Brisbane has a bright new shiny bicycle hire system in place throughout the city and inner suburbs. For a reasonable cost, you can hire a bike and ride it point to point through the CBD and inner suburbs. The bikes look like they are based on the adage "there's no such thing as a speed bump in a hire car". The bikes look as stodgy and unbreakable as Russian tanks, and move with the speed of cold treacle. High speed manoeuvres are but a dream on these oxen of the bicycle world.
However, you must wear helmets or wear a $100 fine. Somehow, cyclists in those traffic mad cities of Paris and Rome are able to go bare headed, but Brisbane must be a disaster area for cyclists. Associate Professor Chris Rissel from University of Sydney's School of Public Health has called to scrap bike helmets. He says forcing people to wear bike helmets is hurting our health because fewer people want to ride. (sound familiar?) Dr Rissel says policy makers should consider the health and environmental benefits of more people cycling, and work to remove the many barriers to riding a bike.
It also counts against the bike hire scheme, as you will have to find a helmet before you ride. Share a helmet anyone?
The original precaution of wearing a helmet is now causing problems where it is probably not needed.
19 October 2010
More on the Peltzman Effect. Gridiron helmets and how they contribute to head injury
My earlier post discussed the Peltzman effect, where people react to increased safety by taking greater risks. The NY Times Freakonomics blog on 5 February 2010 had an interesting article about what happens to a head inside a gridiron helmet after a nasty hit.
Modern gridiron helmets have led to a significant decline in fatal head injuries in the actual sport. But helmets built to prevent death may actually be worse for concussion prevention. Modern helmets have allowed tacklers to use them as offensive weapons with little regard to safety. Concussion is now a major issue with both the NFL, college and high school games. The long term effects of concussion include dementia and mental disorders and NFL players are at higher risk than the general population to these diseases. Comparatively to rugby and Australian rules, dementia rates for gridiron players (and soccer players probably from headers) are much higher.
Here again is the precautionary principle skewing the precaution. Its also a case of the PP not being applied. Unfortunately for gridiron players, the NFL and NCAA have not reacted to a real risk (concussion) by implementing preventative measures (new rules, better helmets).
Modern gridiron helmets have led to a significant decline in fatal head injuries in the actual sport. But helmets built to prevent death may actually be worse for concussion prevention. Modern helmets have allowed tacklers to use them as offensive weapons with little regard to safety. Concussion is now a major issue with both the NFL, college and high school games. The long term effects of concussion include dementia and mental disorders and NFL players are at higher risk than the general population to these diseases. Comparatively to rugby and Australian rules, dementia rates for gridiron players (and soccer players probably from headers) are much higher.
Here again is the precautionary principle skewing the precaution. Its also a case of the PP not being applied. Unfortunately for gridiron players, the NFL and NCAA have not reacted to a real risk (concussion) by implementing preventative measures (new rules, better helmets).
Peltzman Effect: Negative effect of taking precautions
“The Peltzman Effect is the hypothesized tendency of people to react to a safety regulation by increasing other risky behavior, offsetting some or all of the benefit of the regulation”. Named after Dr. Sam Peltzman, a renowned professor of economics from the University of Chicago Business School, it is a theory he has been espousing since 1975. Dr. Peltzman’s early research dealt with regulatory laws and traffic safety. He and some fellow economists have expanded this theory into other areas of safety. The main premise is that safety regulations may have unintended consequences that counteract the purpose of the rule.
The Peltzman Effect is typified by drivers who take greater risks when driving unsafely. Their cars have more safety features like ABS and air bags, or they are forced to wear seat belts and so they offset the safety advantages by bad driving.
Can we see this reflected in bicycle helmet rules, ostensibly brought in as a precaution against head injury. Personally, a bike helmet never affected the way I rode a bike.
Could the PP as applied to GM crops reflect the Peltzman Effect? The original thinking was to ban GM crops to prevent a biological catastrophe if the GM crops interfered with natural organisms. But by banning the GM crops, are we taking extra environmental risks by pushing industrial agriculture further with tougher pesticides, more land and greater water needs that may be worse than the risks of GM crops?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltzman_effect and http://www.asse.org/academicsjournal/archive/vol4no3/docs/fall07-feature02.pdf
The Peltzman Effect is typified by drivers who take greater risks when driving unsafely. Their cars have more safety features like ABS and air bags, or they are forced to wear seat belts and so they offset the safety advantages by bad driving.
