Book Review: Precautionary Tools for Reshaping Environmental Policy (original) (raw)
2006, Environmental Health Perspectives
Opponents of the precautionary principle often complain that it is not a sufficient tool for decision making. They're rightexcept that, as far as I know, no one ever said it was. It should be part of the process, but it can be only a part, and Myers and Raffensberger have put together an excellent guidebook for those who want to implement it. Perhaps they'll even convince some who still doubt its usefulness. The volume begins with a checklist of points that we should consider when decisions are being made. Nothing dramatically new-all good common sense, really-but the ideas are important and too often overlooked. The contributors then expand on the points and give examples of how they have-or have not-been put into practice. These illustrations are valuable intrinsically; also, when you are trying to convince your government to act, it helps to have examples of how other countries have taken similar action without dire economic or social consequences, and how doing nothing may turn out to be more expensive in the long run, or even the not-so-long run. Anyone interested in environmental policy will find this book stimulating and useful, but the editors themselves acknowledge that there is much more to be done, and in my view what is most needed is more input from scientists. As far as I can tell, although some of the contributors were trained in science, none is currently employed as a scientist. That's not really surprising in a book about policy, but working scientists do have a different perspective on things. People who are not scientists often place too much credence in what the corporations and the scientific establishment tell them. It is certainly important to understand that the arguments are about values as well as science, but that doesn't mean we should let the science-based points go by default. Just as we demand that our opponents take values
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