This is one of the principles that that describe my pragmatic environmentalist beliefs.
In almost all environmental issues there are two legitimate sides. Pragmatic environmentalism is all about balancing the risks and benefits of both sides of the issue. In order to do that you have to show your work.
While this might seem patently obvious presented in this fashion consider how often the public discourse on an environmental issue is just a long list of environmental impacts that “everyone knows” and suggestions that those impacts will be catastrophic.
Consider this example: “For decades, power plants in our communities here in Western Queens have strongly contributed to increased asthma rates and increases in hospitalizations and ER visits that exceed the average in Queens,” said Councilman Costa Constantinides.
It is generally accepted that asthma rates have been increasing but the problem is that over the same period where they are increasing ambient pollution levels have been going down. Consider the EPA Air Quality Trends at New York City information that shows that from 2000 to 2015 ozone is down 16.7%, inhalable particulate matter is down 31.7% and sulfur dioxide is down 85.1%. These data suggest that increasing asthma rates are not the result of increasing pollution rates contradicting the environmental impact that “everyone knows” causes increasing asthma rates. For a comprehensive evaluation of the EPA science related to particulate matter health impacts I recommend “Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the EPA”.
Pragmatic environmentalists recognize that air pollution causes health impacts. However the risk that additional societal investments for increased pollution control could not provide the intended benefits has to be considered. In particular, if society spends money to reduce power plant emissions below the rates that have contributed to the lower observed pollution levels it may not improve asthma rates and worse may divert money that more appropriately should be invested into research determining why asthma rates are increasing so that the actual causes can be addressed.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 