Global Commons' costs
Describe a policy that you think requires serious caution in addressing?
Precautionary Principle
Sometimes the political environment (situation) may demand conclusions from scientists ahead of sufficient scientific understanding of the relevant processes."
The context, processes, participants, ideas and experiences differ in each ecological problem.
fisheries, acid rain, climate change, deep sea fisheries, water pollution, dioxin drift all differ
" the sustainable harvest of tuna is uncertain"
p. 327-28.
"The public interest rarely appears unless there is a strong image motivating public concern."
"The cases suggest that in addition to being scientifically authoritative, science reports influence political discourse when they are expressed in terms of that speak to the needs of policy makers."
"But these are conflicting goals."
"Individual knowledge brokers gain their influence from their ability to make sense of uncertainty, give it meaning, and take a position on it, even if that is implicitly policy prescriptive."
p. 331.
"The concept of critical loads" this is a key concept from a scientific perspective, but may not be as politically savvy as it needs to be to make sense to policy makers or regulators alike.
"The public image of an issue directly affects its political fortunes."
"... but long-term international problems are usually too obscure." to attract widespread attention.
"Effective motivating images..." are important.
Science & Politics, pp. 327-350.
