Review: Precautionary Tools for Reshaping Environmental Policy, by Nancy J. Myers and Carolyn Raffensperger (eds.)

Abstract

Review: Precautionary Tools for Reshaping Environmental Policy Edited by Nancy J. Myers and Carolyn Raffensperger Reviewed by Victoria Carchidi Myers, Nancy J. and Carolyn Raffensperger, eds. Precautionary Tools for Reshaping Environmental Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. 339 pp. $25.00 ISBN: 0-262- 63323-X, softbound. Recycled, acid-free paper. How to Avoid Regret If someone discovered a pollution-free source of power tomorrow, we would seize upon it as the solution to global warming, without thinking twice. But that’s how we got into our present environmental plight. There’s gotta be a better way—and there is: As Nancy Myers and Carolyn Raffensperger explain, we need to adopt the precautionary principle. (Myers, Communications Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN), authors or co-authors all but one of the first eight chapters, and two of the remaining seven.) The precautionary principle dictates that when harm might occur, we proceed cautiously and err on the side of safety. As commonsense as a platitude--“Look before you leap. First, do no harm. Better safe than sorry. Prevention is the best cure” (4)—it seems a no-brainer. Myers acknowledges that something similar led to regulatory legislation in the 1960s and 70s. But its application encounters resistance in the US. As one Bush administrator said, “We consider it a mythical concept, perhaps like a unicorn” (119). This book details the care and feeding of this mythical beast. Part I provides a “tool chest” for precautionary approaches, such as: “heeding early warnings” and “asserting the public trust role of government” (29). Part II presents a checklist and examples of community groups implementing the tools of Part I. Part III addresses situations that call for precaution, such as mad cow disease, the ravaging of the oceans, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). One subtext is the place of the United States in a global community. The book focuses on American attitudes, in part because other countries have more readily used the principle to safeguard their citizens and environment. An appendix lists protocols and treaties in Europe and elsewhere that incorporate the precautionary principle to address pollution and genetically modified organisms (GMO). But the federal courts, Raffensperger demonstrates, have been swayed away from public protection. Electronic Green Journal , Issue 26, Spring 2008 ISSN: 1076­7975