If you're thinking of using a new and unproven technology, say, for instance,
releasing genetically modified bacteria into the environment to detect and
remove a contaminant like arsenic, how do you decide if it's a safe and a sensible
thing to do? And how do you work out in the grand scheme of things if the new
tech really is better than what we're currently using to address the problems
we're trying to solve? The usual way we make risk decisions is to gather and
interpret all the evidence we can on what we think are the right questions,
which are usually how risky is the new technology, and perhaps how can we make
it safer? This rather traditional approach to assessing risk can give us
answers to narrow questions. But when we're grappeling with new technologies, or even
new uses of old technologies, there are sometimes more relevant questions we
should be asking. Of course, the easiest question to ask about something new is
"is it safe?" But as questions go, it's actually not that helpful.
Sadly, nothing is ever 100% safe. And sometimes, small risks are actually
well worth taking. Because of this, just asking if something is safe can
sometimes be misleading; especially when the current technologies
or products we're using to solve the same problem already have their own risks. In
this case, something new that isn't completely safe might still be the safer
option. The problem is, the choices we're trying to make are not just about the
risks and benefits. In order to make smart choices, we also have to consider the
problem with trying to solve. Here, we find that conventional approaches to
risk assessment are good at telling us what to worry about. But what we really
need are smart risk management approaches that help us understand what to do! One
way forward here is an idea developed by my colleague Adam Finkel. It's called
solution-focused risk assessment, and it's an approach
that is particularly helpful when it comes to grappling with new and
emerging technologies. Solution focus thinking starts by asking what we can do
to solve a problem, not just how bad the problem is. And when what we can do
involves a new technology, this means asking what it promises, and how this
differs from what we've been achieving without it. This leads to a basic
question: Can the new technology fulfill one or more human needs in better ways
that we have at present? And by better, we mean is it likely to reduce more risks
than it potentially creates? Clearly, if we can be confident that a new
technology ends up offering greater benefits and lower risks than how we do
things at the moment, it's going to be more attractive than one that offers
lower benefits and greater risks. And so we end up balancing the best way to get
to where we want to be as a society, rather than worrying about specific
risks in isolation. The advantage of this solution focused approach is that it
focuses our attention on questions that are important for our collective future
health, well-being and happiness, and away from questions that we can find answers
to, but aren't that helpful. It also encourages everyone from
political leaders to voters who elect them, to think about innovative and
ambitious solutions to challenges that we may have grown needlessly comfortable
living with. For example, take disposable plastic water bottles. Depending on how
these are manufactured, they may release small quantities of chemicals into the
environment that act like artificial hormones and disrupt the endocrine
systems of humans and animals. The US Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA,
has been trying to set safe levels in water for each of these chemicals for
decades now. And maybe one day we'll reach an agreement on a set of
acceptable safe levels for each of these substances. But even if we do reach
mission accomplished on the risks from endocrine disruptors, this will do
nothing about the broader environmental and climate impacts of manufacturing,
using, and disposing of, over fifty billion bottles a year. And that's just
in the United States alone. In this case, a solution focused approach
may suggest we try to nudge people's drinking habits so that fewer disposable
bottles are used. Or even use subsidies or taxes, or even infrastructure spending,
to bring back the days when cold fresh water was readily available from public
water fountains on street corners and inside buildings. Dreaming up and testing
ways to reduce all impacts rather than simply displacing risks from one area to
another is especially important when grappling with new and emerging
technologies. Take synthetic biology and gene editing for instance. These are
technologies that could help us to get places we might want to be; for example
by making it easier to convert plants into fuel, or even to resurrect extinct
species like the woolly mammoth (and yes, some people really do want to do this!). Or
even to eliminate mosquitoes that carry devastating diseases like dengue and
malaria. In cases like these, focusing on individual risks like whether
genetically modified mosquitoes are safe, may give us some answers.
But these won't be that helpful in getting to where we really want to be.
Instead, using a solution focused risk assessment approach, we can begin to talk
about and agree on what we actually want to achieve. And this might include things
like what the pros and cons are of current approaches; like using pesticides
for instance. And where new technologies might or might not be better than the
status quo. In some cases, we may find that existing ways of dealing with risks
and benefits are the best option. In others, we may be surprised to discover
that new technologies are actually likely to make our lives better. And most
provocatively, in some cases we may find that by asking
what we can do, we'll start asking ambitious questions about what we need
to be able to do. In other words, we'll start to search for
solutions we would like to see, beyond the ones we just happened to have. Either
way, we have the opportunity to make informed choices on building a better
world, rather than getting tied up in knots as we chase unhelpful answers to
the wrong questions. And at the end of the day, this way of thinking doesn't
diminish the role of risk assessment. Rather, it empowers risk assessment to
dream things that never were; and say "why not".