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dam-l convincing decision-makers hydro/water devel isn't benign


hello all:

Well, maybe ths will stimulate discussion! :)

_____________________________________________________________

I've heard all sorts of reasons why it is difficult  to get
legislators and decision makers to pay attention to why
there should be a limit to water development projects.

Corruption: big projects leave room for big graft!  
[Plus the Construction industry has had problems with 
organized crime 1% of a billion]  is a lot more than 1% of 
a few thousand dollars!

Human pride: politicians and engineers don't like, like
many humans, to admit they are wrong.  Asa species we like to
be admired for all the big things we do.  The 7th wonder of the 
world phenomenon.  Bourassian conquest of nature.  Looks
like what Freud called the 'id' running wild to me.  

Then again my background is in psychology albeit mostly biological! :)

Ignorance/value misfit:
it's a complicated area, impacts, and not easy to package 
in a way that can be easily digested by people who are 
busy  and whose expertise lies in other areas:
business and economics and law, or in the case of 
engineers, building stuff, physical tolerances of
building materials - making sure things don't fall down...

...as opposed to the concerns and preoccupations of science or 
academe.  A very different place even if it too is political 
in its own way! :)

What a lawyer thinks of as a sure thing is not what an ecologist
would consider a sure thing.  Law/politics would think 60% was good 
enough for jazz.  Likewise many environmentalists - it's an on the ground
kimnd of thing based on reactiosn and social situations.

I can't imagine someone with training in statistical analysis in
research accepting 60% as sure or likely reason to act.  They like to
be a *lot* surer.  

So we often don't say till a more social being would say - hey!
something needs to be done!  And even when we do the way we put
it is taken differently across the divide between sceince and policy.

Primary allegience for politics is: is it waht people want?  Are we
talking a majority of voices pushing [and soemtimes who's
closest and most trusted - data is based on contacts, 
not on a search necessarily for knowledge.  Is it convincingly punchily
argued? What's in it for.... me/my constituency/my prestige? etc etc.
View is:opportunistic/somewhat militaristic, as in... it's a battle,
or set of games.

Primary allegience for environmentalists: protect the natural world.
60% is probably good enough.  Things must be nattily packaged for
appeal [and truth] so the public can be instructed as to what is
happening. View is: warriors for the planet.  Not a game but could
be played that way.

Primary allegience for scientists/academics: seeking truth/knowledge/
wonder of the world you study. Facts outweigh emotional arguments
[unlike politics, which often, like advertising, weighs heavily on
rhetoric, appeal to emotions and perceived [not actual] needs
[read desires and fears]. Search to approach absolute before saying things
are sure... must be 99.9% or whatever with confidence limits
sure.  heavy definitions of how sure is sure.  Not a quick response thing.
View is: seekers after truth and existing beauty which can be revelaed
through patience and true looking.  Knowledge junkies? 

Primary alligence for Business folks: bottom line - cash,  time span is 
right now or medium term.  Not usually looking at long-term - an effect 
boosted by mainstreeam economics tendency to not consider externalities.
ie long-term costs. View is: we are practical and add stuff to the world.

I guess this last sounds a bit like my experience of engineers, too combined 
with some shared concerns of scientists in general.  An odd mix!

So what i'm saying is that the values that are considered the norm
in each area do not cross boundaries.  We don't all speak
the same language.

But people tend to dismiss what is not in their own value 
system or language as invalid or gibberish.  :(

In my view: We need translators!  We need between life's work space 
diplomats!

Money/Communication:
Lack of money/time/ability to communicate to decision makers
people, who live in a very different world from activists
and from researchers.  No one *here*  is likely to have the 
assets to hire Burston-Marstaller [whose name I've probably misspelled].
I could be wrong.  But I think the approcah is not to hire a PR
firm but to communicate as we would amongst ourselves..
in academe: conferences, symposium sharing of knowledge.

Likewise, politicos would tend to hire
researchers - hired guns who tell
them often what they think they want to hear.  
They need speed in a  lot of cases and 
don't have the time a reseatcher often does to
put into getting all the facts.  Who are these hired guns?

Can any of us get into a position to offer the decsion makers more data?
Ina  way they can digest. :)  Nota  symposium necessarily.  though
a presentation would be good.

Getting through to the press is a separate issue - again values
and time sense is very different for the media which ten
to be much more im*media*te :)  With so much raw info around,
journalists are busy folks whose brains are pretty much on fore and they need
ways to slow the input and take best to pre-digested chunks of info -
becasue their brains are almost, but not quite - full.

I'm not talking someone who does investigative Journalism - they
delve and research.  But to get the refular sorts with
editors riding them interested takes snappy press kits, 
press conferencves with snappy sound bites, snazzy
eye candy - easy to comprehend fast for visuals.

this is not the usual stuff in science! ;)

I think it's a combination of all of the above that makes it difficult to
get the word out about impacts.  Each side thinks the other somewhat mad
in a lot of cases.

I expcet the one way to crack it is to do what Thomas Lovejoy suggested in
a  talk he gave here in Ottawa last month:  learn to speak in
a way the others can understand [I think of this as translators]
and also what Robert theobald has been suggesting in his trasnformative-change
lists [highly recommended]...  dialoguing across the boundaries [Lovejoy suggested the same thing]...
and we will need to go to the politicos and the pres becasue 
they are very busy and actually appreciate people getting stuff to them
- assuming it's in  a way they can wrap their brains around.

I figure if we appeal to the bottom line of the human in the decsion makers,
then that should wake them up... rather than yelling 
-stop!  although yelling  stop! to the press and descion makers
is a good first step to get theri attention though i thnk
a pro-active stance can work really well.  As in:
we have a better way... 

Then you sidestep the issue of whether or not it is a valid concern.  Of 
course it is!  Carpe diem - seize the day.

Popularization shouldn't be a dirty word. :)

cheers!

-Dianne [burning the midnight oil]