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Oil company sponsorships: Science Museum (London, UK) and Canada’s Museum of Science and Technology

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Wonderlab: The Statoil Gallery opened in London’s (UK) Science Museum on Oct. 12, 2016 and it seems there are a couple of controversies. An Oct. 17, 2016 article by Chris Garrard outlines the issues (Note: Links have been removed),

What do you wonder?” That is the question the Science Museum has been asking for many months now, in posters, celebrity videos and in online images. It’s been part of the museum’s strategy to ramp up excitement around its new “Wonderlab” gallery, a space full of interactive science exhibits designed to inspire children. But what many have been wondering is how Statoil, a major oil and gas company with plans to drill up to seven new wells in the Arctic [emphasis mine], was allowed to become the gallery’s title sponsor? Welcome to Wonderlab – the Science Museum’s latest ethical contradiction.

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In Australia, Statoil is still considering plans to drill a series of ultra deepwater wells in the Great Australian Bight – an internationally recognised whale sanctuary – despite the decision this week of its strategic partner, BP, to pull out. …

The company’s sponsorship of Wonderlab may look like a generous gesture from outside but in reality, Statoil is buying a social legitimacy it does not deserve – and it is particularly sinister to purchase that legitimacy at the expense of young people who will inherit a world with an unstable climate. This is an attempt to associate the future of science and technology with fossil fuels at a time when society and policy makers have finally accepted that that it is not compatible with a sustainable future and a stable climate. As the impacts of climate change intensify and the world shifts away from fossil fuels, the Science Museum will look ever more out of touch with the words “the Statoil gallery” emblazoned upon its walls.

The Science Museum has previously had sponsorship deals with a range of unethical sponsors, from arms companies such as Airbus, to other fossil fuel companies such as BP and Shell. When Shell’s influence over the Science Museum’s climate science gallery was unearthed last year following Freedom of Information requests, the museum’s director, Ian Blatchford, sought to defend the museum’s engagement with fossil fuel funders. He wrote “When it comes to the major challenges facing our society, from climate change to inspiring the next generation of engineers, we need to be engaging with all the key players including governments, industry and the public, not hiding away in a comfortable ivory tower.”

In reality, Blatchford is the one in the ivory tower – and not just because of the museum’s ties to Statoil. Wonderlab replaces the museum’s Launchpad gallery, a hub of interactive science exhibits designed to engage and inspire children. But unlike its predecessor, Wonderlab comes with an entry charge. Earlier this year, the science communication academic Dr Emily Dawson noted that “charging for the museum’s most popular children’s gallery sends a clear message that science is for some families, but not for all”. Thus Wonderlab represents a science communication mess as well as an ethical one.

While the museum’s decision to offer free school visits will allow some children from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to experience Wonderlab, Dawson argues that “it is not enough to use school visits as a panacea for exclusive practice”. Research recently undertaken by the Wellcome Trust showed that likelihood of visiting a science museum or centre is related to social class. Entry charges are not the only obstacle in the way of public access to science, but perhaps the most symbolic for a major cultural institution – particularly where the primary audience is children.

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Garrard does note that museums have challenges, especially when they are dealing with funding cuts as they are at the Science Museum.

The sponsorship issue may sound familiar to Canadians as we had our own controversy in 2012 with Imperial Oil and its sponsorship of the Canada Science and Technology Museum’s show currently named, ‘Let’s Talk Energy‘ still sponsored by Imperial Oil. Here’s more from my June 13, 2012 posting,

They’ve been going hot and heavy at Canada’s national museums in Ottawa this last few months. First, there was a brouhaha over corporate patronage and energy in January 2012 and, again, in April 2012 and now, it’s all about sex. While I’m dying to get started on the sex, this piece is going to follow the chronology.

