Media Matters with Bob McChesney

I just listened to the interview with Chris Mooney about science and the growing ignorance of the american population about science.
while I agree with the dangers presented by this phenomenon I think there are many more issues that you omitted from your conversation. 

for instance the issue of science under capitalism. Chris touched on the matter of the large investments by big business in research which is largely applied research. the problem is that this research is directed towards creating profi8ts without sufficient attention being put on the effects these will have on nature, humanity and the environment.

take for instance the nuclear industry. I won’t speak here about nuclear weapons, as that is just a totally insane endeavor. but let us look at nuclear energy.

the whole process of creating nuclear energy is accompanied by the creation of hazardous waste that scientists have still found no solution for. Waste is created at each and every link in the nuclear production chain, starting from the mining and milling of uranium, depreciated fuel elements that are a form of waste and in the reprocessing facilities. these processes create hazardous radioactive substances with half lives of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years endangering life on earth forever in human terms. (see the article by Peter Custers in this year’s september issue of monthly review)  Perhaps you could bring Helen Caldicott for an interview so your listeners could hear about the dangers of nuclear energy first hand.

Or genetic engineering - I have read studies of various genetically engineered crops that have bad health effects ( genetically engineered tomatoes for instance) not to speak of what the effects will be on the environment. and because the companies control the seeds and farmers can only use their seeds, we are losing biological diversity. In addition the high costs for farmers have spurred a rash of thousands of suicides of farmers in India.

Or take the vaccine issue. How is it that if vaccines are so safe why did the Bush administration include legislation that safeguards vaccine manufacturers from being sued? Alternative healers of various disciplines have been discussing the dangers of vaccines for decades. they contend that they weaken the body’s immune system rather than strengthen it. It might very well be that one or two or three vaccines that were common fifty years ago were ok for us but nowadays children are exposed to some twenty before the age of six. I am not sure the scientists know the long range results of such policies. Some people are making millions from this business.

or take climate change. it was the oil and energy interests that produced bad science to deter any movement to deal with climate change.  and the technological solutions Mr. Mooney was so excited about - filling the stratosphere with chemicals to reflect light back into space to lower temperature is almost as dangerous a solution as the problem itself. ecologists like Bill Mckkiben warn of the danger of just such quick fix solutions that don’t take into account possible effects like acid rain and who knows what else.

Or take the new particle accelerator in CERN which uses as much electricity as the whole city of Geneva to run in order to satisfy the curiosity of scientists to understand the origins of the universe. With all due respect to the scientists and the importance of knowledge, in an age of rapidly increasing global warming as a result of humans burning fossil fuels for energy, perhaps it would make sense to think first of the environmental effects of research before embarking on multi-million dollar projects.

So science and human knowledge are important and necessary in our world but we must think also about the questions: knowledge of what? at what cost? for whose benefit? and who decides?

thank you for listening and for your informative and interesting program.