Introduction to the Precautionary Principle

1
Introduction to thePrecautionary Principle

• Carolyn Raffensperger
• Science and Environmental Health Network
• www.sehn.org

2
Questioning Technology

• It is a truism that humans have and will always
  use tools. Just as obvious is that
  technology--the use of tools--occurs in a social,
  political, cultural, and economic context, and is
  never neutral. Tools are always shaped by their
  use, by the people or institutions which control
  their production and distribution, and by a
  culture which validates, circumscribes, or
  discourages their creation and/or use...
• (T. L. Hill 1991)

3
Questions

• What criteria should society use to evaluate
  technology?
• Do we have a right to say no to a technology?
• Are there wise ways to say yes to a technology?
• Can we increase our skill in predicting the
  consequences of a technology?

4
Laws of Technology

• The bigger the technological solution, the
  greater the chance of extensive, unforeseen side
  effects. (Stephen Schneider, 1976)
• The greater the rapidity of human-induced
  changes, the more likely they are to destablize
  the complex systems of nature. (Leopold 1949)

5
The Precautionary Principle

• Wingspread Statement When an activity raises
  threats of harm to human health or the
  environment, precautionary measures should be
  taken even if some cause and effect relationships
  are not fully established scientifically.

6
History of Precaution and Development

• 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human
  Environment. Stockholm. Sustainable development
  elevated to a global ethic. First pairing of
  the moral principles of social justice and
  environmental responsibility.

7
The Bruntland Report, Our Common Future 1987

• Poverty is a cause and effect of environmental
  degradation.
• Present policies encourage environmental
  deterioration and deepen economic and social
  disparities.

8
1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development

• Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
• Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• Biosafety Protocol

9
The Rio Declaration

• Where there are threats of serious or
  irreversible damage, lack of full scientific
  certainty shall not be used as a reason for
  postponing cost-effective measures to prevent
  environmental degradation.

10
The Precautionary Principle has been
characterized as

• Ethical Directive, Belief or Philosophical guide
• Treaty Preambles
• German word for precautionary principle means
  literally forecaring
• Regulatory tool
• Risk management (rather than prevention?)
• Administrative Agency activity
• Overarching principle guiding the research
  agenda, legislation, regulation and judicial
  action

11
Common elements of the precautionary principle

• Plausible threats of harm
• Lack of scientific certainty
• Precautionary action to prevent harm

12
Harm

• To whom or what?
• Environment
• Public Health
• Cultural, Social

• Magnitude and kind
• Serious
• Cumulative
• Irreversible
• easily avoidable?

13
Scientific uncertainty

• Uncertainty about cause or magnitude
• Uncertainty, indeterminacy, ignorance
• Value of more data
• Unpredictability of complex systems
• Asking the right questions

14
Precautionary Action

• Anticipatory and preventive
• Increases rather than decreases options
• Can be monitored and reversed
• Increases resilience, health, integrity of whole
  system
• Enhances diversity (one size does not fit all)

15
Components of implementation

• 1. Establish goals.
• 2. Locate responsibility in the system. The
  burden of proof lies with the proponents, not
  with the public. 
• 3. Examine a full range of alternatives. Choose
  the least harmful.
• 4. Make decisions through an open, informed,
  democratic process. Include affected parties.

16
Can We Say Yes to New Technologies

• What is our yardstick for environmental
  predictions?
• Proposal evolutionary biology. What does nature
  do?
• Example Biomimicry

17
Can we Say yes to New Technologies

• Shifting the Burden of Proof
• Proposal Performance Bonds
• Ex. Mining companies post bonds before mining
  public lands.

18
Can we Say yes to New Technologies

• Keeping mistakes little (if weve said yes and we
  are wrong)
• Proposal Monitoring at multi-levels of the
  system
• Example NASA and space shuttles
• Example 2 Labeling for biotech foods

19
A Little Digression

• Einstein taught us that Thought Experiments are
  useful in science.
• What thought experiments can we use to imagine
  where things might go awry in the system?
• Example What would an emergency room M.D. need
  to diagnose an allergenic response to a biotech
  food?

20
Precautionary questions for pharming

• What are societys goals for
• Agriculture
• Medicine
• Environment

21
Pharming questions cont.

• What alternative methods do we have for meeting
  our goals?
• What harms are relatively certain if we proceed
  with pharming?
• What harms are uncertain?

22
Pharming questions cont.

• Who or what will benefit?
• Who or what will be harmed?

23
Pharming questions cont.

• What early warning systems can we create?
• Are there any events that would result in a total
  ban?
• What monitoring systems need to be in place?

24
Pharming questions cont.

• Who needs to be at the table making decisions
• Goals
• Research agenda
• Agriculture
• Medicine
• What constitutes harm?
• What early warning systems are needed?
• Remedies for harm
• Alternatives to harmful activities

25
Lessons Learned aboutthe Precautionary Principle

• Prevention is wiser and less costly than
  repairing damage.

26
Lesson 2

• Consider worst case scenarios carefully. Low
  probability, high risk events not only follow
  Murphys law, they follow statistical
  probability. If we regularly truck shipments of
  high level radioactive waste across the United
  States, there will be an accident, some time,
  some place.

27
Lesson 3

• Put certainty on a sliding scale rather than
  treating it as an absolute. If the potential harm
  is serious we need to take action even if we are
  less certain about the probability or magnitude
  of the harm.

28
Lesson 4

• Foster the conditions that encourage
  foreseeability (openness, free-flowing
  information, protecting minority-view science).
  We failed to predict some problems like CFCs
  damaging the ozone layer, but that doesnt mean
  they were unforeseeable.

29
Lesson 5

• Timing is everything. The higher the stakes, the
  more important it is to take precautionary action
  sooner rather than later. Speed up democracy.
  Slow down large scale deployment.

30
Lesson 6

• Science isnt the only way to know something.
  Aesthetics and ethics are useful guides when the
  way forward is uncertain. If its a beautiful
  solution, its more trustworthy than an ugly
  solution. If its a respectful, compassionate
  solution, its more trustworthy than a
  disrespectful, hostile solution.

31
Lesson 7

• Concentrating precious things (people) or harmful
  things (radioactive waste or hog manure in
  lagoons) increases the chances for major damage
  in the event of an unexpected problem. Scale
  determines whether a problem will be a minor
  disturbance or a catastrophe. Large scale
  activities (monocropping of corn, large
  consumption of fossil fuels) will cause trouble
  some time, some place.

32
Lesson 8

• Favor actions that keep options open.
• Favor actions that allow for experimentation.
• Favor actions that can be monitored and reversed
  if there are unintended consequences.

33
Lesson 9

• When the science is uncertain, switch sciences
  map relationships rather than measure things or
  move from toxicology to evolutionary biology,
  pharmacology and physiology. Rigid dependence on
  one discipline or scientific tool blinds us to
  the clues in other disciplines.

34
Lesson 10

• Honor and protect information and wisdom.
  Adopt policies of openness rather than secrecy.
  Secrecy is the tool of tyrants.

35
Lesson 11

• Connect the dots. Search for pattern.
  Emerging patterns provide new hypotheses and
  opportunities to avoid harm.

36
Lesson 12

• Act out of love rather than fear or hate. Hate
  is extremely powerful, breeding revenge, damage
  and loss. Love is more powerful, breeding
  restoration, healing and protection.