The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) website has a Jan. 23, 2012 posting which notes the active role Imperial Oil played in a November 2011  energy exhibit (part of a multi-year, interactive national initiative, Let’s Talk Energy)  at the Canada Science and Technology Museum (from the CBC Jan. 23, 2012 posting),

Imperial Oil, a sponsor of the Museum of Science and Technology’s exhibition “Energy: Power to Choose,” was actively involved in the message presented to the public, according to emails obtained by CBC News.

The Ottawa museum unveiled the exhibition last year despite criticism from environmental groups like the Sierra Club, which questioned why it was partly funded by the Imperial Oil Foundation, which contributed $600,000 over six years.

Apparently, CBC reporters got their hands on some emails where the Imperial Oil Foundation president, Susan Swan, made a number of suggestions,

In an Oct. 3 [2011] interview on CBC Ottawa’s All in a Day, host Alan Neal asked exhibit curator Anna Adamek whose idea it was to include in the exhibit a reference that says oilsands account for one-tenth of one percent of global emissions.

“This fact comes from research reports that are available at the museum, that were commissioned by the museum,” Adamek told Neal.

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But earlier emails from Imperial Oil Foundation president Susan Swan obtained by Radio-Canada through an Access to Information request show she had recommended that information be included back in May [2011?].

Swan, who also served as chair of the advisory committee to the project, also asked that information be included that the oilsands are expected to add $1.7 trillion to the Canadian economy over the next 25 years.

Not all of Swan’s requests made it into the final exhibit: in one point, she asked that an illustration for Polar Oil and Gas Reserves be changed from red to blue, arguing red “has a negative connotation” bringing to mind “blood oil.” The change was not made.

Personally, I love Swan’s semiotic analysis of the colour ‘red’. I wonder how many graphic designers have been driven mad by someone who sat through a lecture or part of a television programme on colour and/or semiotics and is now an expert.

If you’re curious, you can see the emails from the Imperial Oil Foundation in the CBC Jan. 23, 2012 posting.

A few months later, Barrick Gold (a mining corporation) donated $1M to have a room at the Canadian Museum of Nature renamed, from the April 24, 2012 posting on the CBC website,

Environmental groups are upset over a decision to rename a room at the Canadian Museum of Nature after corporate mining giant Barrick Gold.

Barrick Gold Corp., based out of Toronto, purchased the room’s naming rights for about $1 million. The new “Barrick Salon” is the museum’s premier rental space featuring a circular room with glass windows from floor to ceiling.

The decision had activists protest at the museum Tuesday, a few hours before the official naming reception that includes Barrick Gold executives.

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“It’s definitely not a partnership, it’s a sponsorship,” said Elizabeth McCrea, the museum’s director of communications. “We’re always looking at increasing self-generated revenue and this is one way that we’re doing it.” [emphasis mine]

Monarchs and wealthy people have been funding and attempting to influence cultural institutions for millenia. These days, we get to include corporations on that list but it’s nothing new. People or institutions with power and money always want history or facts * presented in ways that further or flatter their interests (“history is written by the victors”). They aren’t always successful but they will keep trying.

It’s hard to be high-minded when you need money but it doesn’t mean you should give up on the effort.

Science, opera, and oil: a revelation

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Alice Bell’s April 29,2014 posting for the Guardian science blogs explores the relationship between money from oil companies to culture, especially science culture (Note: A link has been removed),

Question: What has science got in common with opera? Answer: They are both cultural pursuits favoured by the oil industry.

This comes via the NGO Platform  [elsewhere this organization is called Platform London] who produced a new infographic this week, visualising their research exploring how much oil money goes into London’s galleries and museums.

The graphic leads with the Royal Opera House, the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum, and you might have seen coverage of the protest at the Viking exhibition this weekend. But I noticed something interesting when I scrolled down. Because what’s at the centre of the Shell/ BP cultural sponsorship Venn diagram, taking money from both companies? Turns out, apart from the Royal Opera House, they are all scientific institutions: the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the National Maritime Museum.

