Amy K. Wolfe

Communicating Ecological Indicators to Decision Makers and the Public

Introduction EMAP’s Indicators A Region as a Case Study Development of Common-language Indicators Testing the Common-language Indicators From “values” to “valued aspects” Testing CLIs in relation to valued aspects of the environment Discussion Final thoughts Responses to this Article Acknowledgments Literature Cited Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3

Why would anyone object? An exploration of social aspects of phytoremediation acceptability

Referee: Mr. Peter Siebach, Environmental Engineer, U.S. Department of Energy, Chicago Operations Office, 9800 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439 Phytoremediation comprises a suite of promising cleanup technologies that use plants to remove or contain contaminants in soil and water. To be deployed, phytoremediation must be both technically and socially acceptable. This article explores the potential social acceptability of phytoremediation options proposed for use at specific sites and describes the conceptual framework that guides our exploration. The framework, called PACT (Public Acceptability of Controversial Technologies), consists of Dialog, Technology, Constituent, and Context dimensions. It posits that remediation decision making is a social process informed by scientific and technical information, rather than a science- or technology-driven process. Although empirical data are scarce, applying PACT shows that a number of issues have the potential to impose conditions on the social acceptability of phytoremediation, and that some issues could lead to outright rejection. Further, because many of these issues concern values and goals, they cannot be resolved simply by providing better or more detailed technical information about phytoremediation. PACT is instructive in showing how even seemingly benign or desirable technologies such as phytoremediation have the potential to generate public controversy, delineating issues in ways that can help lead to their resolution.

A Framework for Analyzing Dialogues over the Acceptability of Controversial Technologies

This article asks under what circumstances controversial technologies would be considered seriously for remediation instead of being rejected out of hand. To address this question, the authors developed a conceptual framework called public acceptability of controversial technologies (PACT). PACT considers site-specific, decision-oriented dialogues among the individuals and groups involved in selecting or recommending hazardous waste remediation technologies. It distinguishes technology acceptability, that is, a willingness to consider seriously, from technology acceptance, the decision to deploy. The framework integrates four dimensions: (1) an acceptability continuum that underlies decision-oriented dialogues among individuals and constituency groups, (2) the attributes of these individuals and groups, (3) the attributes of the technology at issue, and (4) the community context—social, institutional, and physical. This article describes and explores PACT as a tool for understanding and better predicting the acceptability of controversial technologies.

Public involvement on a regional scale

Abstract This article centers on public involvement conducted at a regional scale, using the U.S. National Assessment of Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (NACC) to ground discussion. Though it is a national program, NACC assessments are being conducted in 19 regions and across several sectors. NACCs environmental issue is intangible and long term. Its “assessment” orientation means that public participation has no clear decision or policy on which to focus. Our role was to provide guidance for, in the language of NACC, “stakeholder involvement.” This article discusses two major elements as they influenced our decisions about what guidance to provide the program and how to provide it effectively. The two elements are the institutional and organizational structure of NACC itself and existing theoretical and experiential “golden rules” or “lessons” of public involvement. We summarize our resulting guidance to NACC for its regional assessment teams and our limited knowledge of how that guidance has been used. We end by calling for research to take advantage of the natural experiment that constitutes NACC — multiple, linked, simultaneous cases of regional-scale, assessment-oriented, public involvement.

Adding to the Mix: Integrating ELSI into a National Nanoscale Science and Technology Center

This paper describes issues associated with integrating the study of Ethical, Legal and Social Issues (ELSI) into ongoing scientific and technical research and describes an approach adopted by the authors for their own work with the center for nanophase materials sciences (CNMS) at the Oak Ridge national laboratory (ORNL). Four key questions are considered: (a) What is ELSI and how should it identify and address topics of interest for the CNMS? (b) What advantages accrue to incorporating ELSI into the CNMS? (c) How should the integration of ELSI into the CNMS take place? (d) How should one judge the effectiveness of the activity? We conclude that ELSI research is not a monolithic body of knowledge, but should be adapted to the question at hand. Our approach focuses on junctures in the R&D continuum at which key decisions occur, avoids topics of a purely ethical nature or advocacy, and seeks to gather data in ways that permit testing the validity of generalization. Integrating ELSI into the CNMS allows dealing with topics firmly grounded in science, offers concrete examples of potential downstream applications and provides access to the scientists using the CNMS and their insights and observations. As well, integration provides the opportunity for R&D managers to benefit from ELSI insights and the potential to modify R&D agendas. Successful integration is dependent on the particular ELSI question set that drives the project. In this case questions sought to identify key choices, information of value to scientists, institutional attributes, key attributes of the CNMS culture, and alternatives for communicating results. The opportunity to consult with scientists on ELSI implications is offered, but not promoted. Finally, ELSI effectiveness is judged by observing the use to which research products are put within the CNMS, ORNL, and the community of external scholars.

