Juneau Empire (Alaska), January 9, 2008

CONSIDERING KNOWLEDGE'S LIMITS FOR TOMORROW'S SAKE

[Rachel's introduction: Both science and the economists are wrong if either imagines that judicious prudence originates in their perspective fields of understanding. The precautionary principle isn't a new idea. It is a natural element of human free will.]

By Rich Moniak, for the Juneau Empire

On Alaska's Shishmaref Island in the Chukchi Sea, global warming is not about the ability of scientists to predict the future. The retreating sea ice has robbed the community of its natural barrier against storm surges. Coupled with the melting of the once stable permafrost, the island is rapidly eroding and threatening the present day community of predominantly Native Alaskans.

The cause of global warming is debatable, though. Even as new studies add credibility to the possibility that the changes are human-induced, it is still a theory limited by the inability to truly model the earth's complexity. It's not a question of certainty as much as trust in the advances of scientific knowledge. And those most vigorously questioning science's conclusions are politicians with a focus on our economy.

Scientists and economists come together at the astrologer's table. Both see predictions through the glass ball of their professions. They are reading the global warming scenarios as cautions, one claiming a desire to protect physical human communities, the other to guard against erosion of the American machine that keeps almost all of us employed.

At the 1998 Wingspread Conference in Wisconsin, scientists, philosophers, lawyers and environmental activists met to discuss ways to implement the "precautionary principle" into American policy. This ideal that has been incorporated into more than a few international agreements states: "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."

The principle might well be imagined as an admission that science hasn't always been a basis of solid knowledge. Scientists supporting it seem to be reacting to past mistakes which have contributed to the present crisis they believe we're facing. At the same time, though, they are attempting to elevate their role in directing more of the affairs of our society.

Absent from the conference were the nation's economists. But replace the words human health and environment with economy, and it's apparent the two sides agree on safeguarding society from the recklessness of acting without complete certainty of knowledge. They only disagree over who should lead the way.

Both science and the economy [sic; economists?] are wrong if either imagines that judicious prudence originates in their perspective fields of understanding. The precautionary principle isn't a new idea. It is a natural element of human free will.

What's allowed us to progress to the point where science and the economy are at odds is that for too long the side effects of their advancements have been cast aside. When other people were harmed in relatively subtle ways, we've dismissed it as the price of progress. Only disasters like Love Canal, Chernobyl and Bhopal caused us to look at what might be lurking in our backyards.

In Discourse of Method, a philosophical classic published more than a hundred years before the industrial age began, Rene Descartes explored the limits of human knowledge. "I think, therefore I am" he famously wrote. A precept for all his thinking was never to accept anything "for true which [he] did not plainly know to be such."

The most obvious truth we will never know is tomorrow's. And this applies to both the doomsayers and those who predict that our actions today will have no serious consequences to our children's future health and the well being of their communities.

Security has always trumped the unknown, and thus the wish for certainty has made it easy to dismiss the philosopher. We've trusted the knowledge of experts only to learn later they never fully understood the world and its human inhabitants.

The cause of global warming challenges our belief systems. One is the economy with the metaphorical lifeline "In God We Trust" printed on our currency. Another is science, which we rely on more than money when our body is failing. We believe in preventative medicine to detect the worst diseases at the earliest stages. If we trust the doctor whose oath is to treat our individual ailments "so long as the treatment of others is not compromised," then perhaps we need a philosophy of life that grants greater respect to the unknown inhabitants of tomorrow's world.

** Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident.

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