Here’s the infographic,

Infographic from Platform London illustrating how oil moneyflows through national cultural institutions in the UK. Photograph: Hannah Davey, Mel Evans and Platform London/Platform London [downloaded from http://platformlondon.org/p-publications/artoilinfographic/]

Infographic from Platform London illustrating how oil moneyflows through national cultural institutions in the UK. Photograph: Hannah Davey, Mel Evans and Platform London/Platform London [downloaded from http://platformlondon.org/p-publications/artoilinfographic/]

You can find a larger version and a PDF of the infographic on the Platform London Culture Clash – Arts & Oil Money webpage where you’ll also get more information such as this,

For the last two and a half years Tate has been involved in a Freedom of Information struggle over its refusal to disclose information over details and discussions over its sponsorship relationship with BP. Despite a ruling from the Information Commissioner in May that Tate was breaking information law on a number of counts in not revealing information regarding to sponsorship discussions, Tate has appealed and the tribunal hearing is likely to place in September 2014.

Meanwhile, Bell focuses on the science portion of this ‘culture equation’,

I imagine members of the scientific community will feel slightly uncomfortable to see themselves nestled there with such a traditionally elitist space as the Royal Opera House. Is that really how they want to be used? Is that really what museums of science are for?

Science often sees itself as the poor cousin, culturally speaking, so I guess there will also be people pleased to see science at the nexus of an exercise in mapping cultural power. Science may enjoy huge political, financial and economic support elsewhere, but museums of science and technology often feel less popular, slightly awkward and unglamorous compared to art galleries and theatres. … You might also argue it’s a class thing; science just isn’t traditionally posh enough, though again maybe that is changing. Or maybe we unfairly dismiss science museums as kids stuff (as if that isn’t important in itself).

I was fascinated to find this little gem in Bell’s piece,

That the oil industry likes hanging with science isn’t news. To take a topical example, the latest space at the Science Museum to come baring the Shell logo is the new exhibition on James Lovelock. Though it doesn’t say so in the exhibition itself, Lovelock has worked for Shell. Indeed he is an advocate of the company, writing in his 2000 book, Homage to Gaia:

“My experiences with Shell left me firmly with the impression that they are neither stupid nor villains. On the contrary I know of no other human agency that plans as far ahead or considers the environment more closely” (page 162-3 of 2000 edition of Homage to Gaia)

Lovelock and his ‘Gaia’ concept were much beloved and discussed in some of my (Canadian) university courses in the late ’80s and early ’90s and none of my professors ever mentioned Lovelock’s relationship to Shell.

Getting back to the infographic and the relationship between oil money and culture, there was a bit of scandal in 2012 in Canada regarding the sponsorship of the Canada Museum of Science and Technology’s exhibition “Energy: Power to Choose,” I made note of it in a June 13, 2012 posting (Sex in Ottawa (Canada), energy and corporate patronage, and war anniversaries) where I looked at that scandal,  another example of corporate cultural patronage, and an example of an attempted government ‘intervention’ in a museum ‘sex show’, all in aid of ‘painting a picture’ of some the challenges associated with cultural production.

It’s a confounding situation at times. For example, the Du Maurier Foundation (in Canada) funded a diverse array of arts and some very exciting work was a shown as a consequence of that generosity. Unfortunately, it was a cigarette company and eventually, Du Maurier shut down its arts funding (I think it became illegal in the early 2000s) and that loss is felt to this day in 2014.

I recently wrote a piece about oil and Canada (scroll down about 40% of the way) in the context of a May 6, 2014 posting about the need for more research on oil cleanup technologies.

