Suchergebnisse

In this forum contribution, the planetary boundaries discourse put forward by W. Steffen and colleagues is scrutinized. These boundaries are defined as a 'safe operating space for humanity based on the intrinsic biophysical processes that regulate the stability of the Earth system'. Without reference to specific empirical shortcomings, it is shown that this discourse falls prey to the scientistic fallacy as part of utopian thought. Thus the erroneous belief is propagated that reality, through empirical research, can be penetrated to the full whereby a complete, that is, utopian, grasp of human reality can be translated into said 'operating space'. This discourse is shown to be incoherent and lays waste to any useful research that tries to fathom particular accidents, crises and contingencies.

In this contribution, we propose that 'sound' government policy should be characterised by a proportionate, integral vision with due consideration to tradeoffs between social costs and benefits. This principle also applies to government policy regarding the protection of workers from exposure to chemicals. It should be taken into account that having a job is a huge health benefit. Less educated people are statistically likely to enjoy ten additional healthy years, if employed. Although there is no debate about the risks of exposure to high doses of chemicals, there is most certainly debate on the magnitude, nature and possible cumulative effects of low-dose exposure to chemicals. These are established by model-based assumptions. The current advisory structure in which the Health Council of the Netherlands restricts its focus to the immediate health benefits for workers on the basis of risk avoidance models, and the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands which focuses primarily on policy costs for trade and industry, is hardly a sound basis for well-considered decision making. The challenge for the scientific experts is to provide political administrators with an insightful social cost-benefit analysis, including all the concomitant uncertainties.

Recognising the importance of science to climate policies, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (the 'Paris Agreement' or 'Agreement') stipulates that 'an effective and progressive response to the urgent threat of climate change' should be based on 'the best available scientific knowledge.' The terms 'best available scientific knowledge' or 'best available science' are used in several places throughout the agreement.

Risk assessments of micronutrients are carried out in the customary deficiency‐excess model. It is regarded as straightforward and unambiguous. Nevertheless, it is a problematic amalgamation of two different and to a certain extent contrasting perspectives on risk and science that we will criticize in this contribution. Our critique is framed in a conceptual scheme of opposing perspectives highlighted by the rival characteristics of RDAs and SULs and the role of science therein. The one part of our scheme holds the typically modern approach that centers on risks that can be scientifically assessed more or less confidently. Subsequent policies are aimed at preventing major health problems that affect the majority of the population from early on in life. The RDAs are the ideal type‐case here. The other part of our scheme holds a much more postmodern approach in which health risks are explicitly recognized as "uncertain." Dealing with those risks has little to do with major health problems from early on in life. Here, we encounter the scientific quandary of disentangling complex factors and impacts that may relate to some extra quality of life later on in life. SULs are exemplarily thereof. We will show that RDAs originally spawned from the scientific aim of securing objective knowledge "to lay down the requirements of an adequate" diet. SULs, conversely, are the upshot of generating acceptable outcomes driven by ever‐increasing safety requirements. This shift from securing objective knowledge to generating acceptable outcomes will be addressed in relation to precautionary culture.

Responding to public fears and the loss of confidence in the aftermath of several food safety crises in the 1990s and 2000s, more and more regulatory laws have increasingly been affected by the precautionary principle. To clarify how those developments can have adverse consequences, we discuss two very different cases. First, at the molecular level we discuss the problems the system encounters by strictly applying the linear no-threshold (LNT) at low doses model, which was adopted in response to fears about the effects of ionizing radiations. Second, at a global scale, we discuss the problems associated with the precautionary regulation on Illegal, Unreported and Unregistered Fisheries that came into effect January 1, 2010. The technical aspects of food safety testing and their impacts are perhaps unknown to policy makers but they do dominate safety decisions. Both examples show that strict application of the precautionary principle produce deleterious side effects, which go against the very policy values that the precautionary regulation should protect. We show, in particular, that overly precautionary food safety regulation may harm food security. We conclude in the EU and other Western nations, problems of food security are much more relevant to human health and life expectancy than food safety. We recommend that current food safety regulation based on the precautionary risk-regulation reflex should normatively be re-evaluated with a complete regard for the values of food security – both within and outside the EU.