precautionary principle

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-First Century

by Ronald Bailey  · 20 Jul 2015  · 417pp  · 109,367 words

technological progress. As it happens, lots of environmentalists advocate a policy that could in fact drastically slow down the rate of technological change—implementing the precautionary principle. 3 Never Do Anything for the First Time I HAVE FRIENDS WHO TOOK THE PRECAUTIONARY STEP of not having their daughter vaccinated against measles, mumps

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do when it comes to the risks and benefits of modern technologies. Never do anything for the first time. The strong version of the precautionary principle much favored by many environmentalists can largely be summarized by that maxim. Environmentalist advocates of the principle will deny that that is what they are

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risks they merely want society to be guided by the wisdom of the ancient aphorism “Better safe than sorry.” But as we shall see, the precautionary principle as formulated by environmentalists goes much further and presumes that better safety lies in banning or restricting the development of new technologies. Consequently, implementing the

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more sorry than safe,” as Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Adler has cogently argued. Why? The central issue is that proponents of the precautionary principle tend to focus on hypothetical dangers while generally failing to consider fully the power of new technologies to reduce risk. The closest thing to a

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canonical version of the precautionary principle was devised by a group of thirty-two leading environmental activists meeting in 1998 at the Wingspread Center in Wisconsin. The Wingspread Consensus Statement on

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the Precautionary Principle reads: When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect

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established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the Precautionary Principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including

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human endeavors of which some timorous person cannot assert that it raises a “threat” of harm to human health or the environment? Unfortunately, parsing the precautionary principle is not a mere academic exercise. Versions of it have been incorporated into numerous international environmental treaties, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on

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are based on value judgments expressing moral views, not scientific facts. Proving That Roaming Minotaurs Do Not Really Threaten Virgins The strong version of the precautionary principle requires that the creator of a new technology or activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof with regard to allaying

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community well-being,” explained Peter Montague from the Environmental Research Foundation in 2008. Boston University law professor George Annas, a prominent bioethicist who favors the precautionary principle, clearly understands that it is not a value-neutral concept. He has observed, “The truth of the matter is that whoever has the burden of

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not permitted and people can’t gain experience using a new technology, the result amounts to never doing anything for the first time. The precautionary principle clearly is not a neutral risk management tool; it is specifically aimed at bestowing a political veto on new technologies and products onto opponents when

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the marketplace. Steve Breyman, a professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has made explicit how he sees the precautionary principle being wielded as a policy tool for radically reshaping modern societies. As he states, “I introduced as part of an overall green plan that included

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accounting, the cessation of perverse subsidies, the adoption of green materials, designs and codes, green purchasing, pollution prevention, industrial ecology and zero emissions, etc., the precautionary principle could be an essential element of the transition to sustainability.” It certainly would be good to adopt many of these policies, but his proposals have

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precious little to do with evaluating the threats to human health or environment allegedly posed by new technologies. Clearly, its boosters do not regard the precautionary principle as just a neutral risk analysis tool; it is a regulatory embodiment of egalitarian and communitarian moral values. At the heart of the principle

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not fully established scientifically.” Of course, all scientific conclusions are subject to revision, and none are ever fully established. Since that is the case, the precautionary principle could logically apply to all conceivable activities, since their outcomes are always in some sense uncertain. On its face, the strong version of the principle

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the case of genetically modified crops, two researchers pointed out, “the greatest uncertainty about their possible harmfulness existed before anybody had yet produced one. The precautionary principle would have instructed us not to proceed any further, and the data to show whether there are real risks would never have been produced. The

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same is true for every subsequent step in the process of introducing genetically modified plants. The precautionary principle will tell us not to proceed, because there is some threat of harm that cannot be conclusively ruled out, based on evidence from the

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harm to the environment,” and some activities that might be thought of as promoting the environment might “raise threats of harm to human health.” “The precautionary principle, for all its rhetorical appeal, is deeply incoherent,” argues Cass Sunstein. “It is of course true that we should take precautions against some speculative dangers

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and nutrition of hundreds of millions of people. But some pesticides have had side effects on the environment, such as harming nontargeted species. The precautionary principle’s “threats of harm to human health or the environment” standard gives no sure guidance on how to make a trade-off between human health

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biofuels instead of for food likely contributed to the recent hike in the global price of grains and thus increased hunger in poor countries. The precautionary principle offers no obvious counsel on the proper balance of those risks. One of the first journalistic instances of the use of the phrase scientific

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cell phone cancer scare, which continues to this day. In 2010, the city of San Francisco, California, specifically citing the Wingspread version of the precautionary principle, passed an ordinance requiring radiation warning labels on mobile phones. It took until 2013 for the city to drop its labeling requirement in the face

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that “to date there is no evidence from studies of cells, animals, or humans that radiofrequency energy can cause cancer.” Consider also how the precautionary principle would have applied to the introduction of cellular phones. The principle mandates that a new technology not be permitted whenever someone alleges that it might

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harm to human health. So it takes little imagination to think about what would have happened to this increasingly important means of communication had the precautionary principle been invoked as the cell phone cancer scare was spreading through the media. In 1993—when Reynard made his claims—10 million Americans were

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toxic wastes, make fuels, or produce medicines. The moratorium declaration specifically cites the Wingspread Consensus Statement as its authoritative version of the precautionary principle. The declarants state, “Applying the Precautionary Principle to the field of synthetic biology first necessitates a moratorium on the release and commercial use of synthetic organisms, cells, or genomes.”

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issued a comprehensive report in 2010, noting that “synthetic biology does not necessarily raise radically new concerns or risks.” The commission explicitly rejected applying the precautionary principle to synthetic biology and instead recommended “an ongoing system of prudent vigilance that carefully monitors, identifies, and mitigates potential and realized harms over time.” The

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of synthetic biology, the current regulatory system is robust enough to protect people and the environment. Nanotechnology is also being targeted by proponents of the precautionary principle. Nanotechnology basically encompasses a suite of new technologies involving the use of materials at scales measuring in billionths of an inch, including tools like 3

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to submit to the more radically communitarian and egalitarian forms of society and economics that they prefer. The Seen and the Unseen Promoters of the precautionary principle argue that its great advantage is that implementing it will help avoid deleterious unintended consequences of new technologies. Unfortunately, supporters are most often focusing on

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possible in the only possible way—by assuming that there are no health detriments from the proposed regulation.” In other words, proponents of the precautionary principle are trying to get away with claiming that there are no trade-offs; they assert that their policy of suppressing new technologies guarantees benefits without

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owners, of train engine smoke; and miners, of the risks of radiation. European governments eager to protect their farmers from competition have already cited the precautionary principle as justification for blocking the imports of meat from hormone-treated cows and genetically enhanced grains from the United States. The great fear of many

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proponents of the precautionary principle is that if technological decisions are left to people voluntarily acting in markets, those who favor a new technology can vote yes by buying

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wherever man reaches beyond his present self, where the new emerges and assessment lies in the future, that liberty ultimately shows its value.” Unfortunately, the precautionary principle sounds sensible to many people, especially those who live in societies already replete with technology. These people have their centrally heated house in the woods

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suspected environmental carcinogens compels us to action, even though we may currently lack irrefutable proof of harm.” Leffall was doing nothing less than invoking the precautionary principle. In other words, we don’t know, but let’s ban something anyway. The panelists are not alone in their alarm. In the prominent

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. scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1225&context=faculty_publications. “When an activity”: Science and Environmental Health Network, Wingspread Consensus Statement on the Precautionary Principle, January 26, 1998. www.sehn.org/wing.html. “is not an anti-science view”: Chris Mooney, “Unequivocal: Today’s Right Is Overwhelmingly More Anti-

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Left.” DeSmogBlog, September 9, 2011. www.desmogblog.com/unequivocal-today-s-right-overwhemingly-more-anti-science-today-s-left. “Assume that all”: Peter Montague, “The Precautionary Principle in the Real World,” Environmental Research Foundation, January 21, 2008. www.rachel.org/lib/pp_def.htm. “The truth of the matter”: George Annas, cited

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.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2002/12/v25n4-9.pdf. “The problem is”: Adam Thierer, “Technopanics, Threat Inflation, and the Danger of an Information Technology Precautionary Principle.” Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, January 25, 2013. Minotaurs are notoriously: Rahim Sameer, “The Opera Novice: The Minotaur by Harrison Birtwistle and

