Abstract
Given the complexities of our existence, we cannot effectively achieve natural risk levels without some sort of deliberate forethought, or planning. That means setting goals, and identifying safe alternatives that can help us achieve these goals. Reliance on simple statistical approaches that attempt to adjust progress only when problems become apparent just doesn’t work for risks where the cost of mistakes can be enormous. This means that planning for safe progress needs to take into consideration both the uncertain nature of the risks we face and the fact that we don’t get a second chance to make the right decisions. This tricky balance challenges our ingenuity to the fullest. We need to identify and implement a process that fails safe with regard to existential risk. If progress cannot be made safely, we forestall further action until we figure out how it can.
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Further reading
The defects of the identify–assess–treat model of risk assessment and management with respect to high-stakes risk management, and the importance of assessing safe alternatives early on in the process of planning process as an essential precondition to effective precaution, are outlined in Making Better Environmental Decisions: An Alternative to Risk Assessments (MIT Press, 2000), by Mary O’Brien.
Backcasting is increasingly recognized as a cogent approach for identifying and implementing safe alternatives. For more on the theory and application of backcasting from desirable futures to safe alternatives, see Karl-Henrich Dreborg’s “Essence of Backcasting”, Futures, December 1996.
Analysts concerned about our world’s dependence on hydrocarbon energy sources were the first to use formalized backcasting techniques. For example, Amory Lovin’s Soft Energy Paths (Ballinger, 1977) backcasts from a safer, petroleum-independent future to determine sustainable energy alternatives.
The approach was subsequently developed into a general concept for advanced scenario modeling in1982 by J. B. Robinson in “Energy Backcasting: A Proposed Method of Policy Analysis”, which appeared in a 1982 issue of the journal Energy Policy. For an overview and modern history of the backcasting technique, see Jaco Quist’s Backcasting for a Sustainable Future: The Impact After 10 Years (Eburon Academic Publishers, 2007).
Precursors of the backcasting approach include economist Adolph Lowe’s concept of instrumental analysis which linked planning efforts to working backward from desired policy outcomes (see his On Economic Knowledge: Toward a Science of Political Economics [Harper & Row, 1965]).
On the use of exploratory modeling to help cope with uncertainty in complex models, see Stephan Bankes’ “Exploratory Modeling for Policy analysis”, Operations Research, 41 (3), 1993.
On the related concept of robustness (“keeping your options open”), see Rational Analysis for a Problematic World, by Johnathan Rosenhead (Wiley, 2001).
Early cybernetic thought viewed human systems as analogs of mechanical system, as in, for example, Norbert Wiener’s The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (Dou-bleday, 1954). Criticisms of this mechanical approach led to the recognition that the proper study of planning and control mechanisms in human society is not always about the process of planning, but also how we plan the process. The result was the rise of a “second-order” cybernetics that recognizes the importance of human purpose in the process of planning, as outlined, for example, in the work of systems scientists such as Heinz von Foerster, in Cybernetics of Cybernetics (University of Illinois, 1974).
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© 2009 Mark Jablonowski
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Jablonowski, M. (2009). Planning for a Safer Future. In: Managing High-Stakes Risk. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230251205_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230251205_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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