High-Tech Balance of Risk and Reward

“We Are Too Safe for Our Own Good” (Commentary, June 21) tries to make the point that environmentalists are basically anti-technology and are too worried about possible harm done by biotech and other emerging industrial technologies. Surely some risk-benefit analysis is in order. In the case of modern agriculture, technology has largely enabled large businesses to increase yield and efficiency, producing large, mostly tasteless fruits and vegetables. Genetically modified crops could potentially have runaway, disastrous results that make the proposed benefits seem pretty meager.

Nuclear energy likewise has a scary downside: If things go really wrong, the convenience of a little extra power will be outweighed by the possible consequences. So many conservatives rush to make any debate on environmental matters a political left-right thing, all about business’ rights and the eagerness of the “socialists” to take them away. I feel it’s really about not making mistakes that we may have to pay for for generations to come.

Ken Edwards

Santa Barbara

Henry I. Miller and Gregory Conko inappropriately rail against “radical environmental groups brandishing the precautionary principle.” The precautionary principle is a time-honored principle of every major legal system in the world and is also deeply embedded in international law. In the U.S. legal system it is the core concept of negligence, as described by Judge Learned Hand decades ago: You are liable for negligence if “the probability of accident” multiplied by “the gravity of the resulting harm” outweighs “the burden of adequate precautions.”

Genetic engineering violates the principle because the probability of accident is unknown, the gravity of harm is horrifying and the burden of precautions (just saying no to genetic engineering) is light. The radicals here are Miller and Conko, who would toss aside this ancient principle of law so that managers of capital pursuing profit could put the world at risk.

Robert Benson

Professor of Law

Loyola Law School, L.A.