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co2-emissions/#ixzz2yaOKrXJF. “paralyzing principle”: Sunstein, “The Paralyzing Principle.” modern pesticides: Gary Marchant et al., Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), Impact of the Precautionary Principle on Feeding Current and Future Generations. Issue Paper 52. CAST, Ames, Iowa, 2013. time from drug discovery to marketing: David J. Stewart, Simon N. Whitney

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“full and inclusive assessments”: Eric Hoffman et al. The Principles for the Oversight of Synthetic Biology. Friends of the Earth, March 2012. “rooted in the precautionary principle”: Eric Hoffman, “Global Coalition Calls for Oversight of Synthetic Biology.” Friends of the Earth, March 13, 2012. “synthetic biology does not”: Presidential Commission for the

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New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies. December 1, 2010, 124. “a more comprehensive application”: Georgia Miller, “Who’s Afraid of the Precautionary Principle.” Friends of the Earth, 2010. nano.foe.org.au/node/186. “not to judge things”: Frédéric Bastiat, “What Is Seen and Unseen.” Selected Essays in

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.” Forbes, November 27, 1989, 261. “generic focus on new products”: Gary Marchant et al., Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST). Impact of the Precautionary Principle on Feeding Current and Future Generations. Issue Paper 52. CAST, Ames, Iowa, 2013. “The true key to the timing”: Joel Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena

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famine predictions and fertility rates and fertilizer for frost damage and future of government subsidies Green Revolution herbicides hormones in innovation meat industry organic potatoes precautionary principle on rice salmon soybeans statistics water used for wheat forests biotech trees deforestation and reforestation novel Forrester, Jay Forster, Piers fracking free-market capitalism

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EMFs and endocrine disruption and false positives in female male nanotechnology for obesity and pathological science and penile deformation pesticides and pharmaceuticals and politicization of precautionary principle positioned for reproductive problems saccharin and sperm synthetic biology for Heinberg, Richard herbicides Heritage Foundation Hickey, Joseph HIV/AIDS Holdren, John homeopathy Hooker, Joseph

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innovation and Malthus on natural disaster damage and neo-Malthusians on projections urbanization and The Population Bomb (Ehrlich) potassium oxide potatoes Pratt, Wallace Prebisch, Raul precautionary principle adoption inevitability burden of proof for case example dangers of cognitive biases on false safety of foresight fault of formation of innovation resisted by maxim

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The Limits to Growth projections on of metals natural states theory and sustainable development for of water Reynard, David rice Rifkin, Jeremy risk minimization. See precautionary principle Robinson, James Rockefeller Foundation Romer, Paul Roundup Rousseau, Denis Ruckelshaus, William saccharin Sadanandan, Anoop Sagoff, Mark salmon, biotech Sanyal, Sanjeev Sapsford, David Saudi Arabia

Chaos Kings: How Wall Street Traders Make Billions in the New Age of Crisis

by Scott Patterson  · 5 Jun 2023  · 289pp  · 95,046 words

“as if the entire world became a huge room with narrow exits and people rushing to the same doors.” In a 2014 paper titled “The Precautionary Principle,” he and several coauthors wrote that “the tightly connected global system implies a single deviation will eventually dominate the sum of their effects. Examples include

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future outbreaks, the response needs to match the threat. The world needs to act as if everything is on the line. That means applying the “precautionary principle,” which, according to the memo, “delineates conditions where actions must be taken to reduce the risk of ruin, and traditional cost-benefit analyses must not

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health, and the leadership of Western societies generally that it’s Taleb who has been speaking relentlessly, and largely alone, about the importance of the precautionary principle,” Susan Webber, who writes under the pen name of Yves Smith, opined at the time on her popular financial website, Naked Capitalism. It’s

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just such problems that prompted Taleb, Bar-Yam, Norman, and another collaborator, the English philosopher and climate activist Rupert Read, in 2014, to write “The Precautionary Principle,” a preview of the January 2020 note that recommended dramatic, immediate action to stop the spread of Covid-19 despite overwhelming uncertainty about its properties

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. The precautionary principle itself is designed to guide actions and policies in the realms of uncertainty and risk “in cases where the absence of evidence and the incompleteness

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coauthors wrote in the 2014 paper. If the risk of an action (or inaction) is global, uncertainty demands a strong precautionary response. Critics of the precautionary principle complain it’s too vague, subjective, paranoid, and contradictory, the enemy of progress and the ever-churning creation and destruction at the heart of capitalism

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localized) and the consequences can involve total irreversible ruin, such as the extinction of human beings or all life on the planet,” they wrote. “The precautionary principle lets you relax about local problems,” Taleb told me. That doesn’t mean local problems should be ignored; it just means they don’t require

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the extreme measures prescribed by the precautionary principle. This view of safeguards ties directly to Taleb’s experience as a trader and his approach to the risk of blowing up. Financial markets can

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in the systemic-risk casino. Avoid those dice. Don’t get on the plane if you have doubts about the pilot. Panic early. Apply the precautionary principle. In practical terms, don’t use borrowed money (or leverage) and protect yourself from major crashes. That was precisely what he’d done alongside Mark

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everything that I’ll be mentioning could have unintended consequences that we might not be able to anticipate.” Church put up a slide that read: “Precautionary Principle. If an action might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus, the burden of proof falls on

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those who would advocate taking the action.” “You’ve got this precautionary principle,” Church said. “There’s a tendency, when you don’t understand things, to do nothing. And that’s defensible in some circumstances, and not

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threat of a global pandemic, which graybeards have been warning about for years, is a reminder that we should always build public policy around the precautionary principle, rather than waiting until uncontestable and inarguable evidence arrives that action is necessary. If we wait that long, it will always be too late.” Among

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looming civilizational disaster. She wanted Read to help launch it. Read told her XR should emphasize a philosophical approach to climate action based on the precautionary principle. A common tactic used by climate-change skeptics and deniers and corporations to fend off action against the problem was to point to the uncertainty

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wrecking actions such as reducing the use of fossil fuels until we have more information? Think about the poor who want cheap power, too! The precautionary principle was an end run around that argument. The science might not be precise, but the risks, including mass human death and potential extinction, were too

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. Reading voraciously on the topic, he stumbled across a 2001 report by the EU’s European Environment Agency called “Late Lessons from Early Warnings: The Precautionary Principle 1896−2000.” The report examined a selection of environmental, medical, and chemical controversies, ranging from nineteenth-century British fisheries to radioactivity to asbestos, and how

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the precautionary principle could be applied to them (global warming is barely mentioned, a follow-up in 2013 would address it). Read began studying the long and tangled

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history of the precautionary principle and became convinced it provided a template for taking on the growing threat of global warming and other looming risks and catastrophes. The 2008 financial

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said. “We should write about it. You and me.” After returning to the U.S., Taleb began acquainting himself with the vast literature behind the precautionary principle. He didn’t recall that George Church, the Harvard geneticist, had mentioned the principle in his presentation in 2009 at Brockman’s Edge meeting at

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called “fat-tail city.” In short order, Taleb and Read got to work summarizing their views in what would eventually become the multiauthored paper “The Precautionary Principle.” * * * In April 2013, Taleb received a public letter from the musician and producer Brian Eno. The letter was sent via the Longplayer website, a thousand

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problem. “Now that we have this principle, let us apply it to life on earth,” he wrote. “This is the basis of the non-naïve Precautionary Principle that the philosopher Rupert Read and I are in the process of elaborating, with precise policy implications on the part of states and individuals. Everything

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slightly ill cases, they don’t require significant medical interventions—or any at all. Nature will take care of it—it doesn’t require the precautionary principle. Very sick cases require quick, aggressive intervention. “This gives a statistical structure to precaution,” he said. “A little bit of rigor in the way

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summer of 2014, Yaneer Bar-Yam, founder of the New England Complex Systems Institute, or NECSI, heard about Taleb and Read’s work on the precautionary principle. He was intrigued. He called up Taleb, who was planning to come to a conference Bar-Yam was holding at NECSI’s campus in Cambridge

