Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
activity may have is fundamental to deciding how we should manage a
risk that harm will be caused. For example, an inability to predict out-
comes that is due to a lack of data may be addressed through monitoring
and observation. Conversely, waiting on new information may be of no
assistance where present ignorance of likely outcomes is due both to an
inability to understand how natural systems behave and to their inherent
unpredictability.
20
Uncertainty over how human intervention may affect ecosystem
health lies predominantly at this latter extreme of the term
s spectral
range. Our ignorance is such that it effectively precludes the meaningful
use of risk assessment to decide whether action to advance economic
and social objectives would be environmentally tolerable, and therefore
of approaches to environmental decision-making that depend on the
credible prediction of likely systemic reactions to human disturbance.
21
Accordingly, a decision-making approach over how activities should
be controlled to reduce their cumulative impacts on ecosystem health
is required which is not dependent on information about their causal
consequences.
Thequestionofhowchoicesmightbemadewhereknowledgeoftheir
likely environmental effects is lacking has been and remains the subject
of extensive debate. It is a key consideration in the sustainable develop-
ment discourse. A broad consensus has emerged, as re
'
ected in the
in
c certainty
should not provide a reason for inaction when threats of environmental
harm are present.
22
I consider in this section whether the precautionary
uence of the precautionary principle, that a lack of scienti
'
in P. Harremoës et al. (eds) The Precautionary Principle in the 20th
Century: Late Lessons from Early Warnings (London: Earthscan, 2002), pp. 185
Twelve Late Lessons
'
-
90;
S. R. Dovers and J.W. Handmer,
Ignorance, Sustainability, and the Precautionary Principle:
Towards an Analytical Framework
'
in R. Harding and E. Fisher (eds) Perspectives on the
Precautionary Principle (Sydney: The Federation Press, 1999), pp. 167
'
83; J. Zander, The
Application of the Precautionary Principle in Practice: Comparative Dimensions (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 14
-
-
17; A. Klinke and O. Renn,
'
Adaptive and
Integrative Governance on Risk and Uncertainty
'
(2012) 15 Journal of Risk Research, 276
-
7.
20
Zander,
'
Precautionary Principle in Practice
'
,pp.16
-
17; Klinke and Renn,
'
Adaptive
and Integrative Governance
'
,276
-
7.
21
Young,
'
Uncertainty and the Environment
'
,pp.41
-
2; A. Stirling,
'
Participation, Precaution
and Re
inW. N. Adger and A. Jordan (eds)
Governing Sustainability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 203
exive Governance for Sustainable Development
'
-
4;
O. Renn,
in W. N. Adger and A. Jordan (eds)
Governing Sustainability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 232
'
Precaution and the Governance of Risk
'
-
5.
22
J. Wiener,
inD.Bodansky,J.BrunnéeandE.Hey(eds)The Oxford
Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007), p. 597; A. Trouwborst,
'
Precaution
'
'
The Precautionary Principle in General International
