Rachel's Precaution Reporter #119
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
From: The Star (Toronto, Canada) ..........................[This story printer-friendly]
November 29, 2007
CHANGES DEMANDED AFTER NURSES ATTACKED
[Rachel's introduction: In Canada, "The nurses' union is calling on the provincial government to write the 'precautionary principle' into the Occupational Health and Safety Act, something the late Justice Archie Campbell recommended in his SARS report earlier this year."]
By Joanna Smith, Staff Reporter
The Ontario Nurses' Association is calling for a change in workplace safety legislation after three registered nurses were attacked on duty at the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health earlier this month.
"We've got to make it stop now," union president Linda Haslam-Stroud told reporters yesterday.
The attacks involved two separate patients and took place over two days at the CAMH site on Queen St. W.
"It was absolutely horrific for the staff that witnessed this," Danielle Latulippe-Larmand, the union representative for registered nurses at CAMH, said in an interview.
One of the nurses had his shoulder broken when he was attacked in the nursing station after a patient jumped over a half-door around 2 a.m. Nov. 13, Latulippe-Larmand said. A nurse who witnessed the attack was also pulled down and beaten.
Another registered nurse had his jaw broken when he was head-butted and punched while in a lounge area shortly before 5 a.m. on Nov. 14, Latulippe-Larmand said.
She said an agency nurse -- who is not represented by the union -- was attacked next and the first nurse went to help her.
All three ended up in the nursing station and when security personnel arrived, they could not help out because they needed to be buzzed in.
"He was bleeding, he was dazed, he was confused and he was unable to press the buzzer to open the door," she said of the nurse with the broken jaw.
"Hopefully this kind of stuff will never, never happen again," said Latulippe-Larmand, who recalled suffering a hairline fracture when a patient punched her in the nose at the outset of her career more than 20 years ago.
"We're actually very lucky that in both incidents we did not end up with a dead nurse."
The Ministry of Labour is investigating both incidents.
Rani Srivastava, deputy chief of nursing practice at CAMH, said security is now able to access the units without being buzzed in and CAMH is also reviewing the issue of patients being able to jump over half-doors.
The union is calling on the provincial government to write the "precautionary principle" into the Occupational Health and Safety Act, something the late Justice Archie Campbell recommended in his SARS report earlier this year.
"Until the precautionary principle is fully recognized, mandated and enforced, our nurses and the health care workers across Ontario are going to be continued to be injured and be killed on the job," said Haslam-Stroud.
She said 36 per cent of nurses who responded to a union survey last year reported being physically abused on the job recently. Sixty-seven per cent reported verbal abuse and 11 per cent said they were sexually abused.
"Workplace violence is something that we consider to be unacceptable. We as a government are committed to doing anything we can to address the issues that exist in the workplaces," said Ontario Labour Minister Brad Duguid.
"It is the responsibility of employers under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to take every precaution to protect the health and safety of their employees and that applies as well to issues of violence; however, we'll certainly be happy to sit down and talk to the nurses about their concerns," he said.
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From: Jerusalem Post (Israel) ............................[This story printer-friendly]
December 2, 2007
PRESIDENT SHIMON PERES: POLLUTION IS AS DANGEROUS AS TERROR
[Rachel's introduction: "The information on the effects of MTBE [a gasoline additive] is not complete, the Israel Union for Environmental Defense said. However, there is no need to wait to find out how much more dangerous MTBE is than we already know, the report said. We must use the precautionary principle and not wait until irreversible health and environmental damage is done, the report concluded."]
By Ehud Zion Waldoks
Environmental pollution in Israel is no less dangerous than the threat of terrorism, President Shimon Peres said Sunday. Peres received the annual report on the status of the environment from Tzipi Iser Itzik, executive director of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (IUED), known in Hebrew as Adam, Teva V'Din, during a ceremony at Beit Hanassi.
The report highlights several specific instances of pollution and evaluates governmental and industrial responses to pollution threats. It also evaluates several legal mechanisms that are meant to protect the environment.