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That is, the extinction of the human race. * * * After the 2014 NECSI conference in Cambridge, Bar-Yam got to work on Taleb and Read’s precautionary principle paper, which at the time was a fairly sparse draft with multiple section headings such as “WHY RUIN IS SERIOUS BUSINESS” and “WHAT WE MEAN

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brain sciences at Florida Atlantic University. His first job out of college, in 2014, was at NECSI. The first paper he coauthored there was “The Precautionary Principle.” It went through multiple drafts circulated between Taleb, Read, Norman, and Bar-Yam. They finally completed the paper in the fall. On October 17,

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2014, at 12:30 p.m., Taleb hit a button on his computer and published “The Precautionary Principle (with Application to the Genetic Modification of Organisms)” on Cornell University’s arXiv.org. With the push of that button, Taleb had taken a leap

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into one of the hottest public firestorms of his life. CHAPTER 18 RUIN IS FOREVER Abstract—The precautionary principle (PP) states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing severe harm to the public domain (affecting general health or the

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safety. Under these conditions, the burden of proof about absence of harm falls on those proposing an action, not those opposing it. Thus begins “The Precautionary Principle.” A long-standing complaint about the principle has been: It’s too vague. When are risks so high that the principle needs to be invoked

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a ‘one-off’ risk, survive it, then do it again (another ‘one-off’ deal), you will eventually go bust,” Taleb and his coauthors observed. The precautionary principle seeks to protect humanity from ruinous losses by refusing to take risks that can result in a global systemic crisis—“an irreversible termination of life

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and his coauthors wrote. “Nature might not be smart, but its longer track record means smaller uncertainty in following its logic.” * * * The section of “The Precautionary Principle” that invited a coordinated attack on the authors—none took more heat than Taleb due to his highly public profile—was its call for an

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introduced into some other organism, like bacteria—the outcome is unknowable. And even if those risks were small, their existence required the application of the precautionary principle. The GMO cheerleaders, they said, need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt there is nearly zero existential risk—a very tough challenge indeed

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selection and the top-down engineering of taking a gene from a fish and putting it into a tomato,” they wrote. “We should exert the precautionary principle here… because we do not want to discover errors after considerable and irreversible environmental and health damage.” As for the common argument among GMO supporters

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a need for a much more precautionary approach to new chemicals and to the amount being emitted to the environment.” * * * With its publication online, “The Precautionary Principle” quickly began circulating among GMO experts. They were not amused. The authors were lumped in with anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists—or worse. A middle-school

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−espoused “we are as gods” view of the world was ascendant. * * * In 2015, Taleb, Read, Bar-Yam, and Norman wrote a short paper applying the precautionary principle to another global risk—that of runaway global warming. The climate-change policy debate too often revolved around the accuracy of models, they wrote. Believers

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complex system too far and it will not come back.” The upshot: Reduce CO2 emissions, “regardless of what climate models tell us.” * * * Taleb revisited the precautionary principle in 2018 with the publication of Skin in the Game, the fifth book in what he’d begun calling his Incerto collection, a study of

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retired to do some flaneuring, Mark continued relentlessly (and successfully) at his Universa.” These scenarios of interconnected, self-reinforcing extreme risk are precisely where the precautionary principle applies. In the “time probability” realm, each roll of the dice or spin of the wheel is connected to the other. They can’t be

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permanent damage to the planet and the well-being of all future generations.” He then raised a point that seemed to spring straight from the precautionary principle. “The first principle of risk management is that you have to think about worst-case scenarios,” he said. With global warming, the worst case

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more? Almost certainly. Some models estimate geoengineering could eliminate or shorten the Asian monsoon season, on which two billion people depend for their food. The precautionary principle would seem to warn strongly against even considering geoengineering. It’s global, systemic, and could have exponential societal and environmental ramifications and unknown ecological tipping

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and afternoon. He started taking ten-mile walks every day to get back into good health. Joe Norman, one of Taleb’s collaborators on “The Precautionary Principle,” had meanwhile started worrying vaccines were the problem. They were experimental, and were being tested on a vast population of billions. He was especially agitated

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idea to tamper at large scale with something whose repercussions were anyone’s guess. Taleb found Norman’s analysis highly aggravating, a misapplication of the precautionary principle. Vaccines weren’t multiplicative like viruses, Taleb pointed out on Twitter. If your neighbor got a vaccine, that didn’t mean you were at

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aversion to business suits, was an adherent of an increasingly influential semi-apocalyptic worldview known as longtermism—a movement that shared elements of Taleb’s precautionary principle. It was an outgrowth of a moral philosophy developed in the 2000s known as effective altruism, a quantitative philanthropic method designed to estimate probabilities about

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than nukes.”)… or a killer asteroid… or, yes, nukes. Such concerns, on the surface, seemed to mirror the warnings about global ruin issued in “The Precautionary Principle.” The difference was that the precautionary approach was largely passive, a recommendation against taking actions that could pose extreme danger to humanity (though there are

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or defeat our future superintelligent AI overlords), and genetic engineering (of humans, animals, and foods). It was, in a way, the polar opposite of the precautionary principle, advocating extreme Hail Mary experimentation in order to secure humanity’s boundless future. Causes the Longtermists cared less about? Poverty, an issue that had initially

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to protect against such a dire event, as unlikely as it might be, made all the sense in the world. NASA was effectively adopting the precautionary principle. * * * Back at Universa, the spike in volatility in 2022 was the firm’s natural habitat—its calm seas comfort zone. In June, when the

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Won’t,” Economist, November 22, 2010, https://www.economist.com/news/2010/11/22/nassim-taleb-looks-at-what-will-break-and-what-wont. “The Precautionary Principle” https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.5787.pdf. CHAPTER 2: RUIN PROBLEMS “Systemic Risk of Pandemic via Novel Pathogens—Coronavirus: A Note” https://necsi.edu/systemic

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-Yam and his colleagues at NECSI began crafting an alternative response https://necsi.edu/how-community-response-stopped-ebola. CHAPTER 18: RUIN IS FOREVER “The Precautionary Principle” can be found here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.5787.pdf. “Weed resistance to herbicides” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/magazine/superweeds-monsanto

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Piedmont Lithium, 247, 248 Pimco, 24 Pinker, Steven, 124 polycrisis, 35 Popper, Karl, 62, 65–66 Powell, Jerome, 287 Powers, Jimmy, 52, 56 precautionary principle, 36–37, 189–90 Precautionary Principle, The (Taleb et al.), 16, 36 Princeton University Global Systemic Risk project, 31 Process Driven Training (PDT), 95–97 Project on Security and

The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World

by Anu Bradford  · 14 Sep 2020  · 696pp  · 184,001 words

agencies. In contrast, while scientific evidence remains central to regulating risk in the EU,118 it is tempered by the EU-wide adoption of the “precautionary principle.” This principle dictates that precautionary regulatory action is proper even in the absence of an absolute, quantifiable certainty of the risk, as long as there

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are reasonable grounds for concern that the potentially dangerous effects may be inconsistent with the chosen level of protection.119 The precautionary principle emanates from Swedish and German environmental law dating back to the 1960s,120 and the Maastricht Treaty, which officially embraced the principle at the EU

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level in 1992,121 largely reflecting Germany’s effort to “Germanize” European environmental policy.122 The additional impetus for the precautionary principle came from various food safety and environmental scandals that made the general public eager to preempt regulatory risks with precautionary regulation. As the public support

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for the precautionary principle grew, all institutions were eager to capitalize on it and endorse precaution to earn greater legitimacy in the eyes of the public.123 The Commission

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has sought to curtail the excessive reliance on the precautionary principle by member states as a pretext for limiting trade from other member states by emphasizing the importance of science as a foundation for risk regulation

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faced with a “level of risk that the public considers appropriate,”125 acknowledging citizens’ fears as a legitimate basis for regulatory intervention. In practice, the precautionary principle has become a central component of the EU’s regulatory decision-making. It has been systematically incorporated into key policy documents,126 providing a foundation

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have also been consistent in endorsing the principle128 by granting the Commission wide discretion to act based on precaution.129 The ECJ even elevated the precautionary principle to the status of a “general principle” of EU law in its Artegodan judgment,130 further demonstrating the Court’s strong approval of precautionary standards

