What Would The Precautionary Principle Prevent?
Dennis Avery, The Hudson Institute Western Europe is going to ban all new technologies (perhaps so we won’t have to worry about changes upsetting our lives). They’ve already banned genetically modified foods, and now they want the rest of the world to follow their “precautionary principle” by prohibiting all new technology until it’s proven it will never cause harm to anyone or anything in the environment. See how simple that makes things? Nothing new would qualify. If we’d just done this 100 years ago, think how uncomplicated (albeit short) life would already be. Automobiles? Why would we let you loose in a two-ton gasoline-powered projectile that could destroy you and your neighbor’s house in a single moment of inattention? We’ll have no traffic jams, just horse manure clogging the streets. Electricity? It causes fires, and even kills people accidentally. I’m content with the music from scratchy records on a wind-up Victrola. Or my wife’s humming. Penicillin? At high doses, it kills
