How do we turn science into policy in a timely way?

We consider ourselves to be rational beings with a fondness for "facts" derived from scientific research. And yet when it comes to public policy, it often takes decades for these "facts" to influence the way politicians make decisions in the public interest.

A recent op-ed in the New York Times indicates that we've known for 80 years that repeated concussions in professional athletes who box or play football can lead to hemorrhages and long-term brain damage. A 1928 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association warned that “There is a very definite brain injury due to single or repeated blows on the head or jaw which cause multiple concussion hemorrhages. ... The condition can no longer be ignored by the medical profession or the public.”

This warning was ignored for 80 years, and it's only this season that the N.F.L., for instance, issued new rules limiting players with head injuries from returning to the field. Why? Probably a whole lot of institutionalized denial. Like the tobacco industry, the NFL chose to run and hide from the problem rather than look out for the best interest of its players by addressing it as quickly as possible.

Even after the N.F.L. finally conceded that concussions “can lead to long-term problems,” one of the league’s longtime brain injury experts, Dr. Ira Casson, told a Congressional panel that there is not enough “valid, reliable or objective scientific evidence” showing that repeated blows to the head could cause permanent brain damage.

Sound familiar? The biggest example of the "denial strategy" is climate change. We've known since at least 1895 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap heat and warm the earth. And yet here we are, in 2010, 115 years later, still failing to put together a global climate change strategy that will meaningfully reduce GHG emissions enough to prevent catastrophic levels of climate change. Why? Perceived corporate self-interest defaulted to denial in response to calls for change.

So we shouldn't be surprised that Alberta's supposedly "science-based" grizzly bear recovery plan doesn't utilize even the most basic scientific understanding about how to recover ailing grizzly bear populations. For at least 20 years we've known that the minimum amount of secure core habitat needed to protect and recover grizzly bears is approximately 57 to 68 per cent of the recovery area (Mace et. al 1996, Mace and Manley 1993, Mattson and Haroldson 1985). Basically, this means that 57 to 68 per cent of the landscape needs to be managed at road densities at or below 0.6 kilometres per square kilometre.

What did the Alberta recovery plan stipulate after eight years of delay? That only 20 per cent of the recovery area be managed as core habitat, a far cry from the thresholds scientists have told us are necessary. In fact, if the recovery plan were ever actually implemented, secure core grizzly bear habitat would be approximately 50 per cent less than it is today.

This problem is not unique to Alberta. According to How much is enough? The recurrent problem of setting measurable objectives in conservation, over a quarter of the recovery plans for federally threatened and endangered species in the U.S. set quantitative recovery objectives at or below the species' existing population size or number of populations (Tear and colleagues, 1993, 1995). These objectives are likely low because they were politically palatable (Scott et al. 1995).

Deciding where grizzly bears will be allowed to survive in Alberta is a socio-political issue to be sure. But hiding behind a recovery plan based on false optimism and/or outright deceit will only result in further declines in grizzly bears and public trust in government. Let's at least put the facts on the table and make conscious decisions based on the best available information. That's not only good for grizzly bears, it's good for governance.