Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
economic and social practices.
114
It is not intended to generate ready-
made solutions for policy.
115
Rather, its role is to assist decision-makers
with visualising desirable futures and with exploring how these could
be achieved.
116
As such, it is well-suited for use within a legal framework
that institutes normative precaution and ecological risk reduction as the
new status quo in policy formation.
3.3.4.1 Picturing the future
The
rst and second steps of strategy formation require policy-makers
to explore how anthropogenic stresses might be reduced over different
timescales. I envisage three different strands to this exploration which,
although they represent separate objectives, will necessarily in
uence
and interact with each other. These are: the reduction of consumption; the
deployment of preferred options; and the phasing out of options identi
ed
as presenting unacceptable threats to ecosystem health. Baselines are to be
set representing futures in which levels of consumption and stress, and
reliance on harmful options have been reduced as far as possible. It is for
policy-makers to set these baselines and the timescales over which advan-
ces might be made. The statutory objective and principles act as guides for
this exercise. A requirement for the independent review of policy pro-
posals would also (as argued at
Section 3.4.2.2
) ensure that serious efforts
are made to identify the most ecologically desirable outcomes that might
be achieved.
The setting of baselines is followed by the backcasting process itself.
The baseline is compared with the present position, and policy measures
and actions identi
ed that would promote movement from the latter
towards the former. These may include measures that promote the use
of preferred alternatives, that remove obstacles to their use, or that would
make continued use of less ecologically desirable alternatives disadvan-
tageous. Measures identi
ed at this stage might also address potential
economic and social impacts that realising a vision may give rise to (by,
for instance, in
uencing the costs of domestic energy supply). Again, it
is for policy-makers to establish programmes of measures and realistic
lead-in times for their implementation with the objectives and principles
114
Vergragt and Quist,
'
Backcasting for Sustainability
'
, 749; Robinson,
'
Futures under
,822.
115
Vergragt and Quist,
Glass
'
'
Backcasting for Sustainability
'
,749;Dreborg,
'
Essence of
Backcasting
'
, 825.
116
Dreborg,
'
Essence of Backcasting
'
, 825; Vergragt and Quist,
'
Backcasting for
Sustainability
'
, 749; Quist and Vergragt,
'
Past and Future of Backcasting
'
, 1030
-
1.