In contrast to terrorism, which is the strategy of an external foe, Peres said, environmental pollution is something that comes from within our midst. Even though it is sometimes silent and invisible, he said, it is nonetheless a grave danger that must be eradicated as quickly as possible.
Peres called on the government, local authorities, industrialists and all Israeli citizens to join in the battle against this enemy from within.
The IUED chose three representative examples of pollution and its treatment to highlight a larger point; that no one is concerned with taking precautionary measures to prevent environmental disasters from occurring.
The IUED gathered all available information on the explosion at the Machteshim factory at the Ramat Hovav Industrial Park last August 14, which spewed a white cloud of pollutants into the air. Using what little information they could garner, after requests for information on the chemicals being used at the industrial park went unanswered by the Environmental Protection Ministry, the IUED scientists determined that the only thing that had prevented that blast from becoming a major catastrophe was the time of year the accident occurred. If it had been a cold winter night instead of a warm summer day, the explosion would have hurled concentrations of lethal chemicals as far as Beersheba and the area of the IDF training base to be built nearby.
Furthermore, the report said, 38 minor accidents had occurred in 2006, any one of which could potentially have been catastrophic.
The IUED suggested conducting a thorough threat assessment of Ramat Hovav's factories. According to the report, no such assessment has been carried out at the industrial complex.
The IUED also highlighted a curious example of an initiative designed to reduce air pollution but which is polluting our drinking water. MTBE (Methyl tertiary-butyl ether) is added to gasoline to raise the octane level. It also reduces the amount of air pollution internal combustion engines produce. But when it leaks into water it makes the water undrinkable; it ruins the taste and has been found to be carcinogenic in animals. (It is suspected of being carcinogenic in humans as well.)
The information on the effects of MTBE is not complete, the IUED said. However, there is no need to wait to find out how much more dangerous MTBE is than we already know, the report said. We must use the precautionary principle and not wait until irreversible health and environmental damage is done, the report concluded.
Many states in the United States have already banned MTBE as a gasoline additive. While the IUED did not call for a ban immediately, they strongly urged the government to investigate the matter but do so in the public eye. They called on the Health Ministry to create a standard for acceptable amounts of MTBE in water.
The IUED also suggested that potential pollution deterrents be evaluated on a holistic basis rather than focusing on a specific element, which is why MTBE was introduced into Israeli gasoline.
A particularly worrying example is that of the east Tel Aviv neighborhood of Nahalat Yitzhak, the report said. There are noxious vapors pervading many of the basements and first floor apartments throughout the neighborhood, according to the report. The pollution has been traced to several factories, including one which operated nearby for nearly fifty years.
The "Defender" arms factory was erected next to Nahalat Yitzhak in 1949. It used and stored hazardous materials for years until it was shut down about 10 years ago. In those years no one was really aware of the danger and did not take proper care of hazardous materials. Thus, dangerous chemicals and other materials were routinely poured into the ground near the factory.
After the factory was dismantled, the environmental damage became apparent. Because of the massive ground pollution, potentially lethal vapors had built up in the surrounding basements, according to the report. These vapors were carcinogenic, lethal to many internal organs and could cause genetic damage as well. Concentrations of more than three times the "safe" limit have been found.
One place they have built up is in the neighborhood Ayalon school, where the basement is routinely used by teachers and students. At present, there is no plan to treat the polluted areas, according to the IUED. What has been decided, instead, is to use special sealing materials in all new buildings. But residents in existing buildings must continue to suffer.
The report also highlighted the effect of public hearings and the IDF's attitude toward environmental concerns. Following its introduction last year, the report once again listed the "IUED 25," an evaluation of the thoroughness of the environmental reports of 25 major public companies.
Palram Industries and El Al headed the list with reports that divulged much of the environmental hazards the companies could create and were dealing with. Dan Automobiles ranked last, with no mention of the air pollution caused by its rental cars and leased cars.
Greer Fay Cashman contributed to this report.
