Strong Exceptions to Weak Sustainability Policies. Alan Randall

Transcription

1 Strong Exceptions to Weak Sustainability Policies Alan Randall

2 Justifications for Sustainability Policies Weak sustainability sustaining human welfare Utilitarian to the core (but that doesn t t make it non-controversial) Strong sustainability sustaining particular resources/entities independently of the aggregate capital sustained under weak sustainability Utilitarian justifications are difficult Many competing non-utilitarian justifications most argue from asserted principles of various kinds A Sustainability Puzzle Imagine an opportunity that would make us enormously rich but would lead eventually and with certainty to environmental crisis. We are infinitely long-lived, so we would both enjoy the riches and bear the disaster Should we accept this opportunity? 1. Of course we should! We ll be enormously rich when the disaster comes, so we can bribe the disaster to go away pay to prevent it pay to fix up after it. 2. No, we should not accept it! Perhaps all our riches will be to no avail; the disaster just won t respond. A sensible middle ground weak sustainability for business as usual, with strong sustainability exceptions for special threats

3 Precautionary Principle: when making multi-dimensional public decisions, acting to avoid and/or mitigate potential harmful consequences should be accorded high priority. We already have techniques for risk assessment and risk management Benefit cost, risk-benefit, expected value, expected utility Insurance, self-insurance, self-protection private, public Ordinary Risk Management but the whole PP movement is founded on the claim that something more, something stronger than ORM, is needed. Examples from PP statements Uncertainty about harmful consequences does not justify failure to take precautionary action (Bergen Declaration 1990) Plausible but uncertain harm justifies precautionary intervention (UNESCO 2005) Uncertain harm requires intervention, and the burden of proof is shifted to the proponent of the proposed risky action (Wingspread Statement) Applications Multinational orgs EU, UNESCO National laws US endangered species laws / Regulatory policy fisheries International agreements Montreal protocol Trade disputes hormones in beef, GMO commodities International food aid Zimbabwe

4 Reactions to the PP range from PP offers an idea that seems like ordinary commonsense: extraordinary risks call for extraordinary precaution to PP would undermine business-as-usual and stifle innovation and growth. See, e.g., the Proactionary Principle: People s freedom to innovate technologically is valuable to humanity. The burden of proof therefore belongs to those who propose restrictive measures Getting started 1. Consider the Hippocratic Oath above all, do no harm. What can this mean? If taken literally, many quite ordinary treatments would be forbidden Perhaps it means do no harm in the net (BC) Both action and no-action are risky (expected value or expected utility, ORM). Perhaps it calls for an asymmetric calculus Perhaps it is nothing more than an admonition to, before intervening, pause to consider the unintended consequences Implications Addresses case 1: a novel and potentially threatening action (a risky treatment) Identifies benefit cost, expected value, and expected utility approaches (ORM) Also, 2 approaches outside of the usual range of ORM stronger: asymmetric treatment of uncertain but potential asymmetric harm; and weaker: sensitivity to possible unintended consequences

5 Getting started 2. Consider the rivet-popper (Erhlich and Ehlich 1981) There is risk on both sides of the equation, and PP would paralyze innovation and stunt economic growth, all because we are scaredy-cats. But surely the risk to the plane is at least a candidate for classification as disproportionate and asymmetric relative to the risk to the economy. Implications Addresses case 2: a business-as-usual pattern of exploitation (or pollution) that might overstress natural and/or economic systems, potentially resulting in a novel and threatening outcome (regime shift) Frames the discussion in terms of collective threats (if the wings fail, all aboard the plane face extreme danger) asymmetric and disproportionate threat

6 Specifying the PP an ETR framework If there is evidence stronger than E that an activity raises a threat more serious than T, we should invoke a remedy more potent than R T. Threats relevant to my PP: [Language notes: 1. harm, threat, risk. 2. risk, uncertainty, gross ignorance] Disproportionate and asymmetric Collective threats Likely to arise from complex and novel phenomena (things and events) Complexity possibility of regime shifts, tipping points Novelty on one side of the equation vs familiarity on the other Exacerbated by large spatial and/or temporal scale. PP offers guidance beyond the scope of ORM if the choice set includes some actions that induce disproportionate and asymmetric threats, and some actions that do not. [PP offers little beyond ORM in cases where all possible actions involve similar threats.]

7 R. Remedies may include Prohibit the intervention / halt the business-as-usual stress Avoidance, mitigation, and/or adaptation beyond those that may be recommended by BC or ORM considerations Insurance, self-insurance, and self-protection it takes a PP to justify a package that includes ORM and some additional restraints. There are two additional components of a comprehensive precautionary policy Monitor, study, and reassess the threat reduce or mitigate disproportionate negative impacts E. What evidence would invoke PP? plausible and credible scientific evidence Commonsense notions of scientific plausibility and credibility. US court decisions: Daubert, Kimho Tire, Cellular Telephone. Judgments of scientific credibility are the province of scientists, not ordinary people. [See also Kahan et al response to Sunstein] Campaign to politicize science and reduce scientific discourse to an ordinary cultural quarrel: junk science (junkscience.com), muddying the waters (Michaels and Monforton), manufactured uncertainty, false balance, and teaching the controversy. But [a post-postmodernist defense of science as an institution capable of resisting and surviving these challenges].

8 Tentative working definition of the PP In response to a scientifically credible threat of disproportionate and asymmetric harm, we should take avoidance and mitigation measures beyond those justified by expected welfare considerations. The PP and utilitarianism. Attempts to establish a utilitarian PP by introducing strong risk aversion were generally unsuccessful Farmer and Randall (1998) argued that all of this (over)reaching for a utilitarian PP is much too strained. Instead, the scope for business-as-usual utilitarian ethics might coherently be bounded by non-utilitarian constraints. Margolis and Naevdal (2008) argued that the thresholds, kinks, etc. that might generate a utilitarian PP might be found in the response function (complexity) rather than the utility function. Peterson s (2006) case that the PP is incoherent falls when faced with systemic complexity in a utilitarian universe, and when faced with ethical pluralism. If PP is understood as a principle, then it succeeds if it serves as a principle that guides law and policy, in the sense that it embodies a considerable moral intuition to be consulted along with other pertinent principles and values when the issues it addresses come into play.

9 The PP and governance Pragmatic policy processes submerge value discourse fact-based policy: no value matters until it matters a special challenge when dealing with obligations to the future Acting on principles in practical governance The fundamental framework proposed and defended here would make business-as-usual decisions according to familiar welfare criteria, while providing precautionary exceptions for particular threats that are scientifically credible, disproportionate, and asymmetric. The precautionary exceptions are justified by principles that would be honored by many different moral systems: Do not sell-out something unique and valuable for modest gain Do not take inordinate risks for modest gain Do not impose big risks on the public for modest private gain Do not impose big risks on the future for modest immediate gain. This framework would respect both the modern experience of technical progress and increasing welfare, and the reasonable instinct for caution as we continue to push at the frontiers of what can be known about our planet s capacity to support future welfare.

10 What can we reasonably ask government to do, in an era when government seems afraid of governing? Do more to get Ordinary Risk Management right Benefit cost, risk-benefit, expected value, expected utility Insurance, self-insurance, self-protection private, public Articulate clear principles and take them seriously in practice Commitment to precautionary exceptions in cases that exceed a threshold of concern Commitment to transparent and inclusive public decision processes Commitment to equitable sharing of burdens esp. burdens undertaken to benefit future generations Bind managers to principles, but encourage them to interpret principles in practice via a serious policy dialogue Neither planning to the 4th decimal place, nor abdication to stakeholder conventions