#144 David Zaruk: Environmentalism, The EU, and SlimeGate
Dr. David Zaruk is the Risk-Monger. He has been an EU risk and science communications specialist since 2000, active in EU policy events from REACH and SCALE to the Pesticides Directive, from Science in Society questions to the use of the Precautionary Principle. He was part of the team that set up GreenFacts to encourage a wider use of evidence-based decision-making in the EU on environmental health matters. Dr. Zaruk is a professor at Odisee University College where he lectures on Communications, Marketing, EU Lobbying and PR.
In this episode, we start off by talking about the tactics that bad environmental activists use, how they oversimplify complex problems, and their anti-capitalism ideology. After referring to the importance of experts consulting environmental and health policy, we talk about the antiscientific approach that has been dominating the European Union, when it comes to agriculture, energy and the environment. We then move on to the SlimeGate series that Dr. Zaruk has been releasing, and an exposé of how tort law firms, scientists, NGOs, activists and politicians get together to promote pseudoscience and get easy money. Toward the end, we speak about the important difference between hazard and risk, and how fearmongers exploit people’s ignorance about that topic, and also about how the incidence of cancer has been declining over time.
Time Links:
Good and bad environmental activism
Oversimplifying complex problems
Anti-corporativism and anti-capitalism approaches
We need more experts in politics
The EU, glyphosate, GMOs, and organic farming
EU’s policies on climate change, nuclear energy, and renewables
The SlimeGate series: tort law firms, paid scientists, NGOs, activists and politicians
Hazard vs Risk, and how fearmongers exploit this difference
The incidence of cancer is going down
Follow Dr. Zaruk’s work!
Follow Dr. Zaruk’s work:
Risk-Monger blog: https://risk-monger.com/
Facebook page: https://tinyurl.com/ybqghrp7
Twitter handle: @zaruk