Copyright 1995 -- 2007 The Jerusalem Post
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From: Daily Record (Ellensburg, Wash.) ...................[This story printer-friendly]
December 1, 2007
LETTERS: PRECAUTIONARY APPROACH MAY BE PRUDENT WITH WATER
[Rachel's introduction: "Where unknowns abound, a more rational approach to public policy is found in "The Precautionary Principle." It urges the prevention of problems through the exercise of caution and it would direct us to impose restrictions on drilling new exempt wells now. When and if it can be shown such restrictions are no longer needed, they can be relaxed. Such caution likely will restrict short-term monetary gain but it almost certainly will minimize the costly, long term water supply problems that do in fact exist elsewhere."]
By Duane Skeen
To the Editor:
The Daily Record has kept its readers informed on the continuing issue of exempt water wells and a request before the County Commissioners to declare a moratorium on further drilling. Interestingly this issue in Kittitas County has now gained wider attention. The November 21 Seattle Times contained an article by reporter Jonathan Martin titled "Big growth, big fight over water" which summarized where the matter currently stands. Mr. Martin did not overtly side with any of the parties involved but clearly identified the various factions and special interests now debating the future of water supplies for Kittitas County. However, an underlying message emerges from his report and it agrees with that found in many other published reports describing what is happening in our county with respect to development.
That message is clear. An opportunity to make money in the short run supersedes taking prudent action to protect precious water supplies over the long run. From all reports various officials at the county and state level have failed to show any serious interest in protecting the unknown quantity of water in county aquifers. Indeed they have stood on the rationale that "... there is no evidence of a water shortage at this time." Their prevailing attitude seems to be against taking effective protective measures until there is catastrophic evidence -- apparently in the form of people's wells drying up.
Where unknowns abound, a more rational approach to public policy is found in "The Precautionary Principle." It urges the prevention of problems through the exercise of caution and it would direct us to impose restrictions on drilling new exempt wells now. When and if it can be shown such restrictions are no longer needed, they can be relaxed. Such caution likely will restrict short-term monetary gain but it almost certainly will minimize the costly, long term water supply problems that do in fact exist elsewhere. Prudent well drilling restrictions are not a new concept. Indeed, as Mr. Martin points out in his article "Restrictions on wells are in place in Walla Walla, Skagit County and Okanogan's Methow Valley and are being considered in Wenatchee."
I wonder what the folks in Atlanta, Ga., and other areas of the nation and world now facing severe water shortages would say about the officials and others opposing protective measures on water extraction. I doubt that the words "short sighted" would be judged sufficiently strong.
Copyright 2007 Kittitas County Publishing
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From: Rachel's Precaution Reporter #119 ..................[This story printer-friendly]
December 5, 2007
AUSTRALIA'S ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REQUIRES PRECAUTIONARY DECISIONS
[Rachel's introduction: Europeans are not the only people advancing the precautionary principle. Precaution is embedded in Australia's national environmental law]
By Peter Montague
In 1999, Australia adopted the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which requires (in Section 391),that
"(1) The Minister must take account of the precautionary principle in making a decision listed in the table in subsection (3), to the extent he or she can do so consistently with the other provisions of this Act."
The Act defines the precautionary principle as,
"(2) The precautionary principle is that lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing a measure to prevent degradation of the environment where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage."
Subsection (3) of the Act lists 28 kinds of decisions in which the Minister "must" take into account the precautionary principle.
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From: The Australian (Sydney) ............................[This story printer-friendly]
December 3, 2007
RAPID GROWTH AND GLOBAL WARMING
[Rachel's introduction: Some time ago we recommended serious action in mitigation on the basis of the precautionary principle. "The consequences if we worry and take action about global warming will be minor if we are wrong. If we do not take action and we are wrong, the consequences will be devastating."]
The Platinum Age is an economist's description of recent economic growth -- stronger than the "Golden Age" of the 50s and 60s.
While strong economic growth is good in many ways -- including crucially lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty -- the close relation of economic growth, CO2 emissions and global warming is a very inconvenient problem.
Growth has been far faster than anticipated, and so CO2 emissions and global warming is faster than anyone expected.
