The use of technology can help to...

encourage central ownership of property and resources

All of the following are examples of reasons states and nations trade with other countries EXCEPT:

To sell goods and services within their own country

To obtain goods and services they cannot produce efficiently themselves

To buy goods and services at a lower cost

Banks, Savings and Loans, Credit Unions, and Securities Brokerages would fall under the category of:

Divisions of the Federal Reserve

What is the purpose of private financial institutions?

To receive deposits and make loans

To maintain stability in the economy

Which of the following would be the best example of how the government takes part in economic (circular) flow?

Uses tax revenue to provide goods and services

Buy resources and make products

Sell goods and services for profit

What are the functions of the Federal Reserve?

manage the amount of money in the economy, maintain the value of the dollar, and regulate banks

passing laws and maintaining global markets

protecting the environment and disrupting monopolies

collect taxes and preparing the national budget

What is the key factor in determining the type of economy that a government has?

level of government involvement

amount of resources a country has available

Economics Review Part 2

Management and Globalization Global Management Why companies go global How companies for global Global Business environments Global Business Types of global business Pros and cons of global businesses Ethnic Challenges for global business Culture and Global Diversity Cultural intelligence Silent language of culture Tight and loose cultures Values and national cultures Global Management Learning Are management theories universal? Intercultural competencies Global learning goals Key concepts of the challenges of globalisation: Global economy Resources, markets and competition are worldwide in scope Internationalisation The process of increasing involvement in international operations Globalization/Deglobalization Glob- the growing interdependence among elements in the global economy The worldwide interdependence of resource flows, product markets and business competition World 3.0 Different views: World flat vs. round Distance is a metaphor that represents the degree of dissimilarities between countries Balancing cooperation in the global Global Management Global management - managing things in different countries Managing business and organizations with interests in more than one country What do we expect from global Managers Knowing how to adapt Knowing the language Global Manager Is culturally aware and informed on international affairs International Business Conducting for-profit transactions of goods and services across national boundaries International Motive Why do firms internatioalize their activities Cheaper labour Labour tax Natural resources Enrolments to do business Clientele Exclusive materials Personal benefits: Taxes Reasons why businesses go global Customers Suppluers Capital During (1993) - 4 motive 1. Market seeking 2. Efficiency Seeking 3. Resource seeking 4. Strategic Asset Seeking Cuervo Cazurra, Narula and un (2015) - 4 motive s Internationalization Motives A company may also explore the opportunities in different markets in order to take advantage and in some cases extend the product life cycle What is a Market Entry Strategy Involves the sale of goods or services to foreign markets but do not require expensive investments Franchising Exporting and importing Involve the sale of goods or services to foreign markets but do Types of market entry strategies Global sourcing Exporting Importing Licensing agreement Franchising Types of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) strategies: Joint venture Strategic alliance Owned Subsidiary (sometimes called WOS) How to go abroad What conditions will affect the decisions of firms on how to internationalize their activities? During (1978)- Eclectic paradigm OLI model OLI- Ownership, Location and Internalization Advantages Ownership advantages Resources owned by the organization that can be transferred across locations include trademarks, production techniques and processes, managerial skills and other resources not available to the competitors Location Advantages Represent the implications of choosing to produce or to perform activities in a specific location (country or region) Internalization Advantages: The ability to internalize or to incorporate activities that add value to its business Evolution of Concepts- New Elements Although economic factors are certainly important to explain the formation, growth and expansion of firms within and across national borders, they are not sufficient to explain the additional complexity when a firm decides to expand its activities across national borders Economic factors Investigate the economic elements that affect the internationalization of firms Behavioural Elements Explaining the additional challenges (and perhaps opportunities) a firm faces in foreign host countries when compared to indigenous (local) firms Behavioural theories Johanson and Wiedersheim-Paul (1975) and Johanson and Vahlne (1977) Included the psychic Distance concept (beckerman,1956) to explain the internationalization behaviour of firms The Uppsala internationalization model Psychic distance is: the sum of factors preventing the flow of infomatio from and to the market Psychic Distance is a broad concept that includes several elements such as: language, culture, political systems, level of education, level of industrial development Firms behave in a “Risk Averse” manner It means that when the perceived risk goes down, the firm increase its commitment to the foreign market \ The Haier Group Data Strategy Big DATA and Small DATA The use of small data to satisfy individual customers’ needs, however, the book mentions a huge cultural shock at the plant in Camden, south caroline Ex: top down, hard hat colors and hierarchy Culutral Differnces can have a huge impact on the internationalization of firms Kogut and Singh (1988)- Cultural Distance Index First statsical study on the implication of ciltiral distance to the selection of entry mode When investigating in culturally distant countries, foreign firms can choose to partner with foreign firms in order to gain local knowledge and share the risk associated to the investment (higher commitment = higher risk) How Companies Go Global Global sourcing The process of purchasing materials or services around teh world for local use Exporting Selling locally made products in foreign markets Importing Buying foreign made products and selling them domestically Exports correspond to what percentage of Candain GDP What countries are the major trending partners of Canada Management and