I received the NYPIRG "A Burning Issue" recently from Jim. I have not read
the entire paper but there is a lot of interesting information that is not
discussed in the highly critical article published in the Buffalo
Environmental Law Review.
The one issue that is not discussed in the BELR is the basic requirement for
incinerators to burn garbage. The problem with incineration is not simply
the release and transfer of toxic substances, but one of economics. For the
incinerator to operate efficiently has to have 'combustibles' in the garbage
such as newsprint, cardboard, and wood. If these combustibles are recycled
via source separation, et cetera, then the BTU content of the garbage
declines and thus the cost of burning the garbage becomes much higher. At
best, paper has a BTU content that facilitates burning of the entire waste
stream; however if the newsprint is removed along with carboard, et cetera,
then the burning is not cost effective, nor is it efficient. So what happens
is that if the upper range of recycling is achieved (for instance in Japan
93% of the newspring is recycled) then the ability of the incinerator to
reduce the volume of the Municipal Solid Waste is reduced to 40%. So in fact
the whole purpose of incineration is invalidated. All that incineration does
is reduce the volume of the waste if and only if the combustibles are
burned. Take the majority of the combustibles out through source seperation
and you end up with a 'dead proposition' regarding incineration.
The other economic costs associated with incineration are not even discussed
in the single authored report in the BELR. The hidden truth of incineration
too is that if the incinerator is working and the contract exists for a city
to supply a minumum amount of trash, then any waste reduction will cost the
city more money. Cities rarely own or operate their own incinerators. For
instance if a city has a contract to supply 1000 tons per day to an
incinerator company, but instead only supplies 800 tons because of mandatory
recycling of newsprint, then the city still has to pay for the contracted
amount of 1000 tons per day. Secondly the city will also have to find a
landfill for the much more toxic ash which amounts to between 25% and 40% of
the original waste stream in volume because there is a certain amount of
bulky stuff that is not incinerated (old appliances, etc).
Another cost that is not discussed at all is the cost on human and
environmental health associated with the releases of heavy metals, dioxins,
et cetera from the incinerator. It is difficult if not impossible to
quantify the cost to human health which would result for say a proposal to
incinerate all of New York Citie's trash...
The cost of constructing and maintaining incinerators of this magnitude is
not discussed either...and the preliminary cost is estimated to be in the
range of $1.5 billion....
The real thrust of the BELR article is to serve as a screen for those that
have little expertise in the area of environmental sciences. For instance it
should be obvious that the beginning of the article notes that everyone
should agree that cell phone RF does not harm any humans, nor does Alar
pesticide harm people. The author attempts to establishe with apodictic
certainty that cell phones are safe even for babies to use perhaps, and that
parents of babies should not have any concerns regarding the pesticide Alar
used to kill codling moths on apples. But the fact is that the author does
not and does not even attempt to substantiate any of his claims regarding
any 'false positives' for instance...No scientists that I know would rule
out a true positive based on limited evidence to the contrary, nor on
conflicting evidence...some times a lack of statistical confidence does
indicate something valuable regarding the object but there is no reason to
conclude that 'environmentalists' are to blame for creating information that
is false regarding scientific claims.
There is a lot of interesting information in the NYPRIG "A Burning Issue"
that has turned out to be factual and there are some interesting omissions
(but not serious errors). One of the best is that it is now illegal to put
newspapers into trash bins in NY City. This can cost the owner of the paper
a fine of $500 and a summons....to appear in court.
This feature is referred to as 'seperation' *before* the waste becomes a
'source' and this is the most dreaded and feared aspect that the
'incinerator' proponents have...not 'raw material' to burn, and this paper
and combustibles comprises at least 27% of the MSW. The NYPRIG does not rely
on source reduction through source separation in it's estimates, but rather
on 'after-source' separation which is more costly and less effective.....but
the BELR article fails to point out advances in recycling that would
help...for instance the 50% figure that the BELR article says is possible to
achieve came from the NY City's own Department of Sanitation...and the
author critical of waste reduction is accepting this figure without any
analysis or discussion. But if one reads the NYPRIG paper it turns out that
some countries have exceeded 50% reduction in waste production...not to
mention that there are some rural areas in the US that have achieved more
than 90% waste reduction.....
This item was not even mentioned in the NYPRIG article...but it is now law
in many regions...