Some time ago we recommended serious action in mitigation on the basis of the precautionary principle. "The consequences if we worry and take action about global warming will be minor if we are wrong. If we do not take action and we are wrong, the consequences will be devastating."
Professor Ross Garnaut is providing a thorough evaluation of the risks of climate change and of policies to mitigate the threat.
In a wide-ranging discussion last week, Garnaut concluded as follows.
"There are several ways in which climate change could end the Platinum Age.
"Climate change itself could seriously disrupt economic life and political stability in some major economies, to an extent that undermined the foundations of sustained, rapid, internationally- oriented growth.
"On the scenarios defined by the IPCC that have drawn most attention, the main impacts of inadequately mitigated climate change would come after the completion of most of the Chinese transition to a developed economy; but there are large statistical variations above and below the central expectations, and the business-as-usual rate of growth in emissions is and is likely to be far more rapid than assumed in the standard projections. The odds are higher that climate change itself would disrupt the extension of high living standards to other parts of the developing world after the substantial completion of the Chinese transition.
"Major shocks can affect economic activity beyond the immediate and direct economic impacts.
"The effects of the 1890s depression in eastern Australia, and of the global depression of the early 1930s, were magnified many times by the changes in attitudes to economic institutions and policies that emerged from them. The financial crisis in Indonesia in 1997 and early 1998 was converted into a catastrophic decline in output and incomes by its interaction with a fragile political system.
"These are amongst the effects to be watched from unexpectedly large climate change impacts. It is worth keeping in mind that carefully designed adaptation policies can reduce the chances and impacts of major shocks.
"The Platinum Age could also be disrupted by poorly thought out approaches to mitigation.
"Stern has presented the results of work that suggests that the global costs of effective mitigation need not be large. On the basis of the application of this analysis to the central forward-looking scenarios of the IPCC, the continuing costs of holding global emissions to levels that greatly reduced the risks of dangerous climate change would be about 1 percent of GDP, or a modest fraction of one year's increase in global output. The costs would be somewhat greater if, as I think likely, the underlying rates of emissions growth in the Platinum Age are much greater than presumed in the IPCC scenarios and the Stern Report.
"But the costs of mitigation in practice would depend on the nature of the policies applied to it, and the manner of their implementation. Costs would be minimised within steady policies over long periods that provided incentives that placed with private parties the full external costs and benefits of decisions taken by people and businesses everywhere. Such approaches would allow private decisions within market contexts efficiently to shape the processes of change.
"Poor design, or tardiness in implementation, would increase the costs of mitigation immensely, and compromise the mitigation effort.
"Progress that is later judged to be inadequate is likely to be associated with policy panic, instability and belated concentration of adjustment into disruptively short periods. And there is the ever- present danger of mitigation policies, with their potential to have large effects on the distribution of incomes, being encrusted with the usual political economy of rent-seeking behaviour by vested interests, and becoming intertwined with the familiar distortions in public policies related to trade and investment. For individual countries, and for the world as a whole, such policy distortions can make the difference between strong economic growth and stagnation.
"Income distribution effects will need to be taken into account in design of policies. It is important that there is analytical rigour in design and discipline in implementation of policies designed to secure equitable distribution of the effects of mitigation. Inefficient distribution -- an indiscriminate straying of 'compensation' towards interests that press strongly for it -- would greatly increase the ultimate costs of mitigation.
"Climate change and poorly designed responses to it could bring the Platinum Age to an end. But if they do, it will represent failures in the design and execution of policies."
Garnaut's work is vitally important. Read the full discussion here. It will almost certainly lead you to support the Rudd government's attempt to do something about Australia's contribution to the problem.
Visit Henry Thornton here.
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From: Reporter-Times (Martinsville, Indiana) ..............[This story printer-friendly]
November 30, 2007
UNEQUIVOCAL EVIDENCE
[Rachel's introduction: "The IPCC has provided enough evidence to be past the precautionary stage, but the White House is saying there's still enough uncertainty that we have to be very careful on what actions we do take. But urgent action is warranted," Auer said. "It's the precautionary principle. If there is a risk of harm to human health or the environment, you don't have to have fully established cause-and-effect relationships to take action."]
