Precautionary Risk Management : Dealing with Catastrophic Loss Potentials in Business, The Community and Society

Dealing with high-stakes risk potentials depends on our ability to come to grips with some easy to understand, yet difficult to apply, criteria for decision. We need to go beyond the façade of pseudo-scientific assessments that cater to special interests. We need to take a fresh, honest look at the only two sensible decision criteria: precautionary avoidance and fatalism. This book shows why scientific assessments of catastrophic risk based on 'averages' don't work, and sets the stage for making the tough choice between precaution and fatalism. High-stakes, catastrophic, risk potentials are by their very nature terminal and irreversible: We don't get a second-chance. Suggestions that we treat these risks as we do the "statistical" risks we face, using simple cost/ benefit analyses based on averages, just don't make sense. The problem with catastrophe is that, in the long run, there may be no long run. The only sensible approaches to catastrophic risks remain precautionary avoidance, and fatalistic acceptance ("why worry?"). Precautionary avoidance brings with it its own set of issues. How do we make progress, without exposing ourselves to precautionary dilemmas ("doomed if we do, doomed if we don't")? We suggest here that avoidance of precautionary dilemmas, via alternatives assessment and other strategies, should be the driving force behind risk-based science. To the extent some degree of fatalism may be inescapable, suggestions are offered for basing this response on reasoned acceptance rather than mere acquiescence

Dealing with high-stakes risk potentials depends on our ability to come to grips with some easy to understand, yet difficult to apply, criteria for decision. We need to go beyond the façade of pseudo-scientific assessments that cater to special interests. We need to take a fresh, honest look at the only two sensible decision criteria: precautionary avoidance and fatalism. This book shows why scientific assessments of catastrophic risk based on 'averages' don't work, and sets the stage for making the tough choice between precaution and fatalism.

Dealing with high-stakes risk potentials is dependent on getting to grips with easy to understand, yet difficult to apply, criteria for decision. With a fresh, honest approach, this book shows why scientific assessments of catastrophic risk based on averages don't work, and sets the stage for making the tough choice between precaution and fatalism.