Can we see this reflected in bicycle helmet rules, ostensibly brought in as a precaution against head injury. Personally, a bike helmet never affected the way I rode a bike.
Could the PP as applied to GM crops reflect the Peltzman Effect? The original thinking was to ban GM crops to prevent a biological catastrophe if the GM crops interfered with natural organisms. But by banning the GM crops, are we taking extra environmental risks by pushing industrial agriculture further with tougher pesticides, more land and greater water needs that may be worse than the risks of GM crops?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltzman_effect and http://www.asse.org/academicsjournal/archive/vol4no3/docs/fall07-feature02.pdf
18 October 2010
The Precautionary Principle switches sides to the Military Industrial Complex
Benjamin H Friedman claims US defense policymakers have adopted the precautionary principle in his paper "The Terrible 'Ifs'".
The USA spends huge amounts on defence against uncertain threats unlikely to affect Americans. War can be considered a type of risk or uncertainty. The PP applies in two ways:
Security interests are interwoven with politics, and so are more uncertain than say environmental risks with their basis in physical sciences. However, the dangers in security can be catastrophic and sudden, and do require preventative actions which is why countries spend significantly on defence budgets. But can the costs be ignored?
American governments have depicted a world of uncertainty, danger and terrorist threats that require expensive preventative measures. Unexplained and ambiguous threats makes it harder to deal in risks and probabilities, and makes comparisons over costs more difficult.
But statistically, the world is a better place. The cold war is over, rogue states are reined in. Communism has moved towards capitalism. Being safer, should we spend less on defence?
Psychologically, catastrophes like 911 figure in people's minds more than simple tragedies like road deaths, so spending to prevent the big ticket catastrophes is expected. In environmental and other areas of PP interest, both sides of the argument are able to debate. However in security, the government holds all the cards; they hold the information that is not open to outside view, and they also know the politics is in preaching danger. On the other side, there is no other side as former defence secretary Les Alpin said.
While Friedman writes about the USA, the lesson applies to Australia. Who can forget the Howard government's use of the terrorist and refugee menace to ramp up security concerns. Even through there are two party political systems in both Australia and the USA, politics for both parties are driven by the electorate to inflate threats, be it law and order or national security.
The security "industry" made up of security agencies, think tanks, military forces, arms suppliers and lobbyists are all driven by the financial rewards of ramping up insecurities and uncertainties in the population. There is nothing to be made by proclaiming a lessening of danger. The ability of applying cost benefit analysis and risk assessment to the expenditures is clouded in claims of lessening our security.
A crude comparison can be made between the military industrial complex and the deep green environmental movement in their application of the PP. Both apply their version of the strong PP. Neither can be questioned over the appropriateness of large expenditures on uncertain possibly catastrophic events. Action must be taken to prevent improbable risks.
Who would have thought two diametrically opposed groups would cohabit under the PP roof?
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv30n4/v30n4-1.pdf
The USA spends huge amounts on defence against uncertain threats unlikely to affect Americans. War can be considered a type of risk or uncertainty. The PP applies in two ways:
- American national security policy is precautionary (as are most countries) and so suffers from the application of the PP as in any other area.
- PP reasoning advanced to defend security hides political motives as in many other policy areas.
Security interests are interwoven with politics, and so are more uncertain than say environmental risks with their basis in physical sciences. However, the dangers in security can be catastrophic and sudden, and do require preventative actions which is why countries spend significantly on defence budgets. But can the costs be ignored?
American governments have depicted a world of uncertainty, danger and terrorist threats that require expensive preventative measures. Unexplained and ambiguous threats makes it harder to deal in risks and probabilities, and makes comparisons over costs more difficult.
But statistically, the world is a better place. The cold war is over, rogue states are reined in. Communism has moved towards capitalism. Being safer, should we spend less on defence?
