In typical philosophical prose, ethicist Wade Robison said last night that individuals do not have to know everything about environmental problems in order to take steps to solve it.
Robison is currently an Ezra Hale Professor in applied ethics at Rochester Institute of Technology and the author of the prize-winning book "Decisions in Doubt: The Environment and Public Policy," which will be available in print soon.
In his lecture, Robison attacked conventional methods of environmental public-policy making, and challenged us to look at environmental issues in a more flexible and adaptive manner.
He began by outlining the traditional public policy-making methodology, which dictates we must collect all the information pertaining to an environmental problem before taking action.
"It is not rational to act, and so cause harm, without a showing of greater harm if we fail to act," he said.
Robison went on to explain how his contemporaries make policy decisions.
"They tend to choose a solution in which the good effects are more immediate, and the bad effects come significantly later, at least after the next election," he said. "Or they refer the decision to someone else, presumably more competent to decide, who can recommend what ought to be done."
According to Robison, this method of policy-making hinders action since it is rarely possible to know all the information surrounding environmental issues.
In the last segment of his lecture, Robison introduced a fresh and more innovative way to formulate public policy. He said decisions can be made without a complete understanding of the environmental issue at hand.
"The correct decision-procedure is one that takes seriously our always not being sure we have all relevant information and entrenches regarding public policy issues about the environment our normal method of making rational decisions in the face of doubt," he said.
Robison said, "We have enough evidence, given the low cost of taking preventative measures, to act -- rationally. And it would be immoral not to."
This approach to environmental policy-making greatly strays from the more cautious and conservative methods of Robison's contemporaries who are wary of acting without full knowledge of the issue.
He concluded the lecture by saying, "We should not be precluded a priori from acting to cause harm to prevent great possible harm."
Upon completing of lecture, Robison stood open to questions from the approximately 40-person audience.
When asked what he saw as the most dangerous environmental problem, Robison did not respond with the typical answers of the greenhouse effect, pollution and waste management. In maintaining the rather philosophical nature of the lecture, he asked, "How people make decisions about public policy-makers?"
