This is an odd one. Ignore the title that sounds like it describes what goes on in a household repair shop - Gwen Ottinger makes an important point about the way that the attempt to use science to support social justice - such as when a community is blighted by pollution from an oil well - can be both positive and negative. While it's true that science can be used to identify pollutants and risks, scientists' natural tendency to caution may make a risk seem less significant than it is - and there is a danger that only the science viewpoint prevails, where the experience of those living in bad conditions is important too. All too often, scientists can dismiss local knowledge.  My old literary agent's first question when approached with a book idea was always 'is it a book or a magazine article?' I think this would be well applied here. Ottinger's point could have been well-made in a feature-length article, but there was an awful lot of repetition required to stre...