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—which petitioned for, and attained, membership alongside its member states—has successfully defended a number of controversial policy positions, such as the role of the precautionary principle in Codex decision-making.37 The EU’s extensive influence at Codex can be at least partially attributed to the EU’s long experience in

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the European Food Safety Authority about the risks involved in the use of glyphosate. Second, it cited the EU’s General Court when analyzing the precautionary principle in the matter.65 In another case concerning a controversy on GMOs, the CCC stated that “[t]he European Union has taken a clear position

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, and spreading of GMOs, unless they are proven safe with scientific certainty.41 The EU’s regulatory regime is based on pre-market approval, the precautionary principle, and post-market control. In contrast, the United States regards GMO products as substantially similar to products made using traditional production methods and allows them

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authority to restrict the use of substances that pose an “unacceptable” risk to human health or the environment.161 REACH is also guided by the “precautionary principle,” which justifies regulatory intervention in the case of scientific uncertainty, making the regulation applicable to an even wider range of chemicals.162 Further contributing to

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new chemicals regulation, supported by Austria, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands.176 A number of environmental, health, and consumer advocacy NGOs voiced support for the precautionary principle.177 NGOs also called for full risk identification, public information sharing, and a phaseout process for harmful chemicals.178 The NGOs launched a “Chemical Awareness

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the purview of the regulation.185 The industry lobby also argued for self-regulation or more voluntary measures and took a firm stand against the precautionary principle, citing high costs and negative impacts on competition and employment.186 However, as it became evident that some kind of regulatory scheme would be adopted

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. H&M, a Swedish fashion retailer with operations in many non-EU countries,213 ensures compliance with REACH and other regulations by “apply[ing] the precautionary principle” and developing its chemical restrictions “based on the highest legal standard in any of [its] sales countries.”214 The company’s sustainability commitment, which any

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level.4 The EU’s regulatory capacity was further enhanced in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which recognized the importance of “sustainable growth” and added the “precautionary principle” to guide decision-making in environmental matters. The Maastricht Treaty also acknowledged for the first time the EU’s role in promoting measures multilaterally outside

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size and strong regulatory mandate, and further strengthened by the recognition of environmental protection as a constitutional obligation for the EU institutions. In addition, the “precautionary principle”—which allows for regulatory intervention even in the presence of uncertainty regarding the harm—features prominently in the EU’s environmental policy making, further contributing

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and services. In addition, some European businesses view the high regulatory standards as unsustainable for the European economy. They argue that excessive reliance on the precautionary principle may slow economic growth and innovation,1 pricing EU firms out of critical export markets.2 An illustrative example comes from the REACH regulation, discussed

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75, at 4. 116.See Vogel, Politics, supra note 75, at 261–66. 117.See id. at 259. 118.See, e.g., Communication on the Precautionary Principle, at ¶ 1, COM (2000) 1 final (Feb. 2, 2000). 119.See, e.g., id.; see also Sarah Harrell, Beyond “REACH”?: An Analysis of the European

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Animal Health SA v. Council, 2002 E.C.R. II-3318, ¶ 142. 120.Ragnar E. Löfstedt, The Swing of the Regulatory Pendulum in Europe: From Precautionary Principle to (Regulatory) Impact Analysis, 28 J. Risk & Uncertainty 237, 243–44 (2004). 121.Maastricht Treaty: Treaty on European Union, art. 1, 7 February 1992, 1992

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in the United States and Europe 377, 414 (Jonathan Wiener et al. eds., 2011). 124.Communication from the Commission on the Precautionary Principle, COM (2000) 1 final (Feb. 2, 2000); The Precautionary Principle in the 20th Century: Late Lessons from Early Warnings 5 (Harremoes et al. eds., 2013). 125.See Vogel, Politics, supra note

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, 566 (2003). 127.See Vogel, Politics, supra note 75, at 271. 128.See Kenisha Garnett & David Parsons, Multi-Case Review of the Application of the Precautionary Principle in European Union Law and Case Law, 37 Risk Analysis 502, 511 (2017). 129.See, e.g., Case T-70/99, Alpharma v. Council, 2002

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legislation, major, 207 “Limits to Growth,” 210 Maastricht Treaty, 35 multilateralism and global treaties, 207 NGOs, 211–12 originating countries, 10–11 political economy, 210 precautionary principle, 207–8 public opinion, 211 purpose, 19 Sustainable Fishing Partnership Agreements, 71–72 Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, 208–9, 222 environment regulations and

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court and judicial integration, 36 Cassis de Dijon, 10 as competence-maximizer, 17 Costa/Enel, 75–76 Google Spain v. Mario Costeja, 75, 134–35 precautionary principle and Artegodan, 45 pro-integration tendencies, 17, 18 right to be forgotten, 134–35, 166–67, 343n291 United Brands, 115, 117 Van Gend & Loos, 75

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food producers, 245 on hunger and poverty, 247 legislation, major, 174–75 McDonalds, EU, 184, 348–49n90 non-divisibility, 182–84 political economy, 176–79 precautionary principle, 45 technical non-divisibility, 58 as trade protectionism, 241 WTO ruling, 260, 379n163 Google comparison shopping rulings, 62–63 competition investigations, 104 copycat litigation, 125

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EU, by foreign firms, 254–56 GDPR, 255 REACH, 255 success, lack of, 255–56 Maastricht Treaty environmental protections, 207–8 Parliament empowerment from, 35 precautionary principle, 45 Social Protocol, 11–12 voting since, on environmental policy, 35 mad cow disease, 37–38, 172 Majone, Giandomenico, 16, 36 majority, qualified, 13–14

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, 210 false negatives and false positives, 39, 43, 102 food safety, 175 GMOs, 176–79 hate speech online, 159 market competition, 102 Pollack, Mark, 17 precautionary principle, 207–8 environment, 207–8 GMO regulation, 45 Maastricht Treaty, 45 REACH, 45 as unsustainable, 236–37 precautionary risk culture, 37–38 precaution tendency, 38

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, 256 impact, global, 193 as imperialism, 248–49 legislation, major, 193 lobbying, by foreign firms, 255 objectives, key, 19 policy, 93–94 political economy, 194 precautionary principle, 45 recruiting even-handedness, 144 Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RFFI), 226–27 Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals. See REACH regulations. See also specific

The Transhumanist Reader

by Max More and Natasha Vita-More  · 4 Mar 2013  · 798pp  · 240,182 words

Advantages Criticisms Related Work An Appeal Conclusion 26 The Proactionary Principle The Origin of the Proactionary Principle The Wisdom of Structure The Failure of the Precautionary Principle The Proactionary Principle Preamble to the Proactionary Principle Be Objective and Comprehensive Prioritize Natural and Human Risks Embrace Diverse Input Make Response and Restitution Proportionate

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convinced” that life extension would be good for us – and leaves it at that. He thus insinuates, without quite saying, that we should adopt the precautionary principle with regard to life extension and avoid developing it because we are uncertain whether it will benefit mankind. But this is utterly without justification. In

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supplies and box-office take for movies in their first days of release. Max More’s Proactionary Principle was designed as a replacement for the precautionary ­principle – an overly simple and biased rule for making decisions in the presence of significant risk, especially in the context of technological and environment issues. More

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diagnoses severe shortcomings in the “precautionary principle” and offers in its place a more comprehensive, structured, and balanced decision-making and risk-assessment tool. In their 1994 essay, Mark Miller and co

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– for both personal and group decisions. The Origin of the Proactionary Principle The Proactionary Principle emerged out of a critical discussion of the well-known precautionary principle that developed in Europe and has been used in the United States and elsewhere as a type of model for dealing with change. The

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precautionary principle comes in many forms, but one well-known version was presented by Soren Holm and John Harris in Nature magazine in 1999 and states: When

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needed. Extropy Institute created the Vital Progress (VP) Summit in 2004 to address this gap. The VP Summit participants saw the fatal weaknesses riddling the precautionary principle. Not least among these is its strong bias toward the status quo and against the technological progress so vital to the continued ­survival and wellbeing

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all about guiding our decision-making by the smartest possible methods. The Proactionary Principle embodies the wisdom of structure. The precautionary principle does not. The Failure of the Precautionary Principle The version of the precautionary principle from the 1988 Wingspread Statement says: When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary

