Hazards: Technology and Fairness (1986)

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MANAGING TECHNOLOGICAL HAZARDS: SUCCESS, STRAIN, AND SURPRISE 211 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. roles denies to hazard management one of its strongest sources of early hazard identification—knowledgeable but independent basic scientists. Such scientists, knowledgeable about a technology but independent of its development or production, are society's best bulwark against technological surprise. Finally, it appears that it is intrinsically more difficult to predict the hazardous nature of some technologies than of others. Scientific theories of comparative degrees of hazard are just being developed. My own research group recognizes five distinguishing characteristics of extremely hazardous technologies (Hohenemser et al., 1983): intentional design as biocides (chemical pesticides); the combination of latency and long potency in materials (asbestos); the potential for catastrophic effects (jumbo jets); the persistent, ubiquitous capacity to inflict harm (motor vehicles); and the as-yet-unquantified capacity to cause damage of global extent (acid rain). But high hazardousness is not necessarily surprising. Rather, the surprise or unpredictability of some hazardous technologies may lie in the qualities Charles Perrow (1984) identifies as high hazard—the combination of technological complexity, the tight coupling of components so that the failure of one component starts a process that cannot be arrested, and catastrophic potential. Or, the surprise may reside in the complex dynamics of biological and technological systems that C. S. Holling (1984) and his colleagues have studied, and in which there is great potential for serious, unwanted, and hazardous surprises (for example, in the interaction between pesticides and pesticide-resistant insects). LIMITS TO HAZARD MANAGEMENT The capability and competence of the hazard management system that has evolved in recent years is substantially limited. Without major breakthroughs in our fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of low-level effects of toxic chemicals and radiation, for example, there are clear limits to our ability to quantify these effects. Similarly limited is our ability to anticipate and to prevent catastrophic accidents. And society as a whole cannot reduce all hazards or reduce any hazard to zero risk. A second set of limits is institutional. Ten or more years after most regulatory agencies were created, considerable doubt remains about whether they can carry out their legislative mandate to set standards and to force compliance with them. Federal air pollution standards exist for only a few of the hundreds of known airborne toxic substances. There are even greater doubts as to the judicial system's capacity to deter negligence and to compensate efficiently and justly for injury. Insurance companies and other risk-sharing institutions linked to that judicial system appear to be in crisis, overwhelmed