Hey Andrew I wasn't the person twittering with you however since you are proceeding by analogy..
1. actually yes, if there was some evidence that a smoke alarm might malfunction and start a fire then there would likely be howls of protest to pull that smoke alarm off the market (for precautionary reasons) - and rightfully so. we expect our precautions to be safe. 2. Consider a classic precautionary measure: sunscreen in the age of ozone depletion. If all the sunscreens available to a parent have the potential of causing other harms - eg because they contain chemicals where there is emerging toxicity evidence (such as oxybenzone or metallic organic nanoparticles) - then it seems reasonable for parents to rely instead on older, more trusted methods of sun protection (hats, long clothes, umbrellas and limiting exposure to the sun) until such a time as a better precautionary measure becomes available. 3. Recent history is littered with examples of 'precautionary' innovations taken with intent to limit environmental damage that only served to create new and deeper problems: > Switching fuel systems to biofuels as a move away to petroleum that > inadvertently increased emissions from land use, fertiliser use and > compromised food security > recycling waste plastic into fleece to avoid landfill leaching which instead > led to mass release and bioaccumulation of tiny plastic fibres into ocean > systems via lint in washing water. > switching away from ozone-destroying CFC's in refrigeration to HFC's whih > turned out to have high greenhouse warming impact. There's nothing sacrosant about a measure taken for precautionary reasons - people screw up, learn new things, make mistakes and misjudgements all the time.. Jim On Oct 11, 2014, at 11:32 AM, Andrew Lockley wrote: > Following a twitter discussion with ETC, I thought I'd throw this question to > the list. > > "Does the precautionary principle apply to precautions" (or to damage > limitation techniques). > > Personally, I don't think the risk that my smoke alarm might catch fire is an > argument not to deploy it, or to delay doing so whilst I conduct a risk > assessment. > > Likewise, I don't think the precautionary principle applies to geoengineering. > > A > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. Jim Thomas ETC Group (Montreal) [email protected] +1 514 2739994 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
