Question

Ideally environmental policy is largely shaped by scientific knowledge. However, a couple of cases show that other factors influence it too. Like the Ocean Dumping Act of 1988 and the ceasing of spraying for the Mediterranean fruit fly in California during the early 1980s. Both decisions were costly and went against prevailing scientific knowledge. What common factor(s) led to these questionable policies? What does this show about the limits of science in guiding policy?

2. Government is constrained by federalism, interest groups, checks and balances, and other features. Thus, policy is not made strictly according to scientific evidence. Is this good or bad? Weigh the costs and benefits. What considerations other than scientific evidence need to be taken into account?

Answer 1

1. The common factors that led to these questionable policies are as follows:

• First and foremost, the greed of the people for the extra money and benefit
• By the pressure of industrialist whose money and benefit is related to the project
• By the negligence of the policymakers and many more.

Everyone knows the science and its guiding policies but people and organization do not implement it due to multiple reasons and all this affecting the natural and our scientific knowledge is worthless in this scenario.

2. This is so bad for the nature and the overall existence of this planet if we do not care about the resources and its bio-diversity. Some of the major concerns are:

• It will affect the resources and its usages
• It will degrade the nature
• It will also affect the policy of a nation and make it vulnerable
• Most importantly, it will affect the overall climate of the earth through the continuous degradation of nature.

We need to propagate the message of survival of the earth and human life then people will understand rather than scientific evidence.