Re: [asa] Global Warming, Ethics, and the Precautionary Principle

One reason why the precautionary principle is invoked is because climate
science is underfunded. If the cost of fixing the worst case is draconian
extra effort needs to be done to bring the bounds in tighter to make sure
the draconian "solution" is really necessary. Taking your Iraq war analogy,
once it appeared that an invasion was warranted more effort should have been
spent improving the quality of the intelligence product that had been proven
ineffective by 9/11.

That being said, it is superfluous to invoke the precautionary principle
anymore. Let's take the wikipedia article here:

The *precautionary principle* states that if an action or policy might cause
severe or irreversible <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversibility> harm
to the public, in the *absence of a scientific consensus* that harm would
not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the
action. [emphasis mine]

But, there is a consensus and thus we can do policy based on traditional
risk assessment:

*Risk assessment* is a step in the risk
management<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_management>process. Risk
assessment is
measuring <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement> two quantities of the
risk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk> *R*, the magnitude of the potential
loss *L*, and the probability *p* that the loss will occur.

You measure the cost of both the climate change and the proposed fix, look
at how likely the fix will work, how much it costs, and how much it costs if
the fix isn't implemented. If the difference between the best case and worst
case cost is great you spend extra effort on further scoping. Corporations
do this kind of contingency planning all the time.
The *real* reason the precautionary principle is invoked for climate change
is not because it's needed but rather as a rear guard argument against the
climate charlatans ^H^H^H^H skeptics. Even assuming the totally debunked
assumptions of the skeptics, doing something is still warranted. The
argument looks like:

a => b
~a => b

b with extreme prejudice

On 1/25/07, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Let's assume that the present consensus is right: global warming is a
> real problem that is substantially caused by human activity; and the
> possible scenarios concerning future consequences of the problem range from
> relatively moderate -- mostly regional disruption -- all the way to
> catastrophic economic and social breakdown. What is the appropriate ethical
> stance for formulating public policy to address the problem?
>
> Most environmental advocates will invoke the precautionary principle. It
> seems to me that the precautionary principle underlies much of the moral
> tone of the "Inconvenient Truth" film. (A good Wiki describing the
> precautionary principle is here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle). Personally --
> probably no surprise -- I'm skeptical of the precautionary principle as a
> basis for regulatory action or non-action. Let me offer an essay by legal
> scholar Cass Sunstein that offers reasons from a law-and-economics and
> law-and-social-norms perspective why the precautionary principle doesn't
> work: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=307098
>
> In many ways, I think this question is more important for the ASA than the
> question of authority Randy raised. Even those who might want to poke some
> holes in the professional consensus on global warming need to acknowledge
> that, although the professional climate scientists may not be completely
> certain and right about all of their conclusions, it is also extremely
> unlikely that they are completely wrong. Is the precautionary principle the
> right ethical response? If not, what is?
>
> --
> David W. Opderbeck
> Web: http://www.davidopderbeck.com
> Blog: http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
>
>

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Received on Thu Jan 25 16:16:42 2007