By Anne Kibbler akibbler@heraldt.com
Irrefutable. Unequivocal. Overwhelming.
When the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its most recent report on global warming, the language - based on the work of almost 4,000 scientists and other experts from more than 130 countries -- left little room for argument.
"Today, the time for doubt has passed," said the report, released earlier this month. "The IPCC has unequivocally affirmed the warming of our climate system, and linked it directly to human activity."
The panel, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore, helped bring the global warming crisis down to ground level, said Matt Auer, professor of environmental science at Indiana University. But much of the work at the intergovernmental level is far removed from the concerns of ordinary people. The challenge, Auer said, is to get people to understand they need to change their own lifestyles.
"I think people perhaps are increasingly persuaded there is a problem, but that doesn't mean they're prepared to make the changes and sacrifices required to address the problem," he said. "My own bias is that we tend to get distracted by intergovernmental negotiations, and it begins to dominate the story instead of the more decentralized issues that we should be thinking about with global warming. What does this mean for Bloomington and Monroe County? What steps is our own municipality taking, or our university?"
Auer said he's cautiously optimistic about the future of climate change discussions, starting with an international conference next month in Bali. During that meeting, government leaders will try to come up with an action plan for measures to take when the Kyoto Protocol, an international accord to reduce greenhouse gases, expires in 2012. There's little agreement so far, however, on what targets or timetables to follow, and some reluctance on the part of the United States to consider new measures.
The U.S. was one of few developed countries that did not sign the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Auer said the White House, which was opposed to the treaty, now is using stronger language about the need for action on global warming, but it has called mainly for voluntary action by industry to reduce pollution.
"The IPCC has provided enough evidence to be past the precautionary stage, but the White House is saying there's still enough uncertainty that we have to be very careful on what actions we do take. But urgent action is warranted," Auer said. "It's the precautionary principle. If there is a risk of harm to human health or the environment, you don't have to have fully established cause-and-effect relationships to take action."
Jeff Riegel, one of the volunteers trained by Al Gore's staff to give presentations on "An Inconvenient Truth," said climate change has to start with the individual. But it may be a while before the urgency for change sinks in with ordinary citizens.
"I am 100 percent sure that this problem can be solved," said Riegel, the director of Bloomington-based BirdCountry.US. "I am also 99 percent sure that it will not be solved until there occur multiple catastrophic events. Unfortunately, I think thousands of people are going to have to die in this country before people wake up. They haven't felt it personally yet. When that happens, there will be overwhelming support. We won't be able to get anything done in this country without taking the environment into consideration. That's the way it should have been all along."
Riegel said when he shows the Gore movie, he tells people there's a lot they can do: switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs; don't drive when they don't have to; pay attention to the companies they spend money on; and vote for politicians who support climate change policy.
"Virtually every politician is getting on board," he said. "Even the ones that aren't are going to be, or they will be booted out of office in the next 10 years."
Key points from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report:
From 1900 to 2005, precipitation increased significantly in eastern parts of North and South America, northern Europe and northern and central Asia, but declined in the African Sahel, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of southern Asia.
Globally, the area affected by drought has likely increased since the 1970s.
The rate of global average sea level rise, caused by melting ice, has risen from .07 inches per year to .12 inches per year from 1961 to 1993.
The projected sea level rise at the end of the 21st century is from 7 to 23 inches.
Approximately 20 percent to 30 percent of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction.
Simon Brassell, chairman of the geological sciences department at Indiana University, has studied data that track climate change and the melting of glaciers during the history of the Earth. He says skeptics are just picking little holes in the global warming theory. He calls their views "a denial of evidence."
"Criticisms of Al Gore's movie ("An Inconvenient Truth") are minor details that are easily refuted," Brassell said. "It's a 'throwing- the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater' scenario. There are some aspects (of the movie) where there's a slight misinterpretation, and part of that can be addressed, but it doesn't change the overall message."