Globalization How Companies Go Global Licensing Agreement One firm pays a fee for rights to make or sell another company’s products What are the potential risks associated to licesning The case of new balance in China Franchising A fee is paid for the rights to use another firms name, branding and methods Insourcing Insourcing: refers to local job creation that results from foreign direct investment Types of insourcing Joint ventures: operate in a foreign country through co-ownership by foreign and local partners Strategic alliances: A partnership in which foreign and domestic firms share resources and knowledge for mutual gains Foreign subsidiaries: local operation completely owned by a foreign firm Criteria for choosing a joint venture partner: Familiarity with your firm’s major business String local workforce Values its customers Future expansion possibilities Strong local market for partner’s own products Good Profit potential Sound financial standing Global business environments Legal and poliical systems Trade agreements and trade barriers Regional economic alliances Legal and political systems Differing laws and practices regards Business ownership Negotiation and implementation of contracts Foreign currency exchange Protection of intellectual property rights Counterfeit merchandise Political risk Potential loss in value of foreign investment due to instability and political changes in the host country Political risk analysis (expertise/experience) Forecast political disruptions that threaten the value of a foreign investment Changes in the rules of the game Brexit US Trade Wars-mexico-China Other examples Bolivia, Venezuela, China De-globalization The process of weakening interdependence among nations Trade Agreements and trade Barriers World trade organization Most favourd nation status Tariffs Nontariss barriers (quotes, restrictions, etc.) Protectionism Regional Economic Alliances USMCA (replacment for the NAFTA-North American Free trade Agreement) EU- European Union APEC- Aisa Pacific Economic Copperation ASEAN - Association of Southeast Asian Nationas SADC - Southern Africa Development Community MERCOSUR- Chapter 5- Global Management and Cultural Diversity (part 2) Review Types of global business Global corporation MNE (multinational enterprise) or MNC (multinational corporation) with extensive business operations in more than one foreign country Transnational corporation A global corporation that operates worldwide on borderless basis Some host country complaints about MNCs Host Country companits about MNCs: Excessive profits Interference with local government Domination of local economy Interference with local government Hiring the best local talent Limited technology transfer Disrespect for local customers Examples - War in Ukraine Disruption in global -value chains and increased pressure and interference of MNCs with local government Fertilizer imports in Brazil (one of the major producers of agricultural commodities) We must consider the triple bottom line and the impact in society, the environment and the economy $2.5 billion invest in potash mine in Brazill What about Globalization gap Large multinationals adn industrilizednaitons gaining disporoportinonally form globalization Globalization gap: Large multinational and industrialized nations gaining disproportionally from Globalization Some MNC complaints about host countries MNC Complaints about host countries: Profiit limitations Laws and regulations Overpirce resources Exploitative rules Foreign exchange restriction Failure to uphold contracts Mutual benefits for host countries and multinational companies Mutual benefits for host country and global corporation of MNC: Shared growth opportunities Shared income opportunities Shared learning opportunities Share development opportunities Develop projects together What are some of the ethical challenges for global business Ethincal challenges for global business Child labour Employmnet of children for worl otherwise done by adults Sweatshops Employment of workers at very low wages for long hours in poor working conditions Ex: Nike bad labour prices Unsafe working conditions Corruption Illegal practices that further one’s business interests Corrupiotn of froeign public officials Act makes it illegal for Candain firms and their representatives to engage in corrupt practices overseas Bribes to foreign officials Excessive commissions Non-monetary gifts Sweatshops Conflict materials What is culture Culture : The shared set of beliefs, values, and patterns of behvaiourr common to a group of people Food preferences Values and traditions Language and beliefs Religion Art music Life style Hofstede defines culture as: “The collectiv programing of teh mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others” What is culture shock Culture Shock: Confusion and discoumfert a person experiences in an unfaamiliar culture Stages to adjusting to a new culture Confusion Small vitorires The honeymoon Irritation and anger Reality Cultural Intelligence The ability to adapt and adjust to new cultures What is Ethnocentrism Tendency to consider one’s own culture as superior others Slinet languages of culture Contect Low context High context Space Proxemics Ex: personal space Time Monochronic Polychronic High and low contexts cultures Edward T.Hall (1959) Def: Part of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw on its meaning Low context cultures Emphizes communication via spoken or written words Countries like United States, Canada and Germany High context cultures Rely on nonverbal and situational cues as well as on spoken or written works Thailand Malaysia Time Monochronic cultures People tend to do one thing at a time Canda Polychronic cultures Time is used to accomplish many different things at once Egypt Space Proxemics Study of how people use space to communicate In North American people value “personal space’ Many Latin and Asian cultures expect much less personal space Tight and Loose Cultures Cultural tightness-looseness Tight = Strength of norms that govern social behvaviour Japan, Korea, Malaysia Loose = tolerance for any deviation from norms Australia, Brazil, Hungary Values and national cultures (Hofstede) Power distance Uncertainty avoidance Individalism-collectivism Masculinity-femininty Time Orientation Indulgence vs. Restraint Comparative management How management pratices systematically differ among countries and /or cultures Intercultural competencies Skills and personal characteristics that help us be successful in cross cultural situations Global Managers (know how to adapt) Need to successfully apply management functions across interantional boundaries Global Learning goals Not universal Engage critical thinking Look everywhere for new management ideas Always consider culture

