Ambiguity,reasoned determination,and climate-change policy

This paper examines climate-change benefit-cost analysis in the presence of scientific uncertainty in the form of ambiguity. The specific issue addressed is the robustness of benefit-cost analyses of climate-change policy alternatives to relaxation of Savage's original axioms. Two alternatives to subjective expected utility (SEU) are considered: maximin expected utility (MEU) and incomplete expected utility (IEU). Among other results, it is demonstrated that polar opposite recommendations can emerge in an ambiguous decision setting even if all agree on Society's rate of time preference, Society's risk attitudes, the degree of ambiguity faced, and the scientific primitives. We show that, for a simple numerical simulation of our model, an MEU decision maker favors policies which immediately tackle climate change while an IEU decision prefers “business as usual”.“Each agency shall assess the costs and benefits of the intended regulation, and recognizing that some costs and benefits are difficult to quantify, propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that the benefits of the intended regulation justify its cost.” Executive Order 12866 of the US President.     

Coping with Complexity,Uncertainty and Ambiguity in Risk Governance: A Synthesis

The term governance describes the multitude of actors and processes that lead to collectively binding decisions. The term risk governance translates the core principles of governance to the context of risk-related policy making. We aim to delineate some basic lessons from the insights of the other articles in this special issue for our understanding of risk governance. Risk governance provides a conceptual as well as normative basis for how to cope with uncertain, complex and/or ambiguous risks. We propose to synthesize the breadth of the articles in this special issue by suggesting some changes to the risk governance framework proposed by the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) and adding some insights to its analytical and normative implications.     

Minimax regret discounting

The paper considers an environmental policy decision in which the appropriate approach for discounting future costs and benefits is unknown. Uncertainty about the discount rate is formulated as a decision under Knightian uncertainty. To solve this, we employ minimax regret, a decision criterion that is much less conservative then the related criterion maximin—in particular, it can be shown to implement a “proportional response” in that it equally balances concern about the mistake of doing too little with that of doing too much. Despite the criterion's balanced nature, the minimax regret solution mimics a policy that maximizes the present discounted value of future net benefits with an effective (certainty-equivalent) discount rate that declines over time to the lowest possible rate. In addition to reinforcing Weitzman's (1998) original limiting result, the approach generates concrete policy advice when decision makers are unable to specify a prior over possible discount rates. We apply it to the Stern–Nordhaus discounting debate and find that the effective discount rate converges to the Stern rate in just under 200 years.     

Latina Feminist Metaphysics and Genetically Engineered Foods

In this paper I critique two popular, non-scientific attitudes toward genetically engineered foods. In doing so, I will be employing the concepts of ambiguity, purity/impurity, control/resistance, and unity/diversity as developed by Latina feminist metaphysicians. I begin by casting a critical eye toward a specific anti-biotech account of transgenic food crops, an account that I will argue relies on an anti-feminist metaphysics. I then cast that same critical eye toward a specific pro-biotech account, arguing that it also relies on such an anti-feminist metaphysics. I will argue further that this metaphysics yields a less accurate account of genetics. I end by arguing that if we adopt a Latina feminist metaphysics we can more accurately understand plants, genetics, and genetic engineering.     

More is not always better: coping with ambiguity in natural resources management

Coping with ambiguities in natural resources management has become unavoidable. Ambiguity is a distinct type of uncertainty that results from the simultaneous presence of multiple valid, and sometimes conflicting, ways of framing a problem. As such, it reflects discrepancies in meanings and interpretations. Under the presence of ambiguity it is not clear what problem is to be solved, who should be involved in the decision processes or what is an appropriate course of action. Despite the extensive literature about methodologies and tools to deal with uncertainty, not much has been said about how to handle ambiguities. In this paper, we discuss the notions of framing and ambiguity, and we identify five broad strategies to handle it: rational problem solving, persuasion, dialogical learning, negotiation and opposition. We compare these approaches in terms of their assumptions, mechanisms and outcomes and illustrate each approach with a number of concrete methods.     

Minimax regret discounting

The paper considers an environmental policy decision in which the appropriate approach for discounting future costs and benefits is unknown. Uncertainty about the discount rate is formulated as a decision under Knightian uncertainty. To solve this, we employ minimax regret, a decision criterion that is much less conservative then the related criterion maximin—in particular, it can be shown to implement a “proportional response” in that it equally balances concern about the mistake of doing too little with that of doing too much. Despite the criterion's balanced nature, the minimax regret solution mimics a policy that maximizes the present discounted value of future net benefits with an effective (certainty-equivalent) discount rate that declines over time to the lowest possible rate. In addition to reinforcing Weitzman's (1998) original limiting result, the approach generates concrete policy advice when decision makers are unable to specify a prior over possible discount rates. We apply it to the Stern–Nordhaus discounting debate and find that the effective discount rate converges to the Stern rate in just under 200 years.