Nano zero valent iron and groundwater remediation

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My interest in nano zero valent iron (nZVI) and site remediation was piqued by a webcast from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN). (I commented on the ‘cast in my March 4, 2010 posting [http://www.frogheart.ca/?p=792 {scroll down}]). Yesterday(March 29, 2011), I came across a news item on Business Wire (http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110329005424/en/AECOM-University-California-Santa-Barbara-UCSB-Continue) about a collaboration between AECOM and the University of California at Santa Barbara for benchmark testing of nZVI. From the news item,

The new AECOM and UCSB bench-scale studies will test use of several zero valent iron (ZVI) products, including nano zero valent iron (nZVI), on the remediation of chlorinated volatile organic compounds (CVOCs) a common contaminant at groundwater remediation sites. nZVI products were selected for the study because they have a much greater surface area than conventional iron powders, which make them more effective in certain site remediation scenarios.

The bench-scale studies will use samples of these new products on groundwater and geologic materials collected from a former manufacturing site to evaluate the morphology or structure of the products as well as their mobility, persistence, and toxicity to aquatic organisms.

According to Dr. Dora Chiang, P.E. Project Design Engineer with AECOM’s environmental practice in Atlanta, “We have had an in situ bioremediation system in place for several years and will be using an nZVI or other ZVI products to supplement biodegradation of the CVOCs. Enhanced non-biological degradation, coupled with ongoing biodegradation of CVOCs, will likely result in a reduction in treatment time by remediating CVOCs to below their respective federal drinking water maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). This new treatment technology may save significant life-cycle cleanup costs while ensuring protection of human health and the environment.”

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Dr. Arturo A. Keller, Co-Director of UC Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology, will direct the research at UCSB, in coordination with Prof. Hunter Lenihan. Prof. Keller states that “there is great potential in using nZVI and related technologies to solve a wide range of contamination issues. However, we need to determine the potential risks to achieve safe implementation of this important technology.”

Nano zero valent iron is currently being used in site remediation in the US and elsewhere in the world. PEN has an interactive nanoremediation map here (http://www.nanotechproject.org/inventories/remediation_map/). Just click on one of the ‘balloons’ to get a full description of where, which contaminant, and which type of nanomaterial (e.g. the site in Ontario, Canada lists nZVI) is being used for the cleanup operation.

You can find out more about AECOM here (http://www.aecom.com) from their About page,

AECOM (NYSE: ACM) is a global provider of professional technical and management support services to a broad range of markets, including transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, water and government.

With approximately 45,000 employees around the world, AECOM is a leader in all of the key markets that it serves. AECOM provides a blend of global reach, local knowledge, innovation, and technical excellence in delivering solutions that create, enhance and sustain the world’s built, natural, and social environments.

A Fortune 500 company, AECOM serves clients in more than 100 countries and had revenue of $7.0 billion during the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2010.

AECOM is ranked by Ethisphere as one of the world’s 110 most ethical companies for 2011.

That’s a very big company. As for their ethics, I like to see what they do when the going gets tough. After all, BP Oil had a very good reputation at one point and then they had the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed that reputation with their subsequent actions.

Oil in the Gulf of Mexico, science, and not taking sides

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Linda Hooper-Bui is a professor in Louisiana who studies insects.She’s also one of the scientists who’s been denied access to freely available (usually) areas in the Gulf of Mexico wetlands. She and her students want to gather data for examination about the impact that the oil spill has had on the insect populations. BP Oil and the US federal government are going court over the oil spill and both sides want scientific evidence to buttress their respective cases. Scientists wanting access to areas controlled by either of the parties are required to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) by either BP Oil or the Natural Resource Damage Assessment federal agency. The NDA’s extend not just to the publication of data but also to informal sharing.

From the article by Hooper-Bui in The Scientist,

The ants, crickets, flies, bees, dragon flies, and spiders I study are important components of the coastal food web. They function as soil aerators, seed dispersers, pollinators, and food sources in complex ecosystems of the Gulf.

Insects were not a primary concern when oil was gushing into the Gulf, but now they may be the best indicator of stressor effects on the coastal northern Gulf of Mexico. Those stressors include oil, dispersants, and cleanup activities. If insect populations survive, then frogs, fish, and birds will survive. If frogs, fish, and birds are there, the fishermen and the birdwatchers will be there. The Gulf’s coastal communities will survive. But if the bugs suffer, so too will the people of the Gulf Coast.