Health 11/12 Review for Final Exam Core Concepts - Mental and Emotional Health, Substance Abuse Prevention, Safety and Violence Prevention, Family Life and Human Sexuality, Disease Prevention and Control, Healthy Eating Health Education Skills - goal setting, decision making, accessing information/resources, analyzing influences, communication, self-management, advocacy DIMENSIONS of Wellness - social, spiritual, emotional/mental, environmental, financial, intellectual, multicultural, occupational, physical, sexual RISK factors - anything that increases the risk of disease, injury, or illness. PROTECTIVE factors - anything that decreases the risk of disease, injury, or illness. INTERNAL health factors - health factors that can be either hereditary and genetic or acquired elements -- include smoking and personal diet or eating habits. Example – a genetic predisposition to an illness. EXTERNAL health factors - health factors that are part of the direct outer environment, the geographical location, micro-organisms, socio-economic elements that could affect an individual's health. Example – being unable to afford mental health services. Unit 1- Managing Personal and Community Wellness Explain Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in your own words using the image provided. Explain how each Social Determinant of Health may impact a person’s health. Levels of Disease Prevention • PRIMARY The goal is to avoid conditions altogether. • SECONDARY The goal is early detection. • TERTIARY The goal is to minimize the damage (manage). Define the following terms. Fads/Trends Sleep hygiene Driver safety Unit 2- Investigating Social Ecological Factors on Well-Being Socio-Ecological Model – The SEM examines how health behaviors form based on characteristics of individuals, communities, nations and levels in between. Each level overlaps with other levels signifying how the best public health strategies are those that encompass and target a wide range of perspectives. Interpersonal (personal) health vs. intrapersonal (relationship) health Health INEQUITY - systemic, ingrained and unjust barriers that prevent segments of the population from having the opportunity of health leading to health disparity. IMPLICIT BIAS - a form of bias that occurs automatically and unintentionally, that nevertheless affects judgments, decisions, and behaviors. Research has shown implicit bias can contribute to unequal access to quality healthcare, negative patient-provider relationships and interactions; and create mistrust in the healthcare system and practitioners among patients. This can contribute to health disparities. Health DISPARITY - represents a difference in health between populations. It is often used to describe disease burden and other negative health outcomes socially disadvantaged groups may face. Health EQUITY - The opposite of health inequity. It describes a system that supports a high standard of health and healthcare for all people. Racism - Beliefs, attitudes, institutional arrangements, and acts that tend to denigrate individuals or groups because of phenotypic characteristics or ethnic group affiliation. DISCRIMINATION - An unjust differential treatment of a person or a group. PRIVILEGE- The unearned access to resources and social power that are only available to some because of their membership within certain social groups. OPPRESSION is the act of taking away choices from others and can be defined as a system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based on social identities and that acts on multiple levels from interpersonal to institutional and societal. (internalized, interpersonal, institutional, structural) Systematic Oppression - Intentional disadvantage of groups of people based on their identity while advantaging members of dominant group (race, gender, sexual orientation, language, size, ability, etc.). Intersectionality - The complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups Unit 3- Accessing Resources and Communicating to Support Mental and Emotional Health What is anger? What is anxiety? What is stress? STRESSORS are the things that cause stress. Stressors can be internal and external. A stressor may be a one-time or short-term occurrence, or it can happen repeatedly over a long time. INTERNAL Stressors - are made by your belief system and the way you evaluate yourself. Examples include pessimistic attitude, negative self-talk, deep need to be perfect, low self-esteem or body image, unhealthy standards for self. EXTERNAL Stressors - are stressful things that happen in your surroundings and/or in your environment. Examples include busy schedules, work problems, family issues, financial trouble, social problems, injury, unforeseen circumstances. Socio-economic issues are also a part of external stressors such as poverty, violence, and racism. Define the following mental health conditions. Depression Eating disorders NSSI Non-suicidal self-injury Grief/Loss Suicide prevention A.C.T. • ACKNOWLEDGE- Tell them in a caring way that you recognize that they are having a problem • CARE- You can show you care by actively listening - put away anything else you are doing, make eye contact, sit down, ask questions. • TELL-(call 988 for additional help and support) - Tell them it is important that they speak with a trusted adult. Help them figure out who this may be and offer to go with your friend. A social norm is an unwritten, informal rule meant to guide behavior among the of