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use of maximum intelligence and creativity. There’s a simple but telling way to appreciate the threat to progress and human wellbeing posed by the precautionary principle: Take a look back at the scientific and technological achievements of the past, then ask: “Would these advances have been sanctioned or prohibited by the

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precautionary principle?” It is hard to think of a single significant advance that a literal application of this principle would not have blocked. Certainly, it would have

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it guide our decisions?) It has to be applied selectively and inconsistently – and this makes it dangerous. This leads us to the paradox of the precautionary principle: The principle endangers us by ­trying too hard to safeguard us. It tries “too hard” by being obsessively preoccupied with a single value – safety. By

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single-mindedly enforcing the tyranny of safety, this principle can only distract decision-makers from such an examination. Environmental and technological activism that wields the precautionary principle, whether explicitly or implicitly, raises clear threats of harm to human health and wellbeing. If we apply the principle to itself, we arrive at the

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corollary to the Paradox of the Precautionary Principle: According to the principle, since the principle itself is dangerous, we should take precautionary measures to prevent the use of the

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precautionary principle. The severity of the precautionary principle’s threat certainly does not imply that we should take no actions to safeguard human health or the environment. Nor does it imply that we

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, ungrounded public perceptions and pressures from lobbyists, and ­popular but unreliable approaches to analysis and forecasting. The precautionary principle does nothing to ensure that decision makers use reliable, objective procedures. Distracts from greater threats. The precautionary principle distracts citizens and ­policymakers from established, major threats to health. The heavy emphasis on taking ­precautionary measures

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, the principle is simple. Simplicity is appealing and can be a virtue – so long as it does not come at the expense of adequacy. The precautionary principle is too simple. In versions that mention “irreversible harm,” no account is given of irreversibility. A claim of irreversibility may be false and, even if

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well as the potential benefits of a ­technology, both in the near term and as it might develop over time. Inappropriate burden of proof. The precautionary principle illegitimately shifts the burden of proof (“reverse onus”) by requiring innovators and producers to prove their innocence when anyone raises “threats of harm.” Activists enjoy

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resources to answering those questions. To add to the fear-inducing power and chilling effect of the reverse onus, activists and ­regulators who invoke the precautionary principle invariably assume a worst-case scenario. By imagining the proposed technology or endeavor primarily in a worst-case scenario – while assuming that preventing action will

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harm to humans and to the environment. Since unaltered nature is implicitly an absolute value in the principle, no tradeoffs are to be allowed. The precautionary principle is all about avoiding possible harm – and human-caused harm, and primarily harm to the ­environment – rather than respecting a wider set of values. This

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liable for injuries we cause, with liability increasing along with foreseeable risk. By contrast, the precautionary principle bypasses liability and acts like a preliminary injunction – but without the involvement of a court. By doing this, the precautionary principle denies individuals and communities the freedom to make tradeoffs in the way recognized by common-law

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approaches to risk and harm. No other values are admitted as a reason not to pursue extreme precaution. Asymmetrical. Environmental activists – heavy users of the precautionary principle – usually target human-caused effects while giving the destructive aspects of “nature” a free ride. Yet nature itself brings with it a risk of harms

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such as infection, hunger, famine, and environmental disruption. The precautionary principle inherently favors nature and the status quo over humanity and progress, while routinely ignoring the potential benefits of technology and innovation. It fails to treat

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precautionary regulations puts a kink in the rule of law. By giving regulators the power to insist on any degree of testing they choose, the precautionary principle opens up opportunities for corruption – undue influence, unfair targeting, and regulatory capture. It is the principle’s vagueness, inconsistency, and arbitrariness that appeal to regulators

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powers and wielding them selectively. An increase in corruption and arbitrary regulatory power is further ensured by making precaution and prevention the default assumption. The precautionary principle cripples the technologies that can create our future because it prevents us from learning by experimenting. By halting activity, the principle reduces learning and reinforces

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Ingo Potrykus, emeritus professor of Plant Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and the inventor of Golden Rice, said: “The application of the precautionary principle in science is in itself basically anti-science. Science explores the unknown, and therefore can a priori not predict the outcome.” The Proactionary Principle Scientific

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protecting. Certainly, we should be careful and thoughtful about how we progress, but we must never forget that advance is vital and not inevitable. The precautionary principle and its ilk have been wielded as a means of blocking technological and economic development in general. In many other cases, entrenched interests have used

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strikes, massive tsunamis, and gamma ray bursters – but we should not be obsessive over them to the extent that we join the supporters of the precautionary principle. Stopping progress to eliminate risk is itself risky. If certain groups will try to develop superbugs, we had better develop even faster and more powerful

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while being mindful of where we put our feet. A wise, balanced decision procedure will necessarily be more complex than the seductive simplicity of the precautionary principle. The exact wording of the Principle matters less than the ideas it embodies. The Principle is an inclusive, structured process for maximizing technological progress for

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-england-patriots/messageboard/10/60827-falcons-say-signal-stealing-part-football.html. Powell, Russell (2010) “What’s the Harm? An Evolutionary Theoretical Critique of the Precautionary Principle.” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 20/2 (June), pp. 181–206. Rawls, John (1999) A Theory of Justice, rev. edn. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of

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; version 1.2 : http://www.maxmore.com/proactionary.htm; the most recent version in this volume) as an alternative to the unbalanced strictures of the Precautionary Principle. Summit keynotes included, in alphabetical order: Ronald Bailey, Aubrey de Grey, Robert A. Freitas, Raymond Kurzweil, Marvin Minsky, Max More, Christine Peterson, Michael D. Shapiro

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OpenCog Parfit, Derek Pearce, David perception personhood Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni plasticity platform policy Popper, Frank Popper, Karl post-biological posthuman posthuman condition posthumanism postmodernism precautionary principle Primo Posthuman principles Prisco, Giulio Proactionary Principle prosthetic rationalism regenerative medicine religion relinquishment repugnance reputation-based filtering respirocyte rights risk robot robotics Rose, Michael Rothblatt

Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet

by Roger Scruton  · 30 Apr 2014  · 426pp  · 118,913 words

-war Germany, and was invoked later in the sixties as the blanket justification for state planning. Reissued in the seventies under the name of the Precautionary Principle, it is now being advocated at every level of European politics as a guide to regulation, legislation and the use of scientific research. Addressing the

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Society in 2002, British prime minister Tony Blair told the assembled body of distinguished scientists that ‘responsible science and responsible policy-making operate on the Precautionary Principle’. Yet nobody seems to know what the Principle says. Does it tell us to take no risks? Then surely it is merely irrational, since everything

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we need a clear statement of what it says and clear grounds for believing it. A footnote to the 1982 Stockholm environmental conference recommended the Precautionary Principle as the acceptable approach to scientific innovation – but did nothing to define it. Thereafter the Principle was repeatedly mentioned in European edicts, as authority for

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a bureaucrat judges, on whatever grounds, to have a possible cost attached to it. Although there is little or no agreement as to what the Precautionary Principle says, it has now become a doctrine of European law. A recent decision of the European Court of Justice, having invoked the

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Precautionary Principle, concluded that the government of Italy is justified in preventing the sale of genetically modified food on the basis that ‘no human technology should be

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be thrown out by the people who have to bear the burden of their edicts, the regulative machine is now running out of control. The Precautionary Principle justifies everything that the bureaucrats do, since they need nothing more than ‘preliminary’ scientific evaluation, giving ‘grounds for concern’ that the ‘potential’ effects ‘may’ be

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be carcinogenic. His research has never been confirmed by peer review and was rejected by the European Commission’s own scientific committee.126 However, the Precautionary Principle got to work on this non-evidence and converted it at once into conclusive grounds for panic. For what the Principle really says, when examined

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in this product will suffer. And for the activists that result is a good in itself. Conversely manufacturers of safety devices constantly refer to the Precautionary Principle when lobbying for regulation that will lead to guaranteed sales throughout the European Union. Even if what it says remains obscure, the

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Precautionary Principle clearly presents an obstacle to innovation and experiment, even in those circumstances (like ours, now, confronting unprecedented problems) where nothing is more needed than innovation

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relative benefits and costs. This mode of reasoning is instinctive to us and has ensured our extraordinary success as a species. The effect of the Precautionary Principle is to isolate each risk as though it were entirely independent of every other. Risks, according to the Principle, come single-wrapped, and each demands

