Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant: The WikiBook/Union of Concerned Scientists

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit science advocacy group based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists. James J. McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University and past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, currently chairs the UCS Board of Directors.

History

The Union of Concerned Scientists was founded in 1969 by faculty and students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Scientists formed the organization to "initiate a critical and continuing examination of governmental policy in areas where science and technology are of actual or potential significance" and "devise means for turning research applications away from the present emphasis on military technology toward the solution of pressing environmental and social problems." The organization employs scientists, economists, engineers engaged in environmental and security issues, as well as executive and support staff.

One of the co-founders was physicist and Nobel laureate Dr. Henry Kendall, who served for many years as chairman of the board of UCS. In 1977, the UCS sponsored a "Scientists' Declaration on the Nuclear Arms Race" calling for an end to nuclear weapons tests and deployments in the United States and Soviet Union. In response to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the UCS sponsored a petition entitled "An Appeal to Ban Space Weapons".

In 1992, Kendall presided over the UCS' Warning to Humanity, which called for "fundamental change" to address a range of security and environmental issues. The document was signed by 1700 scientists, including a majority of the Nobel prize winners in the sciences.

According to the George C. Marshall Institute, the UCS was the fourth-largest recipient of foundation grants for climate studies in the period 2000-2002, a fourth of its $24M grant income being for that purpose.

According to Charity Navigator, an independent, non-profit organization that evaluates American charities, the UCS maintained $20,575,731 in assets, $5,514,946 in liabilities, $15,060,785 in net assets, and $14,112,057 in working capital, as well as $10,058,784 in program expenses, $813,335 in administrative expenses, and $1,703,907 in fundraising expenses in fiscal year 2006. In 2007, the Union of Concerned Scientists received a four (out of four) star rating from Charity Navigator.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is member of the Sustainable Energy Coalition.

Issue stances

In the UCS-published book The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists, the authors attempt to give practical advice to consumers to "help...distinguish the critical from the trivial and make choices that are congruent with your values." The book identifies using a fuel-efficient car and driving less as the number one way most people can reduce their environmental impact. The authors say minor choices such as choosing between paper or plastic bags do not have that much overall impact.

The UCS supports an increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, as well as a reduction in smog pollution from construction equipment and diesel trucks and the enactment of state laws to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, based on California's regulations. The group supports deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, as well as national and international action to combat climate change. The organization has also produced several reports on regional effects of climate change in the United States. The group supports increased taxes for polluters to discourage pollution and incentives for environmentally beneficial practices.

The UCS supports a national renewable electricity standard which would require utilities to produce a certain percentage of their energy from sources such as wind, solar and geothermal. The UCS also acknowledges that nuclear power can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but maintains that it must become much safer and cheaper before it can be considered a workable solution to global warming (see nuclear power debate). They support increased safety enforcement from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission among other steps to improve nuclear power. The group also supports a national energy efficiency standard for home appliances.

The UCS has also endorsed the Forests Now Declaration, which calls for new market based mechanism to protect forests, as the group has recognised the importance of curbing deforestation in order to tackle climate change. The group also supports governmental incentives for people who want to preserve undeveloped land instead of selling it to developers.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has accused the US government of dozens of instances of political interference in science and supports whistleblower protection, monetary incentives, and free speech rights for federal scientists. Its scientific integrity program has produced surveys of federal scientists at multiple agencies and a statement signed by more than 11,000 scientists condemning political interference in science.

The UCS supports the reduction of antibiotic use on livestock to prevent medical antibiotic resistance in humans who consume treated animals. It also opposes cloning animals for food, as well as forms of genetic engineering.

The group opposes the use of space weapons and supports the idea of an international treaty to regulate military uses of space. The group also works on reducing the number of nuclear weapons around the world and opposes the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. The group criticizes the technical feasibility of building a missile defense shield.

Press

In 1997, the UCS presented their “World Scientists Call For Action” petition to world leaders meeting to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol. The declaration asserted, “A broad consensus among the world's climatologists is that there is now ‘a discernible human influence on global climate.’" It urged governments to make “legally binding commitments to reduce industrial nations' emissions of heat-trapping gases”, and called global warming “one of the most serious threats to the planet and to future generations.” The petition was signed by “more than 1,500 of the world's most distinguished senior scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in science.”