There was another salient thing. The amount of trash being produced in NY
City has declined with the exception of Staten Island or Coney Island (I
cannot remembe the correct name) so it appears that waste production is
going down without any real effective measures to reduce waste through
source seperation, the use of mechanical separators, et cetera.
So I think the BELR article is meant to 'pull the wool' over some important
eyes...so as to screen the fact that recycling of combustible makes the
incinerator totally a dead proposition.....but shissshh you guys don't tell
a soul...this is supposed to be kept a secret....
chao
john
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Tantillo <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 8:48 AM
Subject: Fwd: Quality Control in the Publication Process?
> Hi everyone,
> I am forwarding a posting from another list (copied below) about the
> use of incorrect, misleading, or out-of-date information in
> peer-reviewed scientific journals that may be of interest in light of
> some of our recent discussions here. That post reminded me of a book
> about statistics that has just been published and that some list
> members may be interested in. I've read some reviews and it looks
> well done-- DAMNED LIES AND STATISTICS: UNTANGLING NUMBERS FROM THE
> MEDIA, POLITICIANS, AND ACTIVISTS, by Joel Best, U. Cal. Press 2001.
> I think it's likely that Best touches on many of the concerns about
> the so-called 'grey literature' that we have discussed on the list in
> previous weeks.
>
> As an aside, it was interesting for me to learn that Best's book is
> the likely source for Steve Verdon's July 9 email last month:
>
<http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0107&L=enviroethics&O=A&P=40
56>.
>
> An excerpted chapter appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education
> ("Telling the Truth About Damned Lies and Statistics," May 4 2001
> issue, B7-B9). In particular Best uses an example that resembles the
> mourning dove statistic discussed below. A dissertation prospectus
> that Best was reading started off with a carefully footnoted
> statement, "Every year since 1950, the number of American children
> gunned down has doubled." When Best went to the original journal
> source, the statement read exactly the same: "Every year since 1950 .
> . . has doubled." Best estimates that if that were true, the figure
> for children shot to death in 1995 when the article was published
> would be 35 trillion. When he checked *that* author's source, he
> found that this statistic started out in life originally in a
> Children's Defense Fund (CDF) report as: "The number of American
> children killed each year by guns has doubled since 1950." Best
> examines how a relatively innocuous statistic--after all, the
> American population had roughly doubled in the same period--took on a
> life of its own and became what he calls a "mutant" statistic. Best
> comments: "Certainly, the article's author didn't ask many probing,
> critical questions about the C.D.F.'s claim. Impressed by the
> statistic, the author repeated it--well, meant to repeat it.
> Instead, by rewording the C.D.F.'s claim, the author created a mutant
> statistic, one garbled almost beyond recognition" (CHE, B8).
>
> I think that Best's conclusions about statistics relate both to the
> post below about mourning dove population dynamics but also to our
> discussions here over the past few weeks. Best writes:
>
> "Some statistics are born bad--they aren't good from the
> start, because they are based on nothing more than guesses or dubious
> data. Other statistics mutate; they become bad after being mangled
> (as in the case of the author's creative rewording). Either way, bad
> statistics are potentially important: They can be used to stir up
> public outrage or fear; they can distort our understanding of the
> world; and they can lead us to make poor policy choices" (CHE, B8).
>
> At the risk of sounding defensive, I think Best here is making the
> same basic point that Evil Steve and I were simply trying to make
> last month in the various threads about statistics, NYC recycling,
> etc. And I believe this is the point that Missouri biologist John
> Schulz is making below when he writes: "[W]hen incorrect, misleading,
> or out-of-date information is allowed to be published in peer
> reviewed scientific journals other people can use this information
> for their own political agenda."
>
> Anyway . . . fyi and fwiw. It's interesting to see people on other
> lists addressing many of the same issues we deal with (quarrel
> about?) <grin> here. Well, you know what Chesterton said . . . the
> trouble with a quarrel, he said, is that it interrupts a good
> argument. :-) later,
>
> Jim T.
>
>
> --- begin forwarded text
>
>
> Status: U
> Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:28:35 -0500
> Reply-To: John Schulz <[log in to unmask]>
> Sender: TWS-L Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
> From: John Schulz <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Quality Control in the Publication Process?
