An Approach for Evaluating Emerging Issues and Environmental Futures. K. M. Thompson and J. K. Hammitt, Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, 718 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115
Efforts to deal with past and current environmental health problems fail to adequately anticipate and avoid future problems. Anecdotal evidence suggests that such short-term thinking may cause decision makers to miss or undervalue opportunities that offer substantial reductions in future environmental or economic costs. This paper describes an approach for evaluating emerging issues and environmental futures for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that complements the agency’s current structure. The approach draws extensively on the knowledge of experts, and requires explicit acknowledgement of uncertainty and trade-offs. Strategies for improving the future must be evaluated continuously and iteratively with particular attention to building useful forecasting models and learning from the past. Value-of-information (VOI) techniques may help effectively organize the available information. Experience with the use of integrated assessment models for predicting future climate change suggests that consideration of multiple independent models will serve to build confidence and to highlight key scientific uncertainties. The conflict between uncertain information provided by science and the public and legal demands for certainty means that effective communication will be a prerequisite for success.
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