society. It distinguishes between acceptable and unacceptable, good and bad, and so on. Social norms can influence a person with emotional or mental health disorders, access to care and stigmatize their situation. STIGMA- a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. • Self-stigma - This describes the internalized stigma that people with mental health conditions feel about themselves. • Public stigma - This refers to the negative attitudes around mental health from people in society. • Institutional stigma - This is a type of systemic stigma that arises from corporations, governments, and other institutions. Unit 4- Evaluating Risks of Substance Use and Abuse Harm Reduction - a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use. Explain how each level of the Social Ecological Model is impacted by addiction. Individual Relationship Community Society SEM Level Contributing/Risk Factors to substance use Preventative/Protective Factors for substance use Individual Interpersonal/Relationship Community Society Unit 5- Analyzing Influences to Examine Ways to Increase Safety and Reduce Violence HATE CRIME - a crime, usually violent, motivated by prejudice or intolerance toward an individual’s national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. Explain how the media influences violence in society. The Pyramid of Hate Explain the escalation of hate using the Pyramid of Hate visual. List several hate crime motivators. Example: age HEALTHY Relationship Signs - comfortable pace, trust, honesty, independence, respect, equality, kindness, taking responsibility, healthy conflict, fun UNHEALTHY Relationship Signs - intensity, possessiveness, manipulation, isolation, sabotage, belittling, guilting, volatility, deflecting responsibility, betrayal Sexual Assault is a sexual behavior WITHOUT consent. Human trafficking - the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, using force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. Sex trafficking - commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age. Trafficking happens using… • Force - using violence to control someone. • Fraud - using lies to control someone. • Coercion - using threats to control someone. Unit 6- Family Life and Human Sexuality Agency - A belief about yourself and the extent to which you can act on that belief. • The ability to choose freely one’s own narrative. • To embrace the idea that I am the cause (or agent) of my own thoughts and actions. • Personal agency is a personal responsibility for who we are, what we experience, what we do about that experience, and how we shape our world to give us more of the experiences we want. SEXUAL Agency • The ability to choose your own interests and desires vs. what we see in the media or others’ perceptions • The ability to identify, communicate, and negotiate one’s sexual needs • The ability to initiate behaviors that allow for the satisfaction of those needs Sexually Explicit Material - photographs, videos, films, magazines, and books whose primary themes, topics, or depictions involve sexuality that may cause sexual arousal. Sexual scripts - thoughts, patterns, or behavior that a person has about themselves in a romantic or sexual context. It is how people picture themselves or want to project themselves in front of others. Reproductive Rights of Teens - In Maryland, teens have the right to an abortion, keep their child, obtain and use birth control, paternity tests, adoption, give up custody of their child within 10 days of birth (Safe Haven Law). • REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS- legal rights and the freedom of the individual to control decisions regarding contraception, abortion, sterilization and childbirth. • SAFE HAVEN LAW- a distressed parent who is unable or unwilling to care for their infant can safely give up custody of their baby, no questions asked. CONSENT is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity. • It is clearly and freely communicated, verbal, and affirmative. Consent CANNOT be given if… • A person is underage, one or both partners is intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, one partner is asleep or unconscious, one partner feels pressured, threatened or intimidated, or one partner holds a position of power or authority over the other. Unit 7- Advocating for Enhanced Nutrition, Food Systems, and Health Outcomes Dietary Guidelines for Americans Guideline 1: Follow a Healthy Dietary Pattern at Every Life Stage Guideline 2: Customize and Enjoy Food and Beverage Choices to Reflect Personal Preferences, Cultural Traditions, and Budgetary Considerations Guideline 3: Focus on Meeting Food Group Needs with Nutrient-Dense Foods and Beverages, and Stay Within Calorie Limits Guideline 4: Limit Foods and Beverages Higher in Added Sugars, Saturated Fat, and Sodium, and Limit Alcoholic Beverages FOOD DESERT- a neighborhood where there is little or limited access to healthy and affordable food such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet. FOOD INSEQURITY lack of access to a sufficient amount of food because of limited funds. More than 49 million American households are considered food insecure and are vulnerable to poor health as a result. PROCCESED FOODS- any raw agricultural commodities that have been washed, cleaned, milled, cut, chopped, heated, pasteurized, blanched, cooked, canned, frozen, dried, dehydrated, mixed or packaged — anything done to them that alters their natural state.

