Unintended consequences

George Monbiot's article, 'An Exchange of Souls' I found very chilling. He's highlighted the pitfalls of using cost benefit analysis in the context of climate change where human lives are at stake and challenged the assumptions behind working out the costs in monetary terms in Nicholas Stern's review of the economics of climate change. Besides claiming that subsequent analyses have shown that the government numbers are wrong, he seems to be saying that attaching numbers to environmental and social costs leaves open an option for others to argue that all costs of new developments can be outweighed purely in terms of economic benefits. The proposed third runway at Heathrow is his starting point. Monbiot's also recognising that this is an unintended consequence and that there's no way that Stern and his team intended the findings of their report to be used in this way. I've read this report and it makes all sorts of points about how these numbers should and shouldn't be used. Perhaps a salutary reminder that we can't control how people will respond to an analysis. Readers won't necessarily share the values of authors so can use it for different purpose. Monbiot concludes

I can accept that a unit of measurement which allows us to compare the human costs of different spending decisions is a useful tool. What I cannot accept is that it should be scrambled up with the price of eggs and prefixed with a dollar sign. Human life is not a commodity. It cannot be traded against profits or exchanged for convenience. We have no right to decide that others should die to make us richer.