Risk and Culture

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2. In May 1999, a laboratory at Cornell University published the results from a laboratory trial that appeared to indicate that the pollen of genetically modified Bt corn presented a threat to monarch caterpillars. Critics claimed that the popular media was wrong to report that monarch butterflies were threatened because this experiment did not duplicate natural conditions under which monarch caterpillars may come in contact with corn pollen. (Cornell News, 1999) In 2001 the scientific journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published six comprehensive studies that showed that Bt corn pollen does not pose a risk to monarch populations for the following reasons: * The density of Bt corn pollen that overlay milkweed leaves in the environment rarely comes close to the levels needed to harm monarch butterflies. Both laboratory and field studies confirmed this. * There is limited overlap between the period that Bt corn sheds pollen and when caterpillars are present. * Only a portion of the monarch caterpillar population feeds on milkweeds in and near cornfields. (Sears, et al., 2001) Monarch populations in the USA during 1999 increased by 30%, despite Bt corn accounting for 30% of all corn grown in the USA that year. The beneficial effects of Bt corn on Monarch populations can be attributed to reduced pesticide use. (Trewavas and Leaver, 2001). ESPP-78

3. Risk and Culture • “American exceptionalism” • Higher risk aversiveness (chemicals, nuclear power, ozone, endangered species) • High degrees of scientization • Reliance on objective representations • Openness of information • “National styles” of regulation • Political dynamics (adversarial or cooperative) • Forms of access to government • Degree of openness and transparency ESPP-78

4. Politics of GM Crops • United States • Wide introduction, little or no debate • Organics must be GM free • Britain • National mobilization against GM crops • Uncertainties foregrounded; cautious adoption • Germany • Strict rules for coexistence, testing, labeling ESPP-78

5. US Britain Germany Ways of knowledge-making Pluralist, interest-based Embodied , service-based Corporatist, institution-based Public Accountability Assumptions of distrust Legal Assumptions of trust Relational Assumptions of trust Role-based Demonstration (practices) Socio-technical experiments Empirical science Expert rationality Objectivity (styles) Numerical; reasoned Negotiated Negotiated; reasoned Expertise (basis) Formal methods Experience Training, skills, experience Civic Epistemologies:Cultural Ways of Knowing

6. But science does not support the Frankenfood fears of some, particularly outside the United States, that biotech foods or other products will harm human health. Madeleine Albright, 2000 ESPP-78

7. Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards Agreement, Article 2.2 Members shall ensure that any sanitary or phytosanitary measure is applied only to the extent necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health, is based on scientific principles and is not maintained without sufficient scientific evidence, except as provided for in paragraph 7 of Article 5. ESPP-78

8. WTO Amicus Brief: An Exercise in Global Activism • Producing the brief: a matter of networks • The strategy: don’t challenge the law, but work with(in) it. • Redefining the analytic space for risk assessment: high certainty/high consensus; low certainty/low consensus ESPP-78

9. First Question • If the ways we • perceive • frame • measure • characterize • and communicate risk • are all conditioned by aspects of our culture, then how can we fundamentally reform our policies for regulating risk? ESPP-78

10. Second Question • If different nations and political cultures systematically view and regulate risk in different ways, then what should a global institutions like WTO do when confronted with divergent risk perceptions? • Should non-scientific factors be taken into account in considering the validity of trade barriers? ESPP-78