Be Very Cautious of the Precautionary Principle.

J. Richard Wakefield
Jan 29, 2008
jrwakefield@mcswiz.com

Those who adhere to the global warming theory are using the Precautionary Principle as a
reason to act. Their claims are that even if the science is not guaranteed as to the cause
and effect of our emissions of CO2 that the Precautionary Principle dictates that we act to
reduce our emissions. Thus it’s a default fallback position. That is, if AGW theory has a
potential to be wrong, because we cannot have 100% certainty as to the effects of our
emissions of CO2, then we must act anyway because the Precautionary Principle (PP)
applies.

However, the definition of the Precautionary Principle is required in order to see if this
fall back default position is justified. Surprisingly there is no specific definition of PP.
Wikipedia has this:

“The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that
if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the
absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof
falls on those who would advocate taking the action.”

It also notes that there are other defintions, and even four sub-definitions aimed at
specific realms of society:

1. Scientific uncertainty should not automatically preclude regulation of

activities that pose a potential risk of significant harm (Non-Preclusion
PP).
2. Regulatory controls should incorporate a margin of safety; activities should
be limited below the level at which no adverse effect has been observed
or predicted (Margin of Safety PP).
3. Activities that present an uncertain potential for significant harm should be
subject to best technology available requirements to minimize the risk of
harm unless the proponent of the activity shows that they present no
appreciable risk of harm (BAT PP).
4. Activities that present an uncertain potential for significant harm should be
prohibited unless the proponent of the activity shows that it presents no
appreciable risk of harm (Prohibitory PP).

In layman’s terms it is often touted as “better safe than sorry”.

It is likely that the spirit of the PP, “better safe than sorry”, has been around since the
dawn of civilization, but it seems to have been formally defined, according to Wiki, in
1930’s Germany. It is quite likely then that the PP was used in that period for the
atrocities that occurred under Nazi Germany’s rise to power.

Certainly this is not likely to have been the first abuse of the term, but the spirit of the PP
certainly has been abused throughout history to justify just about anything authority in
power needed to further their goals. Thus the use of the PP must be scrutinized. Above
all, the PP itself requires that the PP be justified in its use.

“In fact, prevention is only better than cure, if the probability of the particular
problem you have in mind occurring is rather high, and if the proposed
preventative measures are largely accurate or effective. But in the majority of
debates about risk that we encounter today, neither of these cases are actually
met. Probabilities, on the whole, are pretty low - otherwise, society would divert
large amounts of resources and concern towards dealing with them. And there is
little evidence that the precautionary measures taken actually work.
http://www.durodie.net/pdf/PrecautionaryPrincipleKillingInnovation.pdf”

Thus, if the PP were a de facto principle of action for any threat to people or society,
then, for example, people would not live along active tectonic or volcanic zones. But
since people do live in places where there is a potential of harm and destruction of
property, then those people are playing the odds. That is, the degree of threat is what is
important, not the absoluteness of the PP.

So this begs the question. What is the probability of the threat that will force one to
invoke the PP? Obviously that is highly subjective. Those who are risk takers are often
touted as throwing caution to the wind. Though many have succumbed to the
consequences of their actions with such an approach, many have succeeded and over all
benefited society.

Taken to the extreme, people would not venture out of their homes on the possibility that
something may happen to them. Thus the use of the PP often is tagged to the degree of
paranoia of either the individual or group. The use of the PP most definitely can be
tagged to the political agenda of those who advocate its use.

There are critics of the PP, such as

http://www.durodie.net/pdf/PrecautionaryPrincipleKillingInnovation.pdf who states

“There is no agreed definition of the precautionary principle. One of the more

authoritative versions comes from the 1992 Rio 'Earth' Summit. It contains a
rather cumbersome triple negative, to the effect that not having evidence is not a
justification for not taking action.

If we undo a couple of the knots, then as two negatives make a positive, we are
left with 'action without evidence is justified'. That's it, in a nutshell. The
precautionary principle is, above all else, an invitation to those without evidence,
expertise or authority, to shape and influence political debates. It achieves that,
by introducing supposedly ethical elements into the process of scientific,
corporate and governmental decision making.”