This is why my continued research is important: to give us an idea of just how badly the health of the Gulf Coast ecosystems has been damaged and what, if anything, we can do to stave off a full-blown ecological collapse. But I am having trouble conducting my research without signing confidentiality agreements or agreeing to other conditions that restrict my ability to tell a robust and truthful scientific story.

I want to collect data to answer scientific questions absent a corporate or governmental agenda. I won’t collect data specifically to support the government’s lawsuit against BP nor will I collect data only to be used in BP’s defense. Whereas I think damage assessment is important, it’s my job to be independent — to tell an accurate, unbiased story. But because I choose not to work for BP’s consultants or NRDA, my job is difficult and access to study sites is limited.

Hooper-Bui goes on to describe a situation where she and her students had to surrender samples to a US Fish and Wildlife officer because their project (on public lands therefore they should have been freely accessible) had not been approved. Do read the article before it disappears behind a paywall but if you prefer. you can listen to a panel discussion with her and colleagues Christopher D’Elia and Cary Nelson on the US National Public Radio (NPR) website, here. One of the people who calls in to the show is another professor, this one from Texas, who has the same problem collecting data. He too refused to sign any NDAs. One group of nonaligned scientists has been able to get access and that’s largely because they acted before the bureaucracy snapped into place. They got permission (without having to sign NDAs) while the federal bureaucracy was still organizing itself in the early days of the spill.

These practices are antithetical to the practice of science. Meanwhile, the contrast between this situation and the move to increase access and make peer review a more open process (in my August 20, 2010 posting) could not be more glaring. Very simply, the institutions want more control while the grassroots science practitioners want a more open environment in which to work.

Hooper-Bui comments on NPR that she views her work as public service. It’s all that and more; it’s global public service.

What happens in the Gulf over the next decades will have a global impact. For example, there’s a huge colony of birds that make their way from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gaspé Peninsula in Québec for the summer returning to the Gulf in the winter.  They should start making their way back in the next few months. Who knows what’s going to happen to that colony and the impact this will have on other ecosystems?

We need policies that protect scientists and ensure, as much as possible, that their work be conducted in the public interest.

A few thoughts on business and nanotechnology

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In my response to a comment on yesterday’s posting I was not able to address the issue of  business’ role in nanotechnology safety efforts raised by this sentence,

Parents won’t leap for joy over the suggestion that their children must be exposed to these products, lest a company’s opportunity to move forward in marketing these products for profit be stymied.

As I don’t want to be misleading, it should be noted that the commenter is critical of my stance on risk and nanosunscreens and was using this comment to buttress a more comprehensive argument.

Reading the [July 7, 2011 corrected for grammar] comment earlier today was coincidental with my discovery yesterday of an article by a business owner (Scott Rickert, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nanofilm) about the proposed nanomaterials definitions in bills before the US House of Representatives and Senate (previously mentioned on this blog here).  From Taking the NanoPulse — Toxic Substance Meets Poison Thinking; New toxics legislation aims for safe. But is it sound? (Industry Week website) where Rickert discusses the Safe Chemicals bills and nanotechnology,

… for those of us in the nanotechnology field, there’s an additional wrinkle beyond the chemical formula of our products. Both the House and Senate version of the bill now include size, size distribution, shape and surface structure in the definition of a chemical’s “substance characteristic.” That means that over and above concerns about the chemical formula a nanotechnology company may be using, it may become suspect simply because of its nanoscale charactertics.

Am I worried? No. I know the people in this industry and I believe we have a track record that shows our care at policing ourselves. We’re not monsters. We have families, children and grandchildren, too. Make no mistake, we’re concerned about environmental health and safety in our industry. [emphasis mine] We have rules and programs in place. In addition, companies like mine have been working in special new voluntary reporting programs with the EPA. And, heaven knows, our whole industry has been educating scientists, governments, special interest groups and the general public about nanotechnology for a decade or more.

