🚀 go-pugleaf

For a concrete proposal to alter BOTTOMLINEWORLD and
 thereby change our entire society, see:

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   THE 4P APPROACH TO DEALING WITH SCIENTIFIC UNCERTAINTY

           by ROBERT COSTANZA and LAURA CORNWELL
   from ENVIRONMENT, Volume 34, Number 9, November, 1992

ROBERT COSTANZA is director of the Maryland International
Institute for Ecological Economics and a professor at the
University of Maryland's Center for Environmental and
Estuarine Studies in Solomons, Maryland.

LAURA CORNWELL is a graduate research assistant at the
institute and a policy analyst on the Regulatory Innovations
Staff of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in
Washington, D.C. The views and opinions expressed are those of
the authors and are not to be taken as official policy of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or of any other public
or private entity.
                             ...

It is necessary to differentiate between risk, which is an
event with a known probability, and true uncertainty, which is
an event with an unknown probability.

One often sees contradictory stories in the media from
"reputable scientific sources" who claim, one day, that
"Global warming will occur, and the results will be
catastrophic unless something is done immediately," and, on
another day, that "There is no direct evidence for global
warming, and people should not waste money on something that
may or may not happen." On yet another day, one hears that
"Toxic chemical X causes cancer," followed on the next day by
the statement that "Toxic chemical X occurs in too low a
concentration in the environment to cause cancer." These
seemingly contradictory statements from the scientific
community send social decision making process into a tailspin,
On the one hand, because scientists cannot agree on what is
happening, should policymakers wait until better information
is available before acting? On the other hand, if society
fails to act, the situation may deteriorate rapidly and
irreversibly. What are people to do in these all-too-common
situations, and why has science failed to provide the certain
and unbiased answers on which good policymaking depends? What
is wrong with the link between science and policy, and how can
it be improved? Is a different, nonregulatory approach needed
for managing the environment?

[snip]

The entire "4P" paper is about 650 lines long and is located
  at http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page33.htm
  or FTP or Gopher at csf.colorado.edu as "4p.txt"
  or ask me and I will EMAIL it to you.

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                     WHERE WILL IT END?                8/22/96
           by Jay Hanson <jhanson@ilhawaii.net>

    Three groups of scientists, using different methodologies
and data sets, have found that we may have as little as 35
years before our socio-economic systems destroy our life-
support system.(1)  Moreover, global oil production could peak
in as little as four years!(2)  Yet our political leaders are
calling for even more of the same: "With the . . . plan for
economic growth, our economy will achieve its full potential
with 3.5 percent -- or higher -- growth per year, putting our
country back on the right track and giving every American
family the chance to achieve the American Dream." Does this
sound rational to you?

    Plato, the most celebrated, honored and revered of all the
Western philosophers, lived during the Golden Age of Athens
that lasted from 445 to 431 B.C.  His writings mark the first
use of "reason" to decide moral questions.

    From Plato to our present society, we can trace the
ascendance of reason through the ideas of Aristotle, Bacon,
Descartes, and especially the English philosopher John Locke.
In 1664, Locke argued that there is a natural law governing
humans and that it can be known by human reason: "And reason
. . . teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being
all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in
his life, health, liberty or possessions."

    Locke's powerful call for reason justified the English
Revolution of 1688 that ended the absolutism of the British
monarchy and gave power to the people.  Moreover, his words
were pivotal in our own Declaration of Independence and
Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789.

    In 1776, reason was placed at the heart of our present
economic system by Adam Smith.  Smith said that laissez-faire
(let alone) economics would allow rational, self-interested
individuals to raise the wealth of the working class
automatically, as if by an "Invisible Hand."

    Smith claimed that if people concentrated on rational
self-interest, certain innate human attributes would regulate
economic activity:  "Every man, as long as he does not violate
the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own
interests in his own way, and to bring both his industry and
capital into competition with those of any other man, or
order of men."  But what if Smith's self-interest was not as
rational as he thought it was?  What then?

    In fact, Locke and Smith were wrong -- people are not
"rational" -- they do not think like computers.(3)  For
example, they routinely fail to make inferences according to
Bayes' Theorem, which is a formula used to calculate the
probability that a particular event will occur.  People give
recently presented information undue importance,(4) thereby
producing answers that are not rational (out of sight, out of
mind).

    Can people who are not rational sustain Democracy?  In
AN INQUIRY INTO THE HUMAN PROSPECT, Heilbroner considered the
damage that our economy is inflicting on our life-support
system and projected continuing (but gradually slowing)
economic growth until approximately the year 2005.  At that
time, he sees the need for highly authoritarian governments
to control the transition to worldwide economic decline.(5)

    So on the eve of our self-destruction, we find ourselves
with socio-economic systems designed for a model of human that
has never existed -- led by people whose "mental system is
failing to comprehend the modern world".(6)  Where will it end?

    "In the end," says the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's
parable, "in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet
and say to us," 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'"

                             ...
NOTES:
(1) http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/
(2) http://www.wri.org/wri/energy/jm_oil/index.html
(3) Ornstein, 1991, p. 3.
(4) http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page19.htm#HAMM
(5) Quoted in Daly & Cobb, 1989, p. 2.
(6) Ornstein and Ehrlich, 1989, p. 2.

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