(Page 3 of 26) - Constructing the Long Term: The Positive Case in Climate Policy and other Long Crises authored by Princen, Thomas.

Princen: Long term, ISA2007

2/27/2007

ii. science (especially behavioral biology: it’s all a fight for day-to-day survival and

reproduction);

iii. markets (especially those dominated by discounted financial mechanisms); and
iv. politics (especially that driven by public opinion polls and marketing reports).
In this paper I argue that it is not enough to make pleas for long-term thinking. Scientific

evidence for time-lagged risk proliferation has no more bearing on policymaking or everyday life
(e.g., consumption) than historical evidence has on the imperialistic ambitions of political leaders
(with the urge to dominate and the likelihood of overextension). A more fruitful approach is, on
the one hand, to expose the seemingly natural or inevitable short-termness of contemporary
thought and practice and, on the other, to identify structural conditions that lean decisionmaking
away from the short term and toward the long term.

This paper, then, is an attempt to construct a long term, not through scientific proof or

appeals to environmental necessity, but through a logic of thought and action grounded in history,
ecology, organization and politics. I start with a brief characterization of the biophysical and
social context for which the imperative of long-term thinking is most evident—“long crises”—
then turn to what is perhaps the most vexing issue in the consideration of the long term, namely,
the modern belief that humans are inherently short term. Here I trace several intellectual
traditions that contribute to that belief. I then construct an alternative view, one grounded in
research on human thinking and adapting and provide contrary evidence, some anecdotal, some
historical, in modern business practice (cases) and theory (discount rate). I conclude by positing
minimal conditions for a policy environment oriented to the long term, what I term a neo-
prudential order.

Long Crises

Human vulnerability is increasing with a growing global population, increasing inequality,
migration, short-term settlement, climate change, and environmental deterioration. Proliferating
risks throw into question the ability of conventional policymaking in an industrial society to steer
a different course. What is more, unlike early industrial risks, says sociologist Ulrich Beck, those
of a risk society, the “nuclear, chemical, ecological and genetic engineering risks (a) can be
limited in terms of neither time nor place, (b) are not accountable according to the established
rules of causality, blame and liability, and (c) cannot be compensated or insured against.”

Such

institutionally novel risks are “exemplified by a single example,” says Beck: “the injured of
Chernobyl are, today, years after the catastrophe, not even all born yet.”

Perhaps the best

evidence for increasing vulnerability and proliferating risks is the expanding scope of uninsurable
risks as determined by the private insurance industry, especially reinsurance.

Conventional response to such risks is just that, response; and it is governed by

humanitarian impulse and charity. It is reactive, not anticipatory, not preventative, not proactive.
It is, above all, short term. UN officials, diplomats, some military personnel, and, possibly most
telling, lots of NGOs, are key actors. Raise the money, clean up, build a clinic, then clear out.

With increasing vulnerability to institutionally novel risks, reactive policies will be

inadequate. The costs of relief will far exceed the costs of prevention; and the costs may well
become cumulative. Irreversibilities, some biophysical (sea level rise, erosion, aquifer

Ulrich Beck, “Risk Society and the Provident State,” pp. 27-43, in Scott Lash, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Brian Wynne, eds., Risk,

Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology (London: Sage Publications, 1996); quote on p. 31.

Beck, 1996, p. 31.

Beck, 1996. Political theorist Hugh Dyer notes that insurance and reinsurance is reliable in part because of commercial selection: if

they’re wrong, they’re out of business. At the same time, Dyer notes, they have little incentive to reduce risks. Personal

communication, February 19, 2007.
But it may well be that it is precisely in the realms of the uninsurable that insurance companies do push for risk-reduction measures.

Insurance companies were apparently the instigators of public fire departments, at least in the U.S., now, arguably, rezoning in
disaster-prone areas.