The precautionary principle is a blunt instrument, a 90s throwback out of place in an era of “smart solutions” and big data.
A world of over seven billion people faces some pretty complex questions about the trade-offs involved in producing food, using resources, reducing disease and achieving the societies and environments in which we want to live. There’s a collision between short-term and long-term outcomes, narrow interests and broader ones, and between problems and opportunities Š the consequences of which may be unforeseeable. Fear of the unforeseeable gives the precautionary principle influence, but was there ever such a mismatch between a challenge and a solution?
Related on the SLP
Read the full story here: The precautionary principle is a blunt instrument
