Sunstein: Why the 'safe' choice can be dangerous
July 14, 2008
Cass Sunstein
The following article, "Throwing precaution to the wind," written by Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein '78, was published in the Boston Globe on July 13, 2008.
Scientists agree that the climate is changing, but they debate the extent of the danger. In the face of that disagreement, many people are asking: If we are uncertain, shouldn't we take aggressive action? The planet is at risk, the argument goes, and so it would be prudent to take bold steps immediately.
Similarly, experts debate the threat posed by low levels of arsenic in drinking water, by genetically modified food, by particulates in the air. While the experts argue, many citizens are asking: Isn't it better to be safe than sorry?
These apparently sensible questions have culminated in an influential doctrine, known as the precautionary principle. The central idea is simple: Avoid steps that will create a risk of harm. Until safety is established, be cautious; do not require unambiguous evidence. The principle, in its many variations, has come to play a powerful role in public debate, the development of government policy, and even international law. It can be, and has been, applied to countless problems, including nuclear power, cellphones, pesticides, electromagnetic fields, and even human cloning.
Yet the precautionary principle, for all its rhetorical appeal, is deeply incoherent. It is of course true that we should take precautions against some speculative dangers. But there are always risks on both sides of a decision; inaction can bring danger, but so can action. Precautions, in other words, themselves create risks - and hence the principle bans what it simultaneously requires.
Consider the Iraq war. At times, the Bush administration justified the war on explicitly precautionary grounds - that even the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iraq was so threatening that it demanded action. Indeed, the idea of "preemptive war" articulated by President Bush is a kind of precautionary principle. The nation went to war on the chance that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But this precaution is imposing a heavy price and creating serious risks for the future.
War is unique, but the same point holds in other contexts, including the domain of climate change, in which costly precautions inevitably create risks. This is not to say that we should not take action to avert the dangers posed by climate change; we should. But if we take steps to reduce risks, we will always create fresh hazards. No choice is risk-free. For environmental and other problems, we need to decide which risks to combat - not comfort ourselves with the pretense that there is such a thing as a "safe" choice.
Continue reading "Throwing precaution to the wind."
Cass R. Sunstein is Felix Frankfurter professor of law, Harvard Law School, and coauthor, most recently, of "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness."