A precautionary tale

Daniel Henninger:

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Beneath this dispute is a relatively new, very postmodern environmental idea known as "the precautionary principle." As defined by one official version: "When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically." The global-warming establishment says we know "enough" to impose new rules on the world's use of carbon fuels. The dissenters say this demotes science's traditional standards of evidence.

The Environmental Protection Agency's dramatic Endangerment Finding in April that greenhouse gas emissions qualify as an air pollutant—with implications for a vast new regulatory regime—used what the agency called a precautionary approach. The EPA admitted "varying degrees of uncertainty across many of these scientific issues." Again, this puts hard science in the new position of saying, close enough is good enough. One hopes civil engineers never build bridges under this theory.

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Indeed. Considering that much of what has been revealed is not scientific but out right fraud and suppression of dissenting views from that fraud it is worse than guesstimating.

Don't forget that investment decisions are being made right now based on this fraudulent data. The SEC should be looking at these businesses as we speak, but that would require a degree of independence that most Democrats would rebel against.