RARELY does something arise in American science politics that engages politicians at every level, from small-town mayors up to the President and Congress. Strange indeed that it would revolve around a gigantic hole in the ground in a remote part of the Nevada desert. But it鈥檚 what is destined to go into that hole that has everyone running about like headless chickens.
Nuclear waste has come home to roost鈥inally. It鈥檚 been years now since the deadline for the US government to start burying it from nuclear power plants. Other nuclear-powered nations have found ways to dispose of their waste, but the US just hasn鈥檛 been able to agree on whose backyard will get it. For two decades Nevada鈥檚 Yucca Mountain has been the proposed repository. But Nevada doesn鈥檛 want it.
The state has now made that official. The governor has formally told President Bush to take the waste somewhere else. So have most of the people in the Nevada. Over the next few months, a chain reaction (sorry, I couldn鈥檛 resist) of bickering will develop as governors in states with power plants and waste, and the congressional delegations from those states, demand that Nevada take its medicine (their waste) for the safety of the nation. The fact that above-ground nuclear dumps might pose nice targets for terrorists has strengthened their hand. But Nevada isn鈥檛 alone. Environmental groups say moving waste to the mountain along the nation鈥檚 highways and rail lines is asking for trouble. There are enough characters and themes here for a drawing-room farce of which Oscar Wilde would be proud. And as good as he might have been, critics will still be second-guessing this plot for another 10,000 years.WARNING to school-age children everywhere: beware of scientific facts as described by political leaders. Those 鈥渇acts鈥� can lead to poor grades, low test scores and confusion.
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As a case in point, let鈥檚 consider a speech by President George W. Bush on 9 April at the White House. The occasion was the President鈥檚 desire to declare his opposition to any kind of human cloning, and to declare his support for a piece of legislation that will shortly be considered by the Senate that would ban any kind of human cloning. Before he got to the core topic, the President felt obliged to make a few general comments about science in general, to whit: 鈥淲e live in a time of tremendous medical progress. A little more than a year ago, scientists first cracked the human genetic code鈥攐ne of the most important advances in scientific history.鈥� Don鈥檛 tell that to the winners of the 1968 Nobel Prize for 鈥渃racking the human genetic code鈥� (). Perhaps the President was thinking about the complete sequence of the human genome. No, that can鈥檛 be right. The final sequence isn鈥檛 expected out until next year, and the draft sequence was announced almost two years ago. Hmmmm. Wait, there鈥檚 more. 鈥淲e鈥檙e on the threshold of historic breakthroughs against AIDS and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and cancer and diabetes and heart disease and Parkinson鈥檚 disease.鈥� Well, maybe. But please, Mr President, let鈥檚 not confuse speculation with fact.
After that informative start, Bush went on to speak about the sanctity of human life. The President and his invited audience drawn mostly from the ranks of America鈥檚 鈥減ro-life鈥� movement believe life starts with conception, and an embryo has the same moral status as a newborn baby. That鈥檚 why therapeutic cloning is so bad. It鈥檚 creating a life just to destroy it. So would it be so bad if you created a cloned embryo expressly for the purpose of implanting it into a woman and bringing it to term? No, that鈥檚 bad too.
Science can be so confusing.
