ABSTRACT
Human actions have consequences. In happy circumstances everyone benefits from the actions; the win-win cliché. This is, however, seldom the case; usually there are winners and losers. The classical basis of decision-making, cost-benefit analysis, suggests that provided the benefits outweigh the costs by a reasonable margin (to account for error and uncertainty) the action should proceed. Nevertheless, this apparently sensible approach is constantly running into protests from those who bear the costs, those who rate the costs higher than the analysts, or politicians and others who appoint themselves as guardians of people or environments that will bear the cost in the future.
