REN R360 Lecture Notes - Goal Setting, Risk Assessment, Precautionary Principle
4 Mar 2013
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Document Summary
The precautionary principle does not specify which actions are appropriate under particular circumstances. The choices among potential anticipatory actions, however should be informed by the following: full consideration of the weight of evidence for potential harm. Ii) the kind and degree of scientific uncertainty associated with the evidence. Policy decisions are often made by focusing primarily on economic or political factors or by considering only one kind of risk. Goal setting is particularly important for establishing environmental and health policies because choices among human activities can have wide spread adverse or favourable impacts on regional and global ecosystems. Goal setting requires us to ask the following questions: 1) where do we want to be at some future time. 3) what mechanism is in place or could be put in place to determine which visions for the future will prevail.