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Like most folks, my pile of reading material is large, and it takes
> several months to get around to reading everything. Much to my
> enjoyment, I stumbled upon an article about mourning doves in the
> October, 2000 of the Journal of Wildlife Management
> (64(4):1004-1008); I read the article closely, and found some
> surprises.
>
> My intent with this email note is point out some issues that must be
> resolved with The Wildlife Society (TWS) publications. My use of a
> recent Journal of Wildlife Management (Factors influencing mourning
> dove nest success in CRP fields) article is not intended to impugn
> the authors, but to highlight my case for a few reforms in the peer
> review process. I apologize ahead of time if this comment appears to
> be an attack on the authors or mean spirited; it not intended as such.
>
> My case is simple: when incorrect, misleading, or out-of-date
> information is allowed to be published in peer reviewed scientific
> journals other people can use this information for their own
> political agenda. For example, the opening sentence in the article
> reads, "Mourning dove populations in the Central Management Unit
> (CMU) have increased in recent years (Dolton and Smith 1998)." The
> sentence is false, or misleading at best. The actual 1998 report
> which was cited in the article shows a nonsignificant 2-year
> (1997-98) increase of 1.7% (90% CI -4.3 to 7.3) for the entire CMU;
> hardly an increasing population trend in recent years. Also, the
> 1998 report shows that over the previous 10 and 33 year periods,
> population trends have decreased significantly 1.1% (P<0.1) and -0.4%
> (P<0.05) respectively. Again, this hardly indicates an increasing
> CMU mourning dove population. Giving the authors the benefit of the
> doubt, mourning dove population trends in Kansas showed a
> nonsignificant increase of 3.0% (90% CI -1.1 to 7.1) for the 1989-98
> period; however, their statement in the published paper refers to the
> entire 14 state Central Management Unit. The editors or reviewers
> should have caught this obvious error, and flaw in the overall logic
> of the paper (i.e., CRP is possibly responsible for increasing dove
> populations).
>
> Secondly, the authors state that they wanted to compare their nesting
> data to previously published reports from the Great Plains and across
> North America. With only one exception, their comparison did not
> include any published work dealing with doves nesting in CRP fields
> or grassland habitat studies after 1993. There have been numerous
> and valuable contributions in the Journal of Wildlife Management
> about ground nesting doves, and authors and reviewers missed this
> major flaw in the paper. I quickly looked on my bookshelf and found
> 4-5 papers related to ground nesting doves using various
> open-land/grassland habitats in less 5 minutes (JWM 61:318-325, Avian
> use and vegetation characteristics of conservation reserve program
> fields; JWM 61:644-655, Bird use and nesting in conventional,
> minimum-tillage, and organic cropland; JWM 62:474-484, Songbird
> community composition and nesting success in grazed and ungrazed
> pinyon-juniper woodlands; JWM 63:1009-1017, Effects of deterrents on
> avian abundance and nesting density in electrical substations in
> Oklahoma; J. Field Onithol. 69:299-305, Mourning nesting habitat and
> nest success in central Missouri). A comparison of more recent and
> applicable data would have been more helpful and pertinent to the
> topic at hand.
>
> So what's the big deal? This is just another example highlighting
> the need to improve the publication process for wildlife related
> journals. I propose the following suggestions. First, I think TWS
> should seriously consider the use of double-blind reviews (similar to
> some domestic poultry literature) where neither the reviewer or
> author know each other's identity. For example, the author's name
> and affiliation would be placed on a separate page which would be
> removed at the editor's office prior to shipping in the manuscript
> out for review. Second, I urge reviewers to seriously undertake a
> thorough review of the paper that has been assigned to them. In my
> example, anyone familiar with mourning doves should have caught the
> mistake in the first sentence of the paper. I've had some reviewers
> recommend rejection of a paper because they had a personal moral
> disagreement with a certain management activity unrelated to study at
> hand.
>
> My third and last point. Other biologists in my office will say,
> "Ya, it's just the luck the of the draw sometimes, you never know
> which AE will get the paper or what the reviewers will say."
> Hopefully, random chance is not part of the scientific peer review
> process.
>
> I'd be interested in the ideas of others in The Wildlife Society.
>
> John H. Schulz
> Mo. TWS Chapter, Past-President
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to
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> of the message.
>
> --- end forwarded text
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