Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

This article looks at the role of existing government policies on perceptions of risk and the impact they have on developing forward-looking sustainable policy instruments. Coastal flood insurance policy in the United States is examined as a way of exploring the relationship between policy instruments and risk perception. Insights include the importance of understanding the role of community risk perception in policy development, as well as the role of historical and existing policies in influencing community risk perception.

The value of anthropocentric indirect arguments (AIAs), as stated by Elliott (2014), is to focus on non-environmental benefits that derive from actions or policies that also benefit the environment. The key difference with these indirect arguments—from more direct anthropocentric arguments—is they focus on human benefits unrelated to the environment. So, for example, less coal burning power plants means less respiratory illness and higher worker productivity. The air is cleaner, but rather than clean air being the goal in arguing for less coal burning power plants, healthier people is the goal. Or as Elliott notes, clean energy can create jobs, and …