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change science and providing policy-makers with information about all scientifically plausible climate change impacts.
This need of policy-makers to understand all plausible harms creates an enormous challenge for mainstream scientific institutions which usually rely on peerreview in which scientists normally review scientific claims by comparing claims to
empirically tested observations which are the ground of the scientific enterprise.
Yet, as Hans Jonas explained in “The Imperative of Responsibility, In Search of an
Ethics in a Technological Age,” because of the power of modern technology to create catastrophic harms such as those harms now foreseeable from human-induced
climate change, ethics requires that policy-makers approach these matters with a
“heuristics of fear,” replacing the former “projections of hope” that traditionally
guided policy (Jonas 1984, p. x). Yet, mainstream science is often uncomfortable
with conclusions not grounded in scientifically verifiable observations. If this is so,
ethics requires that IPCC’s mandate be amended to synthesize scientifically plausible conclusions about climate change outcomes.
But to do this, the world needs institutions that will publish scientifically plausible impacts of human activities, a project which is not within the mission of most
scientific research institutions. Also the international community needs scientific
journals which will publish scientifically informed judgements of plausible adverse
impacts from modern technologies.
For some potential environmental problems, scientific procedures have been
developed which allow policymakers to make regulatory rules to protect human
health from potential threats despite the fact that the threats have not been proven to
cause harms to life or ecological systems. For instance, many governments have
regulated potentially hazardous substances even though they have not proven to be
harmful but are suspected of being toxic because they have properties similar to
substances known to be toxic. Such an approach survives legal attack because many
environmental laws don’t require the government to prove some human activities
are harmful but only require the government to demonstrate the government program is not “arbitrary and capricious.” Governments can survive legal challenges to
regulatory rules that limit some environmental threats by giving the public an
opportunity to comment on proposed rules and responding to the comments. Such a
process has often been sufficient to withstand legal challenges that the government’s
regulatory decisions have been “arbitrary and capricious.”
Another way governments have effectively dealt with scientific uncertainty in
environmental policy disputes is to shift the burden of proof to opponents of environmental policies to prove that a potentially dangerous human activity is safe. This
has been the general approach of some European approaches to dealing with regulatory decisions that must be made in the face of scientific uncertainty (European
Commission 2017). This approach is particularly appropriate as an ethical matter
when a government is called upon to prevent extraordinarily dangerous potential
harms from human activities. Following this logic, a reasonable response to those
who resist climate change policies designed to protect human health or ecological
systems on the basis of scientific uncertainty would be to shift the burden of proof
to opponents of proposed climate change policies.
Lessons Learned from IPCC’s Underestimation of Climate Change Impacts…
change science and providing policy-makers with information about all scientifically plausible climate change impacts.
This need of policy-makers to understand all plausible harms creates an enormous challenge for mainstream scientific institutions which usually rely on peerreview in which scientists normally review scientific claims by comparing claims to
empirically tested observations which are the ground of the scientific enterprise.
Yet, as Hans Jonas explained in “The Imperative of Responsibility, In Search of an
Ethics in a Technological Age,” because of the power of modern technology to create catastrophic harms such as those harms now foreseeable from human-induced
climate change, ethics requires that policy-makers approach these matters with a
“heuristics of fear,” replacing the former “projections of hope” that traditionally
guided policy (Jonas 1984, p. x). Yet, mainstream science is often uncomfortable
with conclusions not grounded in scientifically verifiable observations. If this is so,
ethics requires that IPCC’s mandate be amended to synthesize scientifically plausible conclusions about climate change outcomes.
But to do this, the world needs institutions that will publish scientifically plausible impacts of human activities, a project which is not within the mission of most
scientific research institutions. Also the international community needs scientific
journals which will publish scientifically informed judgements of plausible adverse
impacts from modern technologies.
For some potential environmental problems, scientific procedures have been
developed which allow policymakers to make regulatory rules to protect human
health from potential threats despite the fact that the threats have not been proven to
cause harms to life or ecological systems. For instance, many governments have
regulated potentially hazardous substances even though they have not proven to be
harmful but are suspected of being toxic because they have properties similar to
substances known to be toxic. Such an approach survives legal attack because many
environmental laws don’t require the government to prove some human activities
are harmful but only require the government to demonstrate the government program is not “arbitrary and capricious.” Governments can survive legal challenges to
regulatory rules that limit some environmental threats by giving the public an
opportunity to comment on proposed rules and responding to the comments. Such a
process has often been sufficient to withstand legal challenges that the government’s
regulatory decisions have been “arbitrary and capricious.”
Another way governments have effectively dealt with scientific uncertainty in
environmental policy disputes is to shift the burden of proof to opponents of environmental policies to prove that a potentially dangerous human activity is safe. This
has been the general approach of some European approaches to dealing with regulatory decisions that must be made in the face of scientific uncertainty (European
Commission 2017). This approach is particularly appropriate as an ethical matter
when a government is called upon to prevent extraordinarily dangerous potential
harms from human activities. Following this logic, a reasonable response to those
who resist climate change policies designed to protect human health or ecological
systems on the basis of scientific uncertainty would be to shift the burden of proof
to opponents of proposed climate change policies.
Lessons Learned from IPCC’s Underestimation of Climate Change Impacts…