Response to Richard Wilson and D. Warner North

Abstract

Both of the presentations have at their core a discussion of cost-benefit analysis. I would like to take a few minutes to react and to explain some of the concerns that the environmental groups in particular, and I think the public generally, have about using this as the model for decisionmaking in the environmental arena. I might point out that there are several models that one can hypothesize in addition to cost-benefit models. There are models which I will label “ecosystem conservative” models, and a third type of model that I will call the “reasonable person-good judgment” model, or if that sounds too normative a label perhaps the “risk averse/cost-conscious” model.