Eco-pragmatism

by Daniel A. Farber

Eco-pragmatism takes on the most critical controversies in environmental law today: how to weigh economic costs against environmental quality and human life, how to assess the long time horizons of environmental problems, and how to make appropriate decisions in the face of scientific uncertainty about the scope (or even the existence) of environmental problems. Farber discusses whether (and how) we should "discount" the values of future environmental benefits, how we should use economic measurements of environmental values, and how we can streamline the regulatory process to respond to rapidly changing scientific knowledge. The result is a pragmatic decision-making framework that is flexible enough to accommodate the unique challenges each case presents.