Tim Worstall

7 responses so far ↓

• 1 Stuck-Record // Apr 19, 2012 at 9:50 am

  “If you want to live by the precautionary principle, then crawl up in a ball and live in a cave.”

  Can’t do that. A bear might enter, or the roof could fall in. That rules a cave out. Also, humans aren’t designed to curl up for long periods and your muscles will atrophy. But you’ll starve first anyway. So that’s out as well.

• 2 blokeinfrance // Apr 19, 2012 at 1:02 pm

  Great stuff, Exxon CEO, fully agree with you mate, except…
  Big Oil is about the most risk averse industry on the planet.
  Hydraulic fracturing was not invented by your huge R&D department but by some ordinary Jo in Oklahoma.
  Cheers

• 3 blokeinfrance // Apr 19, 2012 at 1:23 pm

  Thinking about stuck record’s comment above, it becomes clear that the Precautionary Principle isn’t a principle at all.
  A principle should work under all circumstances, e.g. I will fill out my tax return honestly even if everyone else is lying like a rug.
  But the precautionary principle doesn’t work this way, it’s just (as Tim would say) a system of trade-offs.
  So do we frack, or do we let little old ladies die of hypothermia.
  Your choice, voters.

• 4 dearieme // Apr 19, 2012 at 1:44 pm

  As someone or other observed, introduction of the Precautionary Principle didn’t satisfy the Precautionary Principle.

• 5 James James // Apr 19, 2012 at 4:10 pm

  “This is the famous precautionary principle.

  Note that now we have completely abandoned the pretense of scientific public policy.”

• 6 serf // Apr 19, 2012 at 7:37 pm

  The precautionary principle means:

  Don’t take any risks that I don’t like an certainly don’t analyse cost / benefit.

• 7 Kits Coty // Apr 19, 2012 at 8:41 pm

  The Greens love the precautionary principle. “We must ban nanotechnology becuase of the danger to life la la la” But if they were truly consistent about it, they ‘d be advocating banning electricity as that kills people every year…

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