NEARLY three years have passed since the obdurate bulk of the Brent Spar
loomed out of the North Sea mists and onto the front pages of the world鈥檚 press.
Shell鈥檚 plans to dispose of its redundant storage buoy in the North Atlantic
raised a political storm, as Greenpeace and like-minded environmental groups
persuaded a large part of the public to share their outrage. The oil company鈥檚
subsequent decision in June 1995 not to dump constituted the most public and
controversial U-turn in the history of environmental campaigning. Brent Spar is
to be granted graceful retirement as a Norwegian pier.
Shell has consistently maintained that its preferred option of disposal in
the deep sea represented the best scientific solution. But as Shell itself said
in its report (Brent Spar, Shell, 1995): 鈥淎n emotive Greenpeace
campaign gave it a symbolic significance beyond any rational, scientific
calculation of its impact.鈥� With a few notable exceptions, such as New
快猫短视频 (Editorial, 1 July 1995, p 3), most scientists commenting since
the event have agreed. The journal Marine Pollution Bulletin stated: 鈥淎 rational
balancing of the expected environmental effects favours deep sea disposal鈥� (vol
30, p 578). An editorial in Nature (vol 375, p 708) was even stronger:
鈥淪hell Oil鈥檚 decision not to sink a used oilrig at sea is a needless dereliction
of rationality.鈥� It claimed that the whole issue had 鈥渁gain exposed the
shallowness of Greenpeace鈥檚 arguments on scientific issues鈥�.
The environmentalists鈥� concerns addressed two distinct areas. First, there
were the immediate effects of sea disposal. Sociologist Brian Wynne has called
these 鈥渇irst-order risks鈥濃�攊mpacts measurable and describable by science
(Global Environmental Change, June 1992, p 111). Then come the wider
social implications, or 鈥渟econd-order risks鈥�. Would Brent Spar set a precedent
for other structures and substances? Can we trust a case-by-case approach to
prevent cumulative damage? Such questions reach beyond science.
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There is now almost universal agreement on the first point. A Shell spokesman
told me: 鈥淲hat is clear is that the environmental impact would have been minute
. . . I haven鈥檛 come across a single scientist who would disagree with that.鈥�
Greenpeace concedes this point: 鈥淭here would have been some immediate but
localised environmental impact,鈥� one of its employees told me. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think
there would have been any immediate impact on human health from a single
installation, but that was never the point.鈥�
So what exactly was the point? I suspect it was all about second-order risks,
and precedent in particular. Relevant law begins with rare clarity, with the
1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf, which states that all rigs must
be removed. But things quickly get hazy. Exceptions may be allowed for 鈥渂ulky
wastes鈥�. Sea dumping should only happen after the licensing authority has 鈥渉ad
regard鈥� to the availability of alternative methods. Naturally occurring
radioactive material (such as that on the platform) might, or might not, be
subject to the international moratorium covering sea disposal. Where legal
phrases are so plastic, lawyers look for the hard mould of case history to firm
them up. So it seems fair to suppose that the Brent Spar would indeed have acted
as a precedent, at least for structures of a similar kind.
Does this matter? Some scientists argue that the deep oceans are an
excellent place for all sorts of waste. In the words of a correspondent to
Nature (vol 376, p 208): 鈥淎s a result of the misguided lobbying of
emotional environmentalists such as Greenpeace, the use of the oceans as a waste
depository has been denied to applied scientists competent to take
诲别肠颈蝉颈辞苍蝉.鈥�
Buried in this statement are social assumptions that the environmentalist
perspective challenges: the notion of a 鈥渢hrowaway society鈥� is one, and the idea
that risks should be adjudicated by small groups of experts is another. In its
report on the affair in 1996, Britain鈥檚 Natural Environment Research Council
reflected that disposal at sea involved social, economic, ethical and aesthetic
considerations that might be more important than any technical risk
assessments.
When Greenpeace squared up to Shell, it reminded us of the need for
a debate about waste which goes well beyond the first-order, 鈥渟cientific鈥�
uncertainties scrutinised in a case-by-case system. There鈥檚 nothing irrational
about that.