As to the thrust of this paper, is the use of the PP as a reason for acting to change climate
change justified? What are the motives of those who advocate invoking the PP as a
reason to act? Thus one must scrutinize to see if the PP is justified in this case.

The definition in Wiki has two important aspects of the PP. Morals and politics. Both of
these are highly abused and twisted depending upon the political bent of the people
wheedling the PP sword. This is most definitely the case of AGW as one only has to
look at the political affiliation of those who side on action to stop climate change –
generally far left “romantic” environmentalists. One only has to read their documents to
see the ultimate goal of these groups – bring down democracy and/or capitalism and
building a new world order in its place.

Putting those individuals aside in their rightful place, on the whole does the PP require us
to act to stop climate change? I would argue no. There are two simple reasons for this.

First, does invoking action actually change the coarse of climate change? According to
Wiki “burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.” Thus those
who advocate taking action to curb climate change need to show us that taking action will
actually achieve the desired goal. It’s not like some potential new drug coming to the
market where the company needs to show that it is safe. There is no action on the part of
the advocates of caution there as they just prevent the drug from coming on to market.
What the advocates of PP on climate change want is for positive actions to take place.
This includes spending billions on things like the carbon trade system and billions more
on carbon sequestering. Thus the burdon of proof then falls on them to show that these
actions they propose will actually work, and not do more harm than good.

But will the reduction in our emissions of CO2 actually happen if we have a carbon
trading system and carbon sequestering? Evidence will show that the answer to this
question is no, and a very large no at that. With non-signatories China and India
dramatically increasing their economies and energy consumption with it (China building
coal fired plants as fast as they can) then any reductions in CO2 from the “developed”
world will be swamped (within 10 years China’s energy consumption will be greater than
the U.S.’s). Thus CO2 emissions will continue to rise, and not even the rate of emissions
can be curtailed. Thus, realistically speaking, there is no way, short of society collapse,
that CO2 emissions will slow let alone be reduced. (I even had one person tell me that
even if the current changes in climate are natural, we should take action to “fix” it
anyway!)

Second, what is the cost of the proposed actions? Does the cost of action out trump the
“costs” of inaction? This is a comon sidestep by those who advocate action by saying the
cost of inaction will be much more. Really? They can actually show evidence of that?
The economy is so complex, so interdependant, that there is no way that such evidence
can be shown. They may resort to models, but economic models are notorious for being
grossly wrong, worse than climate models.

Besides, this only assumes the worst case scenarios of the alarmist positions on climate
change. That in itself has not been shown to be a correct prediction of the future. Past
warm periods, including the Medival Warm Period, was warmer than current predictions
and was in fact not a catastrophy at all, but a boon to the biota. The two periods in the
geological past that produced the vast majority of oil deposits were from times of much
warmer climates. Thus to make the oil there must have been a much higher concentration
of biota at those times. Thus, unless the alarmists can show why the current warm trend
will be contrary to past warm events, then we can claim that such alarmism does not
provide enough evidence to invoke the PP as a reason to act. In fact, the exact opposite.

So not only are we to believe on faith that the worst case scenarios are those that will
come to pass, but we are also to add to that the faith that action will be cheeper, and
actually work!

Already Europe is seeing major upheavals in their manufacturing sector due to the carbon
trading system. Companies are already saying they are disadvantaged and having to
close or move to places that don’t have a carbon trading system. Is sequestering of
carbon a better cure than the millions of unemployed people rioting in the streets for
help? We are already seeing some of that happening around the world now.

Thus, in concluding, we should forcefully challenge any claim that the PP be used as a
reason to act against climate change. We must demand that they show that the use of the
PP and their actions because of the PP can be justified. We must not fall back to a faith
based system as a reason to take action to curb climate change. Science and evidence
must give us a picture of what is actually going on, and then act accordingly. It is much
harder, it is much safer, and it takes longer. If we don’t, if we just let the PP rule our
lives for any and all things, then there is one thing that blind actions invoked because of
the PP will succum to it’s the Law of Unexpected Consequences.