Psychologically, catastrophes like 911 figure in people's minds more than simple tragedies like road deaths, so spending to prevent the big ticket catastrophes is expected. In environmental and other areas of PP interest, both sides of the argument are able to debate. However in security, the government holds all the cards; they hold the information that is not open to outside view, and they also know the politics is in preaching danger. On the other side, there is no other side as former defence secretary Les Alpin said.
While Friedman writes about the USA, the lesson applies to Australia. Who can forget the Howard government's use of the terrorist and refugee menace to ramp up security concerns. Even through there are two party political systems in both Australia and the USA, politics for both parties are driven by the electorate to inflate threats, be it law and order or national security.
The security "industry" made up of security agencies, think tanks, military forces, arms suppliers and lobbyists are all driven by the financial rewards of ramping up insecurities and uncertainties in the population. There is nothing to be made by proclaiming a lessening of danger. The ability of applying cost benefit analysis and risk assessment to the expenditures is clouded in claims of lessening our security.
A crude comparison can be made between the military industrial complex and the deep green environmental movement in their application of the PP. Both apply their version of the strong PP. Neither can be questioned over the appropriateness of large expenditures on uncertain possibly catastrophic events. Action must be taken to prevent improbable risks.
Who would have thought two diametrically opposed groups would cohabit under the PP roof?
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv30n4/v30n4-1.pdf
GM Crops - The Ideological Battleground for the Precautionary Principle
In the blue corner, Monsanto and the WTO. In the red corner, the EU. The battle for GM crops has always been about the precautionary principle.
A government-appointed committee of scientists, farmers, politicians and non-governmental organizations had examined MON 810, a maize developed by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto and issued a report in early January 2008.
A government-appointed committee of scientists, farmers, politicians and non-governmental organizations had examined MON 810, a maize developed by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto and issued a report in early January 2008.
"The committee cannot say anything but that there are serious doubts on the use of MON 810," the head of the committee, senator Jean-Francois Legrand, told a joint news conference with French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday that if the experts expressed "serious doubts" over GMO use, he would use a safeguard clause which allows European Union members to refrain from applying EU laws on the basis they may put the population at risk. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL09337620080109
Later in January 2008, French president Nicolas Sarkozy took a stand against biotech giant Monsanto and banned the GM maize which has previously been grown by French farmers.
Earlier in 2007, Sarkozy had promised to review GM crops as part of his Green France Plan http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7062577.stm
The action in banning the GM crops leaves him open to a trade war with the USA. The WTO does not operate on uncertainty; it operates on risk. Hence, banning an agricultural product because of a perceived uncertainty is in breach of trade protocols.
See my earlier post on Monsanto's view on the PP and GM crops.
Monsanto's View on the Precautionary Principle and GM Crops
Goklany also argues that the greatest threat to biodiversity is not GM crops, but agriculture. Agriculture will need additional land and water to be converted over to agriculture, which would be lessened if GM crops were used.
Although the link below is from a Monsanto website, the original book, "The Precautionary Principle - A Critical Appraisal of Environmental Risk and Assessment" is published by the Cato Institute. The Cato Institute goes under the banner:
Lunatic Fringe at it again. Transcendors here to save us
Shiny Objects over the Big Apple brought New York to a standstill around the 13th of October. While the chatter was all about UFOs, the objects were thought to be balloons.
But a retired air force officer Stanley A. Fulham predicted a fleet of UFOs would visit us, being the first in a series of visits to alerts us to the impending catastrophe of levels of CO2 in our atmosphere. The UFOs knew they would cause panic on Earth if they contacted us because of their experience on other planets (and possibly watching ET or Close Encounters of a 3rd Kind). Fulham has been in contact with the Transcendor, who have revealed "crucial information about urgent global challenges facing mankind".
Well with the Transcendors here to help, who needs the Precautionary Principle? Maybe I can leave the blog here, as all will soon be revealed, and studying at uni will be pointless. Or maybe not. I'll continue my blogging as a precaution against an uncertainty (Transcendors may not solve it all) that may have catastrophic results (I fail this subject).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)