“There’s No Such Thing as Sound Science” by By Christie Aschwanden was a lead science writer for FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight, Science, Dec. 6, 2017 Science is being turned against itself. For decades, its twin ideals of transparency and rigor have been weaponized by those who disagree with results produced by the scientific method. Under the Trump administration, that fight has ramped up again. In a move ostensibly meant to reduce conflicts of interest, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has removed a number of scientists from advisory panels and replaced some of them with representatives from industries that the agency regulates. Like many in the Trump administration, Pruitt has also cast doubt on the reliability of climate science. For instance, in an interview with CNBC, Pruitt said that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do.” Similarly, Trump’s pick to head NASA, an agency that oversees a large portion the nation’s climate research, has insisted that research into human influence on climate lacks certainty, and he falsely claimed that “global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago.” Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump’s nominee to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a Senate hearing last month that she thinks we “need to have more precise explanations of the human role and the natural role” in climate change. The same entreaties crop up again and again: We need to root out conflicts. We need more precise evidence. What makes these arguments so powerful is that they sound quite similar to the points raised by proponents of a very different call for change that’s coming from within science. This other movement strives to produce more robust, reproducible findings. Despite having dissimilar goals, the two forces espouse principles that look surprisingly alike: Science needs to be transparent. Results and methods should be openly shared so that outside researchers can independently reproduce and validate them. The methods used to collect and analyze data should be rigorous and clear, and conclusions must be supported by evidence. These are the arguments underlying an “open science” reform movement that was created, in part, as a response to a “reproducibility crisis” that has struck some fields of science.1 But they’re also used as talking points by politicians who are working to make it more difficult for the EPA and other federal agencies to use science in their regulatory decision-making, under the guise of basing policy on “sound science.” Science’s virtues are being wielded against it. What distinguishes the two calls for transparency is intent: Whereas the “open science” movement aims to make science more reliable, reproducible and robust, proponents of “sound science” have historically worked to amplify uncertainty, create doubt and undermine scientific discoveries that threaten their interests. “Our criticisms are founded in a confidence in science,” said Steven Goodman, co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford and a proponent of open science. “That’s a fundamental difference — we’re critiquing science to make it better. Others are critiquing it to devalue the approach itself.” Calls to base public policy on “sound science” seem unassailable if you don’t know the term’s history. The phrase was adopted by the tobacco industry in the 1990s to counteract mounting evidence linking secondhand smoke to cancer. A 1992 Environmental Protection Agency report identified secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen, and Philip Morris responded by launching an initiative to promote what it called “sound science.” In an internal memo, Philip Morris vice president of corporate affairs Ellen Merlo wrote that the program was designed to “discredit the EPA report,” “prevent states and cities, as well as businesses from passing smoking bans” and “proactively” pass legislation to help their cause. The sound science tactic exploits a fundamental feature of the scientific process: Science does not produce absolute certainty. Contrary to how it’s sometimes represented to the public, science is not a magic wand that turns everything it touches to truth. Instead, it’s a process of uncertainty reduction, much like a game of 20 Questions. Any given study can rarely answer more than one question at a time, and each study usually raises a bunch of new questions in the process of answering old ones. “Science is a process rather than an answer,” said psychologist Alison Ledgerwood of the University of California, Davis. Every answer is provisional and subject to change in the face of new evidence. It’s not entirely correct to say that “this study proves this fact,” Ledgerwood said. “We should be talking instead about how science increases or decreases our confidence in something.” The tobacco industry’s brilliant tactic was to turn this baked-in uncertainty against the scientific enterprise itself. While insisting that they merely wanted to ensure that public policy was based on sound science, tobacco companies defined the term in a way that ensured that no science could ever be sound enough. The only sound science was certain science, which is an impossible standard to achieve. