Film Screening - Petrochemical Control Special

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Formosa Plastics Group has been building petrochemical factories (the 6th naphtha cracker) in the coastal area of Yunlin County in central Taiwan. As time goes by, its scale has expanded and gradually become a symbiotic entity to the people in the fenceline communities. To fulfill its feedback promise, the petrochemical giant built an elementary school nearby by its VCM plant and launched many pro-community projects such as providing scientific consultations for local farmers and improving the local medical quality, etc. However, local people have complained about the smelly odors and suspected that the increasing cancer cases at local are caused by the pollutant emission from the 6th Naphtha Cracker. This episode of an eight-part series of an atypical science-education program “Open the S File When Science Meets Social Controversies” tells the story of how different research questions, assumptions, monitoring methods, and data applications may yield different political judgments. The research design, knowledge production sponsorship, and study outcome interpretation can also affect the scientific results in policy formulation such as school allocation or nuisance dispute compensation cases in the 6th naphtha cracker pollution controversies. In “Petrochemical Control Special,” we see how the petrochemical giant used “scientific uncertainty” to manipulate policy decisions and shirk the responsibility. But on the other hand, community residents have learned to use citizen science to figure out problems and try to hold the polluters accountable.

Session Organizers

• Hsin-Hsing Chen, Shih-Hsin University Graduate Institute for Social Transformation Studies

• Wen-Ling Tu, National Chengchi University