interfacial Phenomena. 2nd Ed. Milton J. Rosen, xv + 431 pages. John Wiley & Sons, 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1989. $49.95. °

48 December 11, 1989 C&EN