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one employee of the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in a 1969 internal memo. The note went on to say that doubt “is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’” and “establishing a controversy.” These strategies for undermining inconvenient science were so effective that they’ve served as a sort of playbook for industry interests ever since, said Stanford University science historian Robert Proctor. The sound science push is no longer just Philip Morris sowing doubt about the links between cigarettes and cancer. It’s also a 1998 action plan by the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Exxon Mobil to “install uncertainty” about the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. It’s industry-funded groups’ late-1990s effort to question the science the EPA was using to set fine-particle-pollution air-quality standards that the industry didn’t want. And then there was the more recent effort by Dow Chemical to insist on more scientific certainty before banning a pesticide that the EPA’s scientists had deemed risky to children. Now comes a move by the Trump administration’s EPA to repeal a 2015 rule on wetlands protection by disregarding particular studies. (To name just a few examples.) Doubt merchants aren’t pushing for knowledge, they’re practicing what Proctor has dubbed “agnogenesis” — the intentional manufacture of ignorance. This ignorance isn’t simply the absence of knowing something; it’s a lack of comprehension deliberately created by agents who don’t want you to know, Proctor said.2 In the hands of doubt-makers, transparency becomes a rhetorical move. “It’s really difficult as a scientist or policy maker to make a stand against transparency and openness, because well, who would be against it?” said Karen Levy, researcher on information science at Cornell University. But at the same time, “you can couch everything in the language of transparency and it becomes a powerful weapon.” For instance, when the EPA was preparing to set new limits on particulate pollution in the 1990s, industry groups pushed back against the research and demanded access to primary data (including records that researchers had promised participants would remain confidential) and a reanalysis of the evidence. Their calls succeeded and a new analysis was performed. The reanalysis essentially confirmed the original conclusions, but the process of conducting it delayed the implementation of regulations and cost researchers time and money. Delay is a time-tested strategy. “Gridlock is the greatest friend a global warming skeptic has,” said Marc Morano, a prominent critic of global warming research and the executive director of ClimateDepot.com, in the documentary “Merchants of Doubt” (based on the book by the same name). Morano’s site is a project of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which has received funding from the oil and gas industry. “We’re the negative force. We’re just trying to stop stuff.” Some of these ploys are getting a fresh boost from Congress. The Data Quality Act (also known as the Information Quality Act) was reportedly written by an industry lobbyist and quietly passed as part of an appropriations bill in 2000. The rule mandates that federal agencies ensure the “quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information” that they disseminate, though it does little to define what these terms mean. The law also provides a mechanism for citizens and groups to challenge information that they deem inaccurate, including science that they disagree with. “It was passed in this very quiet way with no explicit debate about it — that should tell you a lot about the real goals,” Levy said. But what’s most telling about the Data Quality Act is how it’s been used, Levy said. A 2004 Washington Post analysis found that in the 20 months following its implementation, the act was repeatedly used by industry groups to push back against proposed regulations and bog down the decision-making process. Instead of deploying transparency as a fundamental principle that applies to all science, these interests have used transparency as a weapon to attack very particular findings that they would like to eradicate. Now Congress is considering another way to legislate how science is used. The Honest Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas,3 is another example of what Levy calls a “Trojan horse” law that uses the language of transparency