Politicizing the Environmental Debate, 2000–2017 213
environmental action. The most obvious exam-
ple is global warming, where the mere fact of
scientific uncertainty is not in itself an argument
against (or for that matter, for) action. Rather...
we need to look at the level of uncertainty, the
direction of that uncertainty, and then particu-
larly at the likely costs and benefits of different
levels of action.
However, this understanding of the precau-
tionary principle is very Anglo-Saxon, whereas
a much more radical interpretation comes from
the German version (the so-called Vorsorge-
prinzip), the more common interpretation on
the Continent. This principle in essence sug-
gests building “a margin of safety into all deci-
sion making.” In the Danish interpretation it
becomes “giving nature and the environment the
benefit of the doubt.”
But this is a rather problematic argument. In
essence it argues “better safe than sorry,” which
of course sounds eminently agreeable. How-
ever, such an approach ignores the fundamental
insight from [a] Harvard study, namely that if
we try to become more safe in some areas, we
spend resources that cannot be used doing good
in other areas. Thus, saving extra lives at great
cost—just to be sure—quite possibly means for-
going the chance to save many more lives more
cheaply in other areas.
...
[A]ny significant prioritization in our society
is evaluated against a background of uncertain
knowledge and our propensity to be risk averse,
and with the realization that the decision will
be hard to reverse, and have momentous conse-
quences, both for many people and far into the
future. This still makes the environmental pro-
posals just one example among many.
That the environmental area has been able
to monopolize the precautionary principle is in
essence due to the Litany and our fear of doomsday.
Of course, if large-scale ecological catastrophes
were looming on the horizon we might be more
inclined to afford the extra margin of safety for
the environment. But... such a general concep-
tion is built on a myth.
The whole point of prioritization is to use
our resources as well as possible, on the basis
of all the information available. For this rea-
son, the precautionary principle should not be
used to tip the scales a bit more in favor of the
environment, because the distribution would
by definition no longer be the best possible. In
this way, the precautionary principle is actu-
ally all about making worse decisions than we
need to....
When we fear for our environment, we
seem easily to fall victim to a short-term
feel-good solution which spends money on
relatively trifling issues and thus hold back
resources from far more important ones. We
need to be rational and make well-consid-
ered decisions in our use of resources when
it comes to the aquatic environment, pesti-
cides and global warming. This does not mean
that rational environmental management and
environmental investment is not often a good
idea—only that we should compare the costs
and benefits of such investments to similar
investments in all the other important areas of
human endeavor.
On the whole I believe it is important to
emphasize that being overly optimistic is not
without cost, but that being too pessimistic also
carries a hefty price tag.
Source: Bjorn Lomborg: The Skeptical Environmentalist:
Measuring the Real State of the World (New York:
Cambridge University Press), pp. 3. 348-50.