I think both the commenter and Rickert are right in entirely different ways and somewhat wrong in exactly the same way. Rickert goes on,

So what’s keeping me up at night? Not worries about toxicity and nanotechnology. We can handle that. I’m worried about toxicity in the law-making process. One of the Senate authors of the Bill says, “America’s system for regulating industrial chemicals is broken… Parents are afraid because hundreds of untested chemicals are found in their children’s bodies.”

Is that really where we want to start? Throwing open the door to panic — on both sides? I sat in on a nanotechnology industry conference call recently and the fear of a “witch hunt” was palpable.

If parents are terrified, they’re in the same boat as honest, responsible companies that are making products that improve lives and have long been committed to health and environmental causes. Do you think in this age of BP oil spills and late-night law-firm mesothelioma infomercials that businesses aren’t aware that preventing a problem is better than paying for it later?

To answer Rickert’s question, I think companies are quite aware of the risks and quite willing to pass them on to consumers and citizens in pursuit of an extra dollar.  With that, I’ve agreed with the commenter and now I’m going to agree with Rickert, there are honest responsible companies run by people who care about the environment and health.

Neither the commenter nor Rickert make a distinction I want to introduce about companies/businesses. A vast gulf exists between a small to medium-sized business and a multinational enterprise in terms of revenue and economic impact, perspective on responsibility, connections to their communities, and so on. Someone who’s built up their own business in their community is quite likely to have a different take on acceptable risks than someone who lives a continent away and has no direct ongoing contact with the community in which the business is operating.

Take for example,  Tony Hayward, Group Chief Executive, BP Oil. As I write this, BP Canada (BP Oil’s Canadian subsidiary) has started work on on a well for their coalbed methane project  in an area of British Columbia (Canada) that lies between the internationally famous Banff National Park and Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park which provides a corridor for mountain-dwelling wildlife who move between the two parks. From the news item on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) News,

As oil continues to gush from a BP wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico, critics say the company has quietly broken ground on a controversial project in B.C.’s Rocky Mountains.

Opponents of the Mist Mountain project say they were surprised to find that BP Canada, an arm of the BP group of companies, began construction earlier this month on an exploratory well for its coalbed methane project near Fernie, B.C.

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But Hejdi Feick, the director of communications for BP Canada, said British Columbians can be reassured that the company is a good corporate citizen.

“We are absolutely committed to doing this right,” she said Tuesday. “We have been very open and accessible over the last three years.”

That is little comfort for [Ryland] Nelson (from the group Wildsight), who said BP had promised to consult with the public every step of the way yet he only learned construction was underway when he went to the site Monday.

Nelson said the contractor on site told him they hope to bring in drilling equipment by the end of the month and start drilling this summer.

“Here they are, they’ve been working for nearly two weeks and nobody knew anything about it,” he said.

Remarkable here is how thoroughly tone deaf the company representative is to the reception this initiative is likely to enjoy. (By the way, I live in British Columbia.)

My point is that you can’t lump all businesses together as being thoroughly unethical in the pursuit of the almighty buck nor can you lump them together as honest, ethical entities being run by people who aren’t “monsters.” (Note: I believe that Rickert was using the word to make a point about business owners being people too. I have ruthlessly extracted that word from its natural placement to suggest that while  Hayward and his ilk may or may not be monsters, the consequences of their actions in the Gulf are monstrous.)

In the discussion about nanotechnology and safety I think we need to consider as many perspectives as possible without condemning everyone who represents business interests or being unduly naïve about competing interests. I do encourage you to read Ricket’s critique of the two Safe Chemicals bills as he brings up issues that would never have occurred to me and, I imagine, others who are not directly involved in the production of nanotechnology-enabled products.