as a cover to achieve other political goals. Smith’s legislation would severely limit the kind of evidence the EPA could use for decision-making. Only studies whose raw data and computer codes were publicly available would be allowed for consideration. That might sound perfectly reasonable, and in many cases it is, Goodman said. But sometimes there are good reasons why researchers can’t conform to these rules, like when the data contains confidential or sensitive medical information.4 Critics, which include more than a dozen scientific organizations, argue that, in practice, the rules would prevent many studies from being considered in EPA reviews.5 It might seem like an easy task to sort good science from bad, but in reality it’s not so simple. “There’s a misplaced idea that we can definitively distinguish the good from the not-good science, but it’s all a matter of degree,” said Brian Nosek, executive director of the Center for Open Science. “There is no perfect study.” Requiring regulators to wait until they have (nonexistent) perfect evidence is essentially “a way of saying, ‘We don’t want to use evidence for our decision-making,’” Nosek said. Most scientific controversies aren’t about science at all, and once the sides are drawn, more data is unlikely to bring opponents into agreement. Michael Carolan, who researches the sociology of technology and scientific knowledge at Colorado State University, wrote in a 2008 paper about why objective knowledge is not enough to resolve environmental controversies. “While these controversies may appear on the surface to rest on disputed questions of fact, beneath often reside differing positions of value; values that can give shape to differing understandings of what ‘the facts’ are.” What’s needed in these cases isn’t more or better science, but mechanisms to bring those hidden values to the forefront of the discussion so that they can be debated transparently. “As long as we continue down this unabashedly naive road about what science is, and what it is capable of doing, we will continue to fail to reach any sort of meaningful consensus on these matters,” Carolan writes. The dispute over tobacco was never about the science of cigarettes’ link to cancer. It was about whether companies have the right to sell dangerous products and, if so, what obligations they have to the consumers who purchased them. Similarly, the debate over climate change isn’t about whether our planet is heating, but about how much responsibility each country and person bears for stopping it. While researching her book “Merchants of Doubt,” science historian Naomi Oreskes found that some of the same people who were defending the tobacco industry as scientific experts were also receiving industry money to deny the role of human activity in global warming. What these issues had in common, she realized, was that they all involved the need for government action. “None of this is about the science. All of this is a political debate about the role of government,” she said in the documentary. These controversies are really about values, not scientific facts, and acknowledging that would allow us to have more truthful and productive debates. What would that look like in practice? Instead of cherry-picking evidence to support a particular view (and insisting that the science points to a desired action), the various sides could lay out the values they are using to assess the evidence. For instance, in Europe, many decisions are guided by the precautionary principle — a system that values caution in the face of uncertainty and says that when the risks are unclear, it should be up to industries to show that their products and processes are not harmful, rather than requiring the government to prove that they are harmful before they can be regulated. By contrast, U.S. agencies tend to wait for strong evidence of harm before issuing regulations. Both approaches have critics, but the difference between them comes down to priorities: Is it better to exercise caution at the risk of burdening companies and perhaps the economy, or is it more important to avoid potential economic downsides even if it means that sometimes a harmful product or industrial process goes unregulated? In other words, under what circumstances do we agree to act on a risk? How certain do we need to be that the risk is real, and how many people would need to be at risk, and how costly is it to reduce that risk? Those are moral questions, not scientific ones, and openly discussing and identifying these kinds of judgment calls would lead to a more honest debate. Science matters, and we need to do it as rigorously as possible. But science can’t tell us how risky is too risky to allow products like cigarettes or potentially harmful pesticides to be sold — those are value judgements that only humans can make.

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