Green Science

Green Science is the design, acquisition, and application of research and accumulated knowledge that considers sustainability for all earth systems, biota, and human beings, and for the search, appropriation, and exploitation of natural resources. It also should be extended to planets other than the earth, and other heavenly bodies as appropriate.

 

Today, most U.S. science is being developed by or for corporations, not by government-run or funded Universities. Corporations now include private universities. U.S. non-private universities are being increasingly run like corporations; their symbiotic links and responsibilities to the taxpayer are therefore becoming weaker. Corporations enhance their profits without much regard for environmental health, human health, sustainability, or in many cases, accuracy. This is certainly true for multinational corporations in both developed and developing countries.

 

The Green Party Of California advocates that products of scientific research, whether material (chemical, physical, and/or biological) or of the mind (inventions, patents) must be examined for their potential adverse human, environmental, and planetary health effects before they are commercialized. While such an initial examination may be imperfect, it is better than no examination. This process is analogous to an environmental impact analysis for a proposed new pesticide, or the safety of a new process for a food product.

 

The Green Party Of California demands that:

 

Corporations that produce research products, whether in the United States or elsewhere, must be held financially liable for all adverse human health and environmental effects.

 

Corporations producing products from their research must disclose adequate and accurate information to regulatory agencies and the general public about potential hazards of the products to human health or the environment. Regulatory agencies must check the key corporate claims on human health and environmental effects. This is important for new foods, for foods produced by new processes, for new and old products produced by new processes, for organisms, for chemicals, for physical agents, for biological agents, for new inventions, and for new technologies, for example, nanotechnology, genetic manipulation, and "test-tube" living organisms including human "test tube" babies.

 

Governments and corporations must be required to fund research, development, education, and technical assistance in Green Science. Universities and schools must be required to develop courses on Green Science.

 

Governments and private enterprise are required to fund research into whether products of research have been absorbed into humans and into the flora, fauna (collectively called "biomonitoring"), and environmental media of ecosystems. Such monitoring is important for chemicals, physical agents, organisms, and biological agents.

 

The sale of research products that are prohibited outside the state and the United States and that are known to have adverse environmental, ecological, and human effects should also be prohibited in California

 

Governments and private enterprise must support clean energy technologies, sustainability, and optimally efficient manufacturing processes that conserve energy and minimize environmental pollution. The Green Party opposes nuclear power to supply energy (See the Energy and Nuclear Contamination planks).

 

Recycling and reuse should be optimized to minimize waste disposal volume.

 

Research products that are material that are not designed to be permanent should be designed to break down into non-toxic products after use.

 

Tracking data on research product use from production, recycling, and to disposal must be collected and analyzed.

 

Tax incentives, credits, low-interest loans, and awards should be provided to corporations who voluntarily incorporate Green Science into their production lines.

 

To detect possible adverse effects, such susceptible populations as the young, the old, females capable of bearing offspring, and living creatures most exposed to chemical, physical, and biological agents may be sentinel populations of a problem.

 

Cost-benefit analyses for Green Science must take into consideration all known direct and indirect costs, as well as future expected environmental and human health impacts. Mental health effects, the effects of non-confidentiality, and impacts on the quality of life must also be included in adverse human health effects. Discrimination by corporations on the basis of research products (for example, personal genetic information, personal medical history, personal credit ratings, personal religious beliefs, personal philosophy, personal history, and personal information on the internet) must also be included. Multi-media effects must also be assessed for inventions that potentially impact communication, theater, and the arts. Research products should be assessed as to potential for dual use (normal commercial use and use as weapons of mass destruction). Such analyses should be part of any patent system.

 

The State of California should be required to provide ongoing annual and five-yearly reports on the state of Green Science in California, and these reports must be accessible to the general public, for example, on the State of California website. Corporations and producers and marketers must also complete similar non-confidential reports for their products that are being tracked, and submit them to the appropriate Government agency.

 

Regulatory agencies when proposing new transport systems, routes, and cargoes, and new facilities such as municipal incinerators and waste disposal systems must include impacts on quality of life, live-ability of any affected areas, and public health as well as environmental, business, and governmental effects. Such items as proximity to schools, hospitals, and homes for the elderly should be considered in addition to the beneficial effects on trade and business. All research that went into the proposals must be up-to-date and available for public scrutiny.

 

Scientific experiments to assess effects on humans should begin with non-animal tests ("alternative tests"). The Green Party does not support animal testing.

 

Any private information of human research subjects must remain private. Such personal information, including genetic, medical, and scientific information, can be disseminated only when written permission to do so has been given by each subject.

 

All government and corporate risk, safety, and environmental assessments associated with use of the products of science and technology must be open to public scrutiny.

The human genome must not be manipulated using science to achieve target traits, for example, to guarantee gender and sexuality.

 

Entities that sponsor scientific research must share profits equitably from inventions/patents with the inventors/patenters. The Bayh-Dole Act passed in 1980, that requires researchers at public universities to patent their developments and bring them to market, should be repealed. This act allows researchers at public universities to patent their developments and license them to a company, and the royalties are shared between the researcher and university. This act has turned many university professors into for-profit entrepreneurs and universities into for-profit companies no longer beholden to the public good. The current situation skews the research agenda into the direction of what is profitable, and this should be changed.

 

Governments (national, state, county, and municipal) should provide increased funding to public agencies and institutions to encourage more scientific research in areas that may not bring the greatest financial return but provide the greatest public good.

 

The following definitions apply:

 

Science is any branch of study concerned with a body of observed reproducible, material, knowledge.

 

Research is the process by which a science is created, and is comprised of deduction and induction.