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The precautionary principle had its coming out party in the United States in 1998. This took place at the Wingspread Conference, a gathering of environmentalists in Racine, Wisc, organized by Carolyn Raffensperger, director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. Raffensperger has probably done more than any other individual to promote the precautionary principle in America and unify the US environmental movement behind it. The Wingspread Statement' has become its most frequently cited formulation: "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically."
It doesn't sound much like a revolutionary idea, does it? In fact the very benignness of the precautionary principle is precisely the source of its power, and the reason it has-at least until recently-encountered relatively little opposition. Precaution sounds very much like common sense-look before you leap; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure; first do no harm- common sense being what a culture calls its sturdiest and most unassailable memes. This is no accident: the idea's proponents have deliberately sought to make it sound as commonsensical as possible. Last summer Raffensperger organized a workshop in Manhattan with James Hillman, the renowned Jungian psychologist, to discuss ways to anchor the...