Brassell's analysis of studies of drilled ice cores, which indicate the correlation between increased carbon dioxide pollution and higher temperatures, makes clear that the recent spike in global temperatures is related to human use of fossil fuels.
"It's difficult to regard this as a natural variation in the climate system because of how stable it's been in the last 10,000 years," Brassell said. "Putting two and two together, it seems it's not just an inconvenient truth, but an irrefutable argument."
Copyright 1997-2007 Reporter-Times.com
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From: EUportal.cz (Prague, Czechoslovakia) ................[This story printer-friendly]
December 2, 2007
THE OTHER SIDE OF GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM
[Rachel's introduction: "The application of the so-called "precautionary principle," advocated by the environmentalists, is -- conceptually -- a wrong strategy, because human civilization cannot exist in a regime of the precautionary principle."]
By Vaclav Klaus
[Vaclav Klaus is President of the Czech Republic. This is the text of a speech delivered November 7 at Chatham House, London, UK.]
Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to address this distinguished audience. I would like to start by stressing how glad I am to be for the first time in the well-known Chatham House which has been the place of so many important talks and discussions in the whole 87 years of its existence.
My speeches here in London have been in the past years connected with two topics. The first one was the end of communism and our way of getting rid of its legacy. The second one was the European integration.
The transition from communism to a free society is over, and not only in my country. We may have reservations about developments in some of the former communist countries but I disagree with the attempts to look at those countries with a misleading optics of fighting communism there even now. It is a mistake and I am afraid a slightly snobbish position as well.
My second topic here used to be Europe and the European Union. Whereas the first issue is more or less closed because communism is over, the second issue is here with us. It has not faded away. On the contrary, with treaty after treaty, with summit after summit, the danger of creating a brave new world of a post-democratic European supranationalist entity is getting more and more acute. After almost half a century of communism the Czech Republic had a strong desire to be a normal European country again. We understood and accepted that it requires -- these days -- to become a member of the European Union. Nevertheless, due to our experience with the suppression of freedom and democracy in the name of allegedly "higher" goals, we consider the current European unification project itself -- again an almost holy and sacred goal which explains, justifies and excuses everything -- not only a blessing.
The recent embracement of the so-called Reform Treaty, which is in all important aspects identical with the old Constitutional Treaty, is a defeat for all true European democrats and should be interpreted as such. The down-playing of its true essence is intellectually unacceptable and morally inexcusable.
Nevertheless, there is another threat on the horizon. I see this threat in environmentalism which is becoming a new dominant ideology, if not a religion. Its main weapon is raising the alarm and predicting the human life endangering climate change based on man-made global warming. The recent awarding of Nobel Prize to the main apostle of this hypothesis was the last straw because by this these ideas were elevated to the pedestal of "holy and sacred" uncriticisable truths.
It became politically correct to caricature us, who dare to speak about it, as those who are talking about things they do not understand and are not experts on. This criticism is inappropriate. People like me do not have ambitions to enter the field of climatology. They do not try to better measure global temperature or to present alternative scenarios of the future global climate fluctuations.
They need not do it because the climate change debate is basically not about science; it is about ideology. It is not about global temperature; it is about the concept of human society. It is not about scientific ecology; it is about environmentalism, which is a new anti- individualistic, pseudo-collectivistic ideology based on putting nature and environment and their supposed protection and preservation before and above freedom. That's one of the reasons why my recently published book on this topic has a subtitle: "What is Endangered, Climate or Freedom?".
When we look at it in a proper historical perspective, the issue is - once again -- freedom and its enemies. Those of us who feel very strongly about it can never accept
- the irrationality with which the current world has embraced the climate change (or global warming) as a real danger to the future of mankind, as well as
- the irrationality of proposed and partly already implemented etatist and dirigistic measures because they will fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity, the two goals we consider -- I do believe -- our priorities.
