ABSTRACT
We ended the introductory chapter with the view that day to day behaviour by individuals and households the world over is an amalgam of precaution and nonprecaution. Can we honestly equate a greater commitment to precaution with a shift towards a more sustainable existence? We do not believe that the precautionary principle is either sufficiently well-defined nor properly mature as a practical concept to make such a judgement. Giving the earth space to breathe is part of the strong sustainability criterion outlined by modern environmental economists (see Turner, 1993, 17–20). So, too, is the protection of critical life support processes, namely those that truly keep the earth as a viable totality. Both of these are cardinal concepts of precaution. But we lack the scientific understanding and the sense of preciousness about these mysterious keystone processes adequately to generate any kind of responsive and anticipatory safeguarding device. And we are still many miles away from an ethic, let alone a mechanism, to fund those individuals and nation states whose formerly legitimate development opportunities have to be stalled in the name of safeguarding critically vulnerable life support processes for the earth as a whole.
