In an op-ed in last Friday's Financial Times, John Nugee and Avinash Persaud, both in finance, have an excellent column on the futility (and danger) of attempting to regulate risk away. Their article is about financial risk, but the thesis seems likely to be true for environmental risks too. A key section: "A dangerous misunderstanding over the nature of risk has meant that regulatory policy and practice contribute to greater instability. Regulators have tried to reduce risk. But a large proportion of risk is inherent. It cannot be reduced, only shifted around. Yet shifting risk may actually make matters worse."

The conclusion: "What parents do not want to provide as safe an environment for their children as they can? But shielding loved ones from all risk may make them more susceptible to the dangers of the outside world when they eventually leave the nest. In the same way, the regulators' desire to make the financial system safer may have made society less safe. The current course of regulation threatens to put a straitjacket on those who know what they are doing and force risk on to those who do not. This cannot be right. By ignoring the fluidity of risk and adopting a piecemeal approach we are in danger of unleashing a plague of hidden risks on those least able to withstand them."