Rapid Impact Overviews

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Rapid Impact Overviews-

a total reality approach to environmentalimpact assessment

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Rapid Impact Overviews - towards a completereality view of environmental impact assessment

(c) 1998 by Stefan Thiesen, thiesen@uni-muenster.deBy their very nature RIOs always are a compromise. Therefore well definedand yet flexible methodological standards and strict ethical decisionsstand at the very beginning of the RIO process.Currently we are in the process of developing mutually acceptablemethods and a code of conduct that is generally applicable. Two important aspects form the core of the RIO concept. Just somespontaneous thoughts on them:1) The "Complete Reality Yield" or "CRY".Complete Reality acknowledges that besides the so called "inherentnecessities" of economic, social, political and also scientific realities thereis the bigger, all encompassing and in all its completeness inherentlyinaccessible realm of complete reality. It is not, say, high energyastrophysics which is the most complex of all sciences - it is environmentalscience (and yours truly was involved in both). The reason is that in theenvironmental sciences we always have to cope with the well known factthat only a very small fraction of the parameters of the complex systemswe analyze will ever be accessible to us. An EIA however should always beobjective. Now how can we be objective if you never know all facts? Theanswer is that we can't! A formidable challenge indeed.As environmental scientists it is important that we are not biased. Theproblem is that every human being is always biased as a result of hissocial, cultural and educational background. Only we ourselves canovercome our biases, which may be even more difficult than becoming amulti disciplinarily trained scientist. We should - no - we actually MUST tryto see the complete picture at any time. Very often it is amazingly simplefor an experienced expert to expose the biases and hidden agendas of existing assessments prepared by governments and economic interestgroups, when looking at the results and arguments from a higher elevatedpoint of view. (Let us keep in mind here that the RIO service mainlyfocuses on serving the needs of NGOs and local communities).2) The Precautionary PrincipleLogically the precautionary principle can be derived from the completereality yield. Give way to the insight that you never know all facts -especially not the long term reaction of a complex system with unknownproperties to any given perturbation - and common sense strictly

DEMANDS that you be cautious.In all cultures around the globe (including the global corporate culture) thePrecautionary Principle is a generally accepted human behavior in day tolife and operations. We have pharmaceuticals tested before they arereleased onto the market. Airplanes and other machinery are put to closescrutiny during regular technical inspections. On motorcycles we wearhelmets, in cars we use seatbelts. If we find mushrooms in the forest, weonly use them to prepare a meal for our children if we are ABSOLUTELYSURE that they are harmless and edible. In day to day life it would beconsidered completely insane to act otherwise. No mother would feed herchildren unknown mushrooms using the argument "maybe nothinghappens". Who knows? Maybe they are not poisonous? Before I throwaway a potential meal, I NEED MORE FACTS...? This ridiculous behavior however is commonly accepted when it comes toquestions of development and commercial interests. It is interesting tonote that when it comes to financial security corporations andgovernments alike duly apply the precautionary principle to are largeextent. The global insurance industry is one of the largest and fastestgrowing economic sectors (and even insurances are re-insured).During a discussion on the Dialogue Aqua Water science mailing list, JaimeCollado commented my point of view with the following statement"

I believe that Stefan Thiesen's point of view is not a begging one: he isappealing us to change our economic system in such a way that it corresponds to reality and not to adjust reality to economic dogmas.

"And Jaime Collado is right: Our current pathway is one where we areattempting the impossible: to incorporate the much bigger system - call itnature or call it complete reality - into the much smaller, artificial man-made system of the growth based economy.It is a fact that we cannot even control this man-made system. Eventhough artificial, it is already complex enough to show chaotic behavior. Asthe ingenious philosopher Christopher Caudwell pointed out in his book"The Crisis in Physics" as early as 1939: "The development of the marketcannot be predicted, therefore there are no known laws of the market. Themarket is absolutely anarchic!" Judging from the developments of the last sixty odd years, the argumenthas a ring of truth to it. The market, economic development, mankind:they are a sub-system of the Earth's ecosphere, and a growing one withunpredictable behavior. It may be a bitter medicine to swallow, butperhaps it is time for us to acknowledge that we humans ourselves arefairly unpredictable animals! The most simplified model for the relationship of Earth <---> Economy is awicked version of the known predator/prey relationship. UltimatelyEconomy is the predator (ever growing, ever more consuming, producing

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Category:	School Work > Essays & Theses
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Upload Date:	03/11/2009
Copyright:	Attribution Non-commercial
Tags:	Philosophy EIA environmental science indigenous knowledge impact assessment (more tags) Philosophy EIA environmental science indigenous knowledge impact assessment rapid rural appraisals expert approach (fewer)

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