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Principle makes explicit the main defect of top-down regulation. Even when there is no explicit forbidding of risk, of the kind ventured by the Precautionary Principle, bureaucracies consider risks one by one, and strive to reduce each to zero, regardless of the cost. Normally you can reduce one risk to zero

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risks, but choosing between them, and continuously adjusting in the face of new and unanticipated dangers. Although the Eurocrats have made something they call the Precautionary Principle into the foundation of their legislative programme, we should not think that the invocation of the Principle is confined to Europe. Environmental NGOs have made

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only irrational responses are now available, so that purely hypothetical disasters eclipse all attempts to assess their real probability. Nor should we assume that the Precautionary Principle is effective only where it has entered the official culture, as in Germany. American legislators are unlikely to invoke the Principle, since they recognize the

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with such longing and wonder in children’s classics like Huckleberry Finn and Swallows and Amazons. When assessing arguments proffered in the name of the Precautionary Principle, therefore, we should recognize that it is one aspect of a risk-denying and risk-averting culture. American litigation and European regulation both have the

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on their taxes that the whole structure of institutionalized timorousness is built. This does not mean that we should dismiss the anxieties to which the Precautionary Principle is proposed as a solution. Rather we should make a clear effort to identify those anxieties, to state them precisely, and to see whether regulation

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Costanza, an economist now at the University of Vermont, who has attempted to put something precise in place of the Precautionary Principle.138 The second source of anxiety to which the Precautionary Principle has been put forward as a cure is that concerning sinks and residues. The problem here is a special case of

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genetically modified crops, and is one cause of the movement for organic farming. There is nothing irrational in these fears; the problem is that the Precautionary Principle does nothing to answer them. By forbidding everything it permits everything, and leaves us without clear instructions as to what we should do, to ensure

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disaster, strict precaution renders us powerless to deal with disaster when it comes. I come now to the third kind of anxiety to which the Precautionary Principle is proposed as a solution. In reasoning about risk, many thinkers wish to make a distinction between those things that can, and those that cannot

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. The philosopher David Wiggins, for example, who has made the concept of need central to his account of moral thinking, introduces a version of the Precautionary Principle in the words of Pushkin’s Herman (in The Queen of Spades): ‘Cards interest me very much; but I am not in a position to

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them in shadow. There is something plausible in those ideas, and I shall return to them in later chapters. But they do nothing for the Precautionary Principle as it is propounded by its normal advocates. Distinguishing needs from desires is simply one part of the process of weighing reasons. And we should

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to lift our responsibilities in the face of it is, therefore, one that threatens a primary human need. Meanwhile, in all its putative forms, the Precautionary Principle acts as a brake on the kind of research that we need to undertake, if we are to manage our growing environmental problems. In the

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circumstances in which we now find ourselves, there can be no riskier policy. If we are to apply the Precautionary Principle at all, therefore, we should apply it to itself. And the answer will be ‘Don’t!’ An important issue emerges from our discussion. Environmental problems

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can and what cannot be changed, the likelihood of adverse and beneficial consequences, and the agencies best suited to manage risk on our behalf. The Precautionary Principle assumes that risk management concerns the environment only. From that assumption another is held to follow, namely that since the environment is everyone’s concern

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to the people their stolen peace of mind. This approach seems to me just as irrational as those typically advanced in the name of the Precautionary Principle. Estimating risk is an art that rational beings acquire by recognizing the indefinitely many ways in which safety in one area may spell danger in

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fall on unknown others and not on the person who is supposedly managing them, we are apt to take refuge in absolute rules like the Precautionary Principle. And such rules are insensitive to the risk involved in forbidding risk. Moreover, we should question the assumption that risks can be managed only by

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Patch are both disputed: see Wikipedia article. 86 Like other measures discussed at the Rio meeting, the Convention on Biodiversity incorporated a version of the Precautionary Principle, the adverse effects of which I discuss in Chapter 4. 87 See Appendix I: Global Justice. 88 See Hulme, op. cit. 89 Mary Douglas and

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Simon Fairlie’s website, www.tlio.org.uk, and his book, Low Impact Development cited in n.96, p. 80. 122 Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle, drafted and finalized at a conference at the Wingspread Conference Center, Racine, Wisconsin, 23–25 January 1998, www.gdrc.org/u-gov/precaution-3.html

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. 123 Commission of the European Communities, ‘Communication from the Commission on the Precautionary Principle’, Brussels, 2.2.2000, COM (2000) 1 final. 124 ECJ, 9 September 2003, reported in Official Journal of the European Union, C 264, 01.11

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.2003, p. 10. 125 See also, for further illustrations, Gary E. Marchant and Kenneth L. Mossman, Arbitrary and Capricious: The Precautionary Principle in the European Courts, Washington DC, 2004. 126 See Bill Durodié, ‘Plastic Panics: European Risk Regulation in the Aftermath of BSE’, in Julian Morris, ed

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., Rethinking Risk and the Precautionary Principle, Oxford, 2000. 127 The story is related of Franklin D. Roosevelt among others, and is surely apocryphal. Chris DeMuth informs me that Thomas Schelling summarizes

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the Precautionary Principle in another way: ‘Don’t do anything for the first time!’ 128 According to data contained in a Royal Society Report of 2002, and later

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from mistakes is one part of rationality; another part is learning to assess the cost of mistakes. If there is an acceptable version of the Precautionary Principle, therefore, it should be rewritten as ACE – assess the cost of error. So argues John Lucas in a little-known but important contribution to this

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Book Co., 2001. Mannison, Don, et al., Environmental Philosophy, Canberra, Australian National University, 1980. Marchant, Gary E., and Mossman, Kenneth L., Arbitrary and Capricious: The Precautionary Principle in the European Union Courts, Washington DC, AEI Press, 2004. Marcuse, Herbert, One-Dimensional Man, London, Sphere Books, 1964. Marriott, Oliver, Property Boom, 2nd ed

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, 2004. Montford, Andrew, The Hockey Stick Illusion, London, Stacey International, 2010. Morano, Marc, Climate Depot, http://climatedepot.com. Morris, Julian, ed., Rethinking Risk and the Precautionary Principle, Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000. Morrow, David R., Kopp, Robert E., and Oppenheimer, Michael, ‘Towards Ethical Norms and Institutions for Climate Engineering Research’, Environmental Research Letters

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population growth, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6 Portugal, ref1 practical reason, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, ref1 Precautionary Principle, ref1n, ref2 preference orderings, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Pretty, Jules, ref1n, ref2 Pride of Derby case, ref1 Priest, George L., ref1n Prisoner’s Dilemma

The Innovation Illusion: How So Little Is Created by So Many Working So Hard

by Fredrik Erixon and Bjorn Weigel  · 3 Oct 2016  · 504pp  · 126,835 words

companies, or when regulatory processes just take too long, they naturally move in other directions, hoping to avoid the long arm of excessive regulation. The precautionary principle at work Precautionary regulations often make regulations complex – and innovation risks greater – because they are by definition ambiguous in their intent. They do not address

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or may not be accurate, but what is clear is that regulatory complexity and uncertainty followed hard on the heels of the introduction of the precautionary principle in EU regulation. Such a principle is impossible to marry with the ambition of promoting an industrial culture of innovation and experimentation. “The reflex is

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to first look at a new product’s risks as opposed to its benefits,” making “technological progress almost impossible,” says one industry leader.5 The precautionary principle shifts the burden of proof by demanding that it is up to a producer to show that a product is not causing harm. Harvard professor

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writer Ronald Bailey has summed it up: “Anything new is guilty until proven innocent.”7 Proving a negative is not just a philosophical challenge. The precautionary principle prompts a regulatory culture that is unpredictable. It is difficult to know what needs to be done in order to be on the safe side

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time and costs money. When regulations are ambiguous, regulators are often given flexibility on how to determine whether a product is cleared or not. The precautionary principle erases the scientific ethos that should guide regulatory conduct, and adds significant costs to innovation. Nanomaterials is another example. Nanotechnology is promising, especially for Europe