My position can be summarized in the following way:
1. Contrary to the currently prevailing views -- promoted by global warming alarmists, by Al Gore's preaching, by the IPCC, or by the Stern Report -- the increase in global temperatures in the last years, decades and centuries has been very small and because of its size practically negligible in its actual impact upon human beings and their activities. For most of the Earth's history (95% of it), the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. In addition to it, using history again, it has been proved that the consequences of modest warming have been mostly positive, not negative.
2. The arguments of global warming alarmists rely exclusively upon very speculative forecasts, not upon serious analysis and extrapolation of past trends or upon undeniable conclusions of natural sciences. The available empirical evidence is not alarming. The highly publicized forecasts made by some leading environmentalists are based on experimental simulations of very complicated forecasting models that have not been found very reliable when explaining past developments. They were mostly done by software engineers, not by scientists themselves.
3. The debate has its important scientific side connected with the dispute whether the current mild warming is man-made or natural. Let's listen to the scientists but one thing is and becomes evident more and more: the scientific dispute about the causes of recent climate changes continues. The attempts to proclaim a scientific consensus are self-debilitating. There is none. More and more scientists, on the contrary, dare to speak out about it.
4. The issue has an important economic aspect which requires the application of a standard cost-benefit analysis. A rational response to any danger depends on the size and probability of the eventual risk and on the magnitude of the costs of its avoidance. I feel obliged to say that -- based on my knowledge -- I find the risk too small and the costs of eliminating it too high. The application of the so-called "precautionary principle," advocated by the environmentalists, is - conceptually -- a wrong strategy, because human civilization cannot exist in a regime of the precautionary principle.
5. The deindustrialization and similar restrictive policies will be of no help. Instead of blocking economic growth, the increase of wealth all over the world and fast technical progress -- all connected with freedom and free markets -- we should leave them to proceed unhampered. They represent the solution to any eventual climate changes, not their cause. We should trust in the rationality of men. We should never forget that the government failure is always much bigger than the market failure. We should not believe more in Al Gore than in the omnipotence of the Soviet or Czechoslovak central planners. Fifty- or hundred-year plans of the current environmentalists will not be any better than the five-year plans which liquidated the economic freedom (and the economic efficiency connected with it) in the centrally planned economies of the past.
6. The global warming issue has a very important North-South and West- East aspect as well. Environmental quality is a luxury good and demand for it increases with income and wealth. The developed countries had to go along the path of the environmental Kuznets curve in the past and do not have any right to prematurely impose their current overambitious environmental standards upon less developed countries, because that would lead to an economic disaster there.
The only conclusion is that no radical measures are necessary. Famous Czech writer of the early 20th century Jaroslav Hauek, whose book "The Good Soldier Schweik" is known world-wide, made a point with saying: "To chce klid". The Englishmen would probably say "Take it easy".
I lived most of my life in an oppressive and very unproductive political, economic and social system called communism. It was impossible to "take it easy". Now I live in a system based on the ideology of Europeism which prefers supranational institutions with their post-democracy to the good old democratic institutions in a well-defined constitutional sovereign state. It is difficult to "take it easy" again. And we are moving -- very rapidly -- to the era of environmentalism in which environment (or perhaps the irrational claims of environmentalists) is placed ahead of men and their freedom. We can take the global climate changes easy, but the climate propaganda and new wave of dangerous indoctrination of the whole world not.
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Rachel's Precaution Reporter offers news, views and practical examples of the Precautionary Principle, or Foresight Principle, in action. The Precautionary Principle is a modern way of making decisions, to minimize harm. Rachel's Precaution Reporter tries to answer such questions as, Why do we need the precautionary principle? Who is using precaution? Who is opposing precaution?
We often include attacks on the precautionary principle because we believe it is essential for advocates of precaution to know what their adversaries are saying, just as abolitionists in 1830 needed to know the arguments used by slaveholders.
Rachel's Precaution Reporter is published as often as necessary to provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the subject.
As you come across stories that illustrate the precautionary principle -- or the need for the precautionary principle -- please Email them to us at rpr@rachel.org.
Editors:
Peter Montague - peter@rachel.org
Tim Montague - tim@rachel.org
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Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 160
New Brunswick, N.J. 08901
rpr@rachel.org
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