In February 2004, the Union received press attention for its publication "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking". The report criticized the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush for "politicizing" science. Some of the allegations include altering information in global warming reports by the United States Environmental Protection Agency|Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and choosing members of scientific advisory panels based on their business interests rather than scientific experience. In July 2004, the Union released an addendum to the report in which they criticize the Bush administration and allege that reports on West Virginia strip mining had been improperly altered, and that "well-qualified" nominees for government posts, such as Nobel laureate Torsten Wiesel were rejected because of political differences. On April 2, 2004, John Marburger|Dr. John Marburger, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a statement claiming that incident descriptions in the UCS report are "false," "wrong," or "a distortion", and dismissed the report as "biased". UCS rebutted the White House document by saying that Marburger's claims were unjustified. UCS later wrote that since that time, the Bush administration has been virtually silent on the issue.

On October 30, 2006, the Union issued a press release claiming that high-ranking members of the U.S. Department of the Interior, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald, systematically tampered with scientific data in an effort to undermine the protection of endangered species and the Endangered Species Act.

On December 11, 2006, the UCS issued a statement signed by 10,600 leading scientists including Nobel Prize|Nobel laureates. The statement calls for the restoration of scientific integrity to federal policy-making.

On May 23, 2007, the UCS cited a joint-study with MIT and issued a press release claiming that "any test of the National Missile Defense|U.S. missile defense system that does not show whether an interceptor missile can distinguish between real warheads and decoys is irrelevant" and "contrived," and called for an end to the taxpayer-funded program until the system can show an ability to actually address "real world threats."

On June 21, 2007, a UCS report charged the EPA with political manipulation of scientific data to influence updated US ozone regulations: "The law says use the science, the science says lower the standard to safe levels," said Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Scientific Integrity Program. "In disregarding its own scientists' analysis, the EPA is risking the health of millions of Americans."

In August 2008, the UCS purchased billboards at the airports in Denver, Colorado and Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota where the Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic and Republican Party (United States)|Republican presidential conventions are to be held. The two nearly identical billboards showed the downtown areas of each convention city in a cross hairs, with the message that “when only one nuclear bomb could destroy a city” like Minneapolis or Denver, “we don’t need 6,000.” The name of Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama follows, with this admonition: “It’s time to get serious about reducing the nuclear threat.” The billboards were removed after a complaint from Northwest Airlines, the official airline of the Republican convention. The UCS has accused Northwest, whose headquarters were in Minnesota, of “taking on a new role as censor” and of having acted because it regarded the Minneapolis advertisement as “scary” and “anti-McCain.”

In March 2011, the UCS began holding a daily telephone media briefing related to the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Criticism

Critics of the Union of Concerned Scientists, such as Byron Spice of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, assert that the organization harbors a liberal "pro-regulation, anti-business" agenda. In 2004, a conservative media watchdog, the Media Research Center, called the UCS an "unlabeled left-wing activist group." In 2007, its founder, L. Brent Bozell, reiterated that assertion. In 2009, the conservative website NewsMax described the UCS as a "left-wing" organization that "receives substantial donations from liberal-leaning foundations." The libertarian author and television personality John Stossel has also accused the organization of having a "left-wing" agenda.

In 2006, two physicists associated with the American Physical Society criticized the UCS for not supporting a government-run nuclear waste reprocessing program. The UCS has also been criticized by skeptics of global warming. In 2007, a conservative thinktank, the Capital Research Center, accused the UCS of waging a "jihad against climate skeptics." The televangelist Jerry Falwell even cautioned Evangelical Christians against "falling for...global warming hocus-pocus" propagated in the mass media, with the UCS "leading the charge."

Publications

• Catalyst, a bi-annual magazine
• Earthwise, a quarterly newsletter
• The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists
• Scientific Integrity in Policymaking
• Atmosphere of Pressure: Political Interference in Federal Climate Science

External links

• Union of Concerned Scientists
• UCS Climate Change-Centered Website
• Read Chapter 1 Of The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists (From UCS website). (Needs updating - Link no longer works Aug 2010)
• Sustainable Energy Coalition