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transparent. Regulations giving substantial discretion to regulators or politicians in deciding whether a company complies or not are multipliers of uncertainty. When regulations embody the precautionary principle it is close to impossible for an innovator to know what is needed to get necessary approvals. Such regulations only tell companies to divert investments

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that do not require innovators to ask for permission or apply for special licenses in order to put new products on the market. Europe’s precautionary principle is a case in point. It is an open-ended principle, enshrined in European law, and it gives every opportunity to charlatans with little regard

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to block innovation and economic experimentation. Moreover, it gives incumbents, defending their product stock, opportunities to shield themselves from competitors. It is true that the precautionary principle is an extreme form of regulation because it causes widespread or systemic uncertainty, but similar approaches to new inventions also guide less extreme regulations. Western

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May 2015.” 3.Gensch et al., “Assistance to the Commission.” 4.CSES, “Interim Evaluation.” 5.Dekkers, “Why Europe Lags on Innovation.” 6.Sunstein, “Beyond the Precautionary Principle.” 7.Bailey, “Precautionary Tale.” 8.European Commission, “Nanomaterials.” 9.Rabesandratana, “EU Court Annuls GM Potato Approval.” 10.Dunmore, “Monsantoo Withdraw EU Approval Requests.” 11.Moynihan

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. Summers, Lawrence H., “US Economic Prospects: Secular Stagnation, Hysteresis, and the Zero Lower Bound.” Business Economics, 49.2 (2014): 65–73. Sunstein, Cass, “Beyond the Precautionary Principle.” Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper No. 38. Law School, University of Chicago, Jan. 2003. At http://ssrn.com/abstract=307098. Surowiecki, James, “Unequal

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(i), (ii) genetically modified organisms (GMOs) regulations (i), (ii), (iii) GM potato regulations (i) Leave campaign and older generation (UK) (i) nanotechnology regulations (i), (ii) precautionary principle (i) R&D scoreboards (i), (ii) Single Market (i) see also eurozone; Europe eurozone Germany and “sick man of the euro” label (i) pensions (i

The Irrational Economist: Making Decisions in a Dangerous World

by Erwann Michel-Kerjan and Paul Slovic  · 5 Jan 2010  · 411pp  · 108,119 words

born) and irreversibility have been at the heart of the climate change debate, just as they were for disputes about radioactive waste. More generally, the “precautionary principle” and the sustainability debate overall has been focused on the central question of what it actually means for present generations to live in such a

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framework to evaluate and make policy recommendations regarding collective long-term risks. This progress puts a new light on concepts such as “sustainable development” and “precautionary principle,” increasing their suitability as efficient guidelines for collective decision making. The state-of-the-art methodology for evaluating an environmental project is based on a

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crucial if one wants to have evaluation tools that are compatible with social welfare. It is also appealing as a normative concept to transform the precautionary principle into an operational rule that distorts collective beliefs in a pessimistic way. The degree of ambiguity aversion will determine the intensity of the pessimistic bias

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, this general methodology fails to take into account important aspects of certain economic problems, as I explain now. Ambiguous Benefits, Small Probability Events, and the Precautionary Principle It is difficult to assess the precise probability distribution to describe the uncertainty faced by decision makers who are dealing with environmental policies such as

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ambiguity aversion reinforces risk aversion, rendering people more reluctant to undergo ambiguous risky acts. The same idea can be found in the debate about the precautionary principle. This principle has been discussed in various international forums, including the Conference of Rio on Environment and Development and the Maastricht Treaty. It states that

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“lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” Indeed, the precautionary principle has widely been interpreted as a recommendation for reducing collective risk exposure in the presence of ambiguous probabilities. In short, ambiguity aversion should make us

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absence of an objective probability distribution for the impacts of climate change, or for the speed of technological progress. Economics and the Psychology of the Precautionary Principle The normative theory of the efficiency of long-term environmental risks is based on standard assumptions: expected utility (possibly generalized to smooth ambiguity aversion), rational

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judge other agents’ decisions under uncertainty in a different way than predicted by the standard theory. An important aspect of the political economy of the precautionary principle is related to the way people evaluate and judge ex ante collective decisions after new information is obtained about the risk. From a normative point

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. Sunstein’s many books include After the Rights Revolution (Harvard University Press, 1990), Risk and Reason (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Worst-Case Scenarios (Harvard University Press, 2007), and Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, with Richard H. Thaler (Yale

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makers decision sciences concepts and research and social scientists and Pollution Poor insurance for weather extremes and Possible selves, theory of Poverty Power, Samantha Prayer Precautionary principle Predictions Preferences choices and social stable-over-time, orderly Premiums, insurance changes in climate change and Prescriptive solutions Prevention. See also Mitigation insurance and investing

The Science of Fear: How the Culture of Fear Manipulates Your Brain

by Daniel Gardner  · 23 Jun 2009  · 542pp  · 132,010 words

caution by banning or restricting suspected chemicals. Better safe than sorry, after all. This attitude has been enshrined in various laws and regulations as the precautionary principle. There are many definitions of that principle, but one of the most influential comes from Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development

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need “full scientific certainty,” how much evidence should we have before we act? And this is only one of more than twenty definitions of the precautionary principle floating about in regulations and laws. Many are quite different and some are contradictory on certain points. As a result, there is a vast and

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growing academic literature grappling with what exactly “precaution” means and how it should be implemented. Politicians and activists like to talk about the precautionary principle as if it were a simple and sensible direction to err on the side of caution. But there’s nothing simple about it. Nor is

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it all that sensible. As law professor Cass Sunstein argues in Laws of Fear, the precautionary principle is more a feel-good sentiment than a principle that offers real guidance about regulating risks. Risks are everywhere, he notes, so we often face

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a risk in acting and a risk in not acting— and in these situations, the precautionary principle is no help. Consider chlorine. Treat drinking water with it and it creates by-products that have been shown to cause cancer in lab animals

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the cancer risk of people who drink the water. There’s even some epidemiological evidence that suggests the risk is more than hypothetical. So the precautionary principle would suggest we stop putting chlorine in drinking water. But what happens if we do that? “If you take the chlorine out of the drinking

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all but wiped it out in the developed world early in the twentieth century. So, presumably, the precautionary principle would say we must treat drinking water with chlorine. “Because risks are on all sides, the Precautionary Principle forbids action, inaction, and everything in between, ” writes Sunstein. It is “paralyzing; it forbids the very steps

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malaria-fighting tool. The truth about DDT is that the questions about how to deal with it were, and are, complex. So what does the precautionary principle tell us about this most reviled of chemicals? Well, once typhus and malaria have been removed from the equation, it would probably come down on

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fight malaria in Africa, it carries certain risks. And there are risks to not using it. So how do we decide? The precautionary principle is no help. “Why, then, is the Precautionary Principle widely thought to give guidance? ” asks Cass Sunstein. The answer is simple: We pay close attention to some risks while ignoring

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fruits and vegetables leading to an increase in cancer. It also requires evidence. We may not want to wait for conclusive scientific proof—as the precautionary principle suggests—but we must demand much more than speculation. Rational risk regulation is a slow, careful, and thoughtful examination of the dangers and costs in

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as if it were a certainty.” In effect, if not in name, Cheney was invoking the precautionary principle. This is a contradiction that goes to the heart of the politics of risk. On the left, the precautionary principle is revered. It is enshrined in European Union law. Environmentalists are always talking about it. But

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the right loathes it. In fact, the Bush administration is openly hostile to the European Union’s attempts to apply the precautionary principle in health and environmental regulations. In May 2003, shortly after the United States had invaded Iraq on better-safe-than-sorry grounds, John Graham, the

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White House’s top official in charge of vetting regulations, told the New York Times that the Bush administration considers the precautionary principle “to be a mythical concept, perhaps like a unicorn.” At the same time, the left—especially the left in Europe—scoffed when George W. Bush

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would be created by an invasion—exactly the same sort of arguments the Bush administration and other conservatives level when environmentalists or Europeans cite the precautionary principle as grounds for, say, banning chemicals or taking action on climate change. How selective people can be about “precaution” has never been so starkly illustrated

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Safety Regulations 1988) estimated that in nine years the regulation saved as many as 1,800 lives and prevented 5,700 injuries. So does the precautionary principle say the use of these chemicals should be banned or made mandatory? 240: “. . . there would be little left to eat.” The 1996 report was the