Specificity and Engagement: Increasing ELSI’s Relevance to Nano–Scientists

Scholars studying the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) associated with emerging technologies maintain the importance of considering these issues throughout the research and development cycle, even during the earliest stages of basic research. Embedding these considerations within the scientific process requires communication between ELSI scholars and the community of physical scientists who are conducting that basic research. We posit that this communication can be effective on a broad scale only if it links societal issues directly to characteristics of the emerging technology that are relevant to the physical and natural scientists involved in research and development. In this article, we examine nano-ELSI literature from 2003 to 2010 to discern the degree to which it makes these types of explicit connections. We find that, while the literature identifies a wide range of issues of societal concern, it generally does so in a non-specific manner. It neither links societal issues to particular forms or characteristics of widely divergent nanotechnologies nor to any of the many potential uses to which those nanotechnologies may be put. We believe that these kinds of specificity are essential to those engaged in nano-scale research. We also compare the literature-based findings to observations from interviews we conducted with nanoscientists and conclude that ELSI scholars should add technical- and application-related forms of specificity to their work and their writings to enhance effectiveness and impact in communicating with one important target audience—members of the nanoscale science community.

University-Industry Relationships in Genetic Research: Potential Opportunities and Pitfalls

Changes in the environment in which university research is conducted, in conjunction with the development of new research technologies such as biotechnology, are contributing to the proliferation and diversification of university‐industry relationships. This paper describes and documents university‐industry relationships in five categories: research contracts, technology transfer activities, consultancies, employment, and gifts. Special emphasis is given to biotechnology research relations. Conflicts that may arise from these relations are discussed and studies evaluating the potential impacts of university‐industry relationships are summarized. While wide‐spread abuse has not been reported, subtle changes in university research may be occurring. Using the University of Tennessee as a case study, the paper ends with a discussion of the difficulties of establishing guidelines and procedures to prevent and settle conflicts of interest that might result from university‐industry relationships.

Ensuring that Ecological Science Contributes to Natural Resource Management Using a Delphi-Derived Approach

This chapter approaches participatory modeling in environmental decision making from an atypical perspective. It broadly addresses the question of how to assure that science conducted to assist practitioners improves resource management. More specifically, it describes a case involving environmental science and natural resource management at Fort Benning, a United States (US) Army installation in the southeastern US where disparate environmental research projects were funded by a single federal agency to enhance the ability of Fort Benning’s resource managers to achieve their resource management goals. The role of our effort was to integrate the scientific studies in a manner that would be meaningful and useful for resource managers. Hence we assembled a team consisting of an anthropologist, ecologist, microbiologist, statistician, and geographic information systems specialist who developed a common framework that served as the basis for this integration. The team first used a Delphi expert elicitation, which evolved into an approach more akin to facilitated negotiation. This second approach arose organically, particularly when our team took advantage of an opportunity for face-to-face interaction. Although the shift in our approach was unplanned, it proved to be highly productive. We discuss the potential utility of our approach for other situations and suggest that it would be useful to initiate at the beginning of research where the aim is to produce scientific results that meet practitioners’ needs, specifically in the realm of environmental science and resource management.

Human Health and Environmental Risks Posed by Synthetic Biology R&D for Energy Applications A Literature Analysis

What are the human health and environmental risks posed by synthetic biology research and development (R&D) for energy applications? We found it surprisingly difficult to answer this seemingly straightforward question in our review of the risk-related synthetic biology literature. To our knowledge, no entity to date has published a comprehensive review of this literature. Thus, this analysis aims to fill that void and, at a high level, answer the question that we pose. Risk-related synthetic biology literature addresses risk from different perspectives. Much of the literature that we reviewed treats the concept of risk in synthetic biology R&D broadly, enumerating few specific risks. Nevertheless, after reviewing >200 documents, we identified 44 discrete risk issues; 18 of those related to human health and 26 to the environment. We clustered these risk issues into categories that reflect and summarize their content. We categorized human health risk issues as follows: allergies, antibiotic resistance, carcinogens, and pathogenicity or toxicity. Environmental risk issues were categorized as follows: change or depletion of the environment, competition with native species, horizontal gene transfer, and pathogenicity or toxicity. Our efforts to understand what the synthetic biology R&D-related risk issues are stemmed from a larger research project in which we used risk issues identified in the literature as a point of departure in interviews with biosafety professionals and scientists engaged in synthetic biology R&D. We wrote this article after multiple biosafety professionals told us that accessing our risk-related literature analysis would aid them in their work.

Societal aspects of synthetic biology: organisms and applications matter!

Because the organisms, production, potential uses, and disposal practices associated with synthetic biology vary widely, so do the impacts and implications. This paper advocates that scholars crafting a research agenda and investigating societal aspects of synthetic biology do so in a way that is attentive to important specifics, such as the types of organisms involved and contexts in which synthetic organisms or biological systems will be used. Such specificity will strengthen analyses and enhance the credibility, utility, and, therefore, the impact of findings and recommendations.