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Arkansas and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee’s description of “Islamofascism” as “the greatest threat this country’s ever faced.” 265: “. . . Cheney was invoking the precautionary principle.” For a fuller discussion, see Jessica Stern and Jonathan Wiener, “Precaution Against Terrorism, ” a paper issued by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at

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Preference, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006. Slovic, Paul, The Perception of Risk, Earthscan, London, UK, 2000. Sunstein, Cass R., Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005. Sunstein, Cass R., Risk and Reason: Safety, Law, and the Environment, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2002. Allen, Arthur

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. Bush, George W. cancer and age breast cancer and chemical exposure and the Good-Bad Rule- and marketing of fear and media coverage and the precautionary principle and radon rates of skin cancer statistics on cannabis Carson, Johnny Carson, Rachel Carter, Jimmy Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Chapman, Clark Chapman, Jessica chemicals

…

consensus and historical trends and marketing fear political advertising and risk management and the road rage panic and terrorism Posner, Richard Pound, Dick Powell, Colin precautionary principle Preston, Richard probability blindness psychology Quick, Jonathan radon gas RAND-MIPT terrorism database Rather, Dan Reagan, Ronald Red Brigades Rees, Martin Reiner, Robert Remm, Larry

Innovation and Its Enemies

by Calestous Juma  · 20 Mar 2017

important diplomatic developments followed the moratorium. First, the EU used its influence to persuade its trading partners to adopt similar regulatory procedures that embodied the precautionary principle. Second, the United States, Canada, and Argentina took the matter to the WTO for settlement in 2003.50 Under the circumstances, many African countries opted

…

, the WTO issued its final report on the dispute. Its findings were largely based on procedural issues and did not resolve the role of the “precautionary principle” in WTO law.52 Many developing countries started passing strict biosafety regulations even before the protocol was adopted. This was a sign of the political

…

crops. The EU, which served as a role model for developing countries, adopted a three-pronged approach: it sought to develop specific regulations, reinterpret the precautionary principle, and create a European Union Food Safety Agency. In 2003, the EU adopted stringent regulations concerning authorization procedures, labeling, and traceability of the sources of

…

food components. It extended the precautionary principle from environmental protection to consumer and health protection. New provisions in the 2003 regulations explicitly included the principle of “consumer choice” via mandatory labeling and

…

expensive non-Bt corn with minimum threat of the pest.75 These findings raise important issues regarding risk assessment and turn the application of the precautionary principle on its head. Such large benefits arising from unintended impacts of Bt technology reinforce the importance of basing decisions on an evolving generation of evidence

…

environmental issue. It can create a new path, while many African countries will be forced to contend with the consequences of this application of the precautionary principle. A related preemptive regulation issue was the decision of US organic farmers to define their products to exclude transgenic material. This decision has created considerable

…

commitment to open futures. Past worldviews that seek to mitigate risks by suppressing innovation as pursued in some circles under the negative interpretation of the “precautionary principle” will need to give way to new approaches.15 A positive application of precaution should lead to taking action when faced with a challenge, not

…

in approving transgenic crops. Under this system the burden of proof lies with those bringing forward evidence of harm. An alternative framework relying on the precautionary principle reverses the burden of proof and places it on producers and regulators. Broadening the framework would include the use of precaution through evidence. Such an

…

, DC: National Academy Press, 1987). This report built on an earlier study, National Academy of Sciences, Genetic Engineering of Plants. 42. John N. Hathcock, “The Precautionary Principle: An Impossible Burden of Proof for New Products,” AgBioForum 3, no. 4 (2000): 255–258. 43. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Cartagena Protocol

…

Diplomacy: Science Advice in the United Nations System (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2012), 13–20. 15. Calum G. Turvey and Eliza M. Mojduszka, “The Precautionary Principle and the Law of Unintended Consequences,” Food Policy 30, no. 2 (2005): 145–161. 16. Marc A. Saner, “An Ethical Analysis of the

…

Precautionary Principle,” International Journal of Biotechnology 4, no. 1 (2000): 81–95. 17. Lisa F. Clark, “Framing the Uncertainty of Risk: Models of Governance for Genetically Modified

…

), 103 Possibilities, Eliot on, 202 Potatoes, 329n27 Pouzin, Louis, 3 Practical electricians, 30 Prairie breaker plow, 122–123 Precautionary approach to regulation, 239–241, 289 Precautionary Principle, 241, 247, 251, 289. See also Precautionary approach Precision-breeding techniques, 92, 254 Preemptive regulations, 251–252 President (US) 2012 presidential election, 272 approval of

The Skeptical Economist: Revealing the Ethics Inside Economics

by Jonathan Aldred  · 1 Jan 2009  · 339pp  · 105,938 words

it can provide a real alternative to CBA. A key concept in sustainable development, particularly in discussions of climate change, is the precautionary principle. There are many versions of the precautionary principle in circulation, and its status in European law is confused.54 But the essential ideas are easy to summarize. The strongest case

…

to emerge? Or even new options? Or will our options diminish — will there be irreversible losses from delay? Faced with these questions, and others, the precautionary principle is clearly just a beginning. But it is one that launches us in a very different direction from CBA and other forms of ubiquitous quantification

…

Chapter 2: it takes both preferences and options as given, and has nothing to say about their origins. In contrast, it is central to the precautionary principle that both are likely to evolve over time, so we take precautions now in order to preserve flexibility for the future. This brief glimpse at

…

the precautionary principle aims just to illustrate that alternatives to CBA already exist. But the focus here has been on a critique of various practices of quantification, because

…

favoured instead, but not judgement forced into the framework of monetary valuation. There are many possible alternative frameworks depending on the issue at stake — the precautionary principle was one approach mentioned in Chapter 6. But in the rush to embrace these new innovations in decision making, it is easy to overlook a

…

travel. See HM Treasury (2003), Annex 2. 54 Sunstein (2005), Ch 1 is a recent critique. 55 There is support for this version of the precautionary principle from lawyers (Sunstein, 2005), philosophers, (Rawls, 1971), economists, both critical (Ackerman and Heinzerling, 2004) and more mainstream (Woodward and Bishop, 1997), and sociologists, geographers, policy

…

(2008) Environmental Values. London, Routledge O’Neill, O. (2002) A Question of Trust. Cambridge, CUP O’Riordan, T. and J. Cameron (eds) (2002) Interpreting the Precautionary Principle. London, Cameron May Offer, A. (2006) The Challenge of Affluence. Oxford, OUP Okun, A. (1975) Equality and Efficiency: The Big Trade-Off. Washington, DC, Brookings

…

, 156 capital investment 168 capital punishment 215-216 Caplan, Bryan 226-227 carbon trading markets 222, 223 cars advertising 20 ownership 42-43, 63 catastrophe, precautionary principle 173 charitable giving 27, 28, 33-34 choice 25-26 costs to consumers 39, 191 economic analysis 12-14, 25-26, 43-44 increasing options

…

-165 see also decision making choice advisers 191 citizen’s income 97 citizens’ juries 214, 215 climate change 2, 21, 146, 147-151, 159, 218 precautionary principle 173 valuing the future 161, 162 commodification 179-181, 206-216 alternatives to CBA 213-216 limits to monetary valuation 216-219 meaning of monetary

…

-32, 34, 233 free trade 5-6 Friedman, Milton 7 future generations, discounting 166-167, 168-169, 171-172 future outcomes discounting 149, 166-173 precautionary principle 173-174 see also probabilities gambling games 164 game theory 222, 233 goals happiness 125, 126, 129-133 monetary incentives 200-201 for public services

…

happiness economics 137-138, 141-143 poll taxes 93-94 positional goods 59-61, 63, 190, 236, 237 post-tax distribution 85—86, 87, 98 precautionary principle 173—174 preferences 13, 14, 135—136, 225 and advertising 19—20 of future generations 168-169 pure time 166-167, 172 revealed by choices

…

taxation 94, 95, 97 The Truman Show 127 trust 203-206, 230-231 TWA Flight 800 163 ultimatum game 29, 33-34 uncertainty and the precautionary principle 173 and risk 161-166 unselfish behaviour 27-28, 29 reaction to manipulation 31-32 service providers 187-188 utilitarianism 120-121, 126-133, 135

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