What is the value of Human life?
Priceless!
Well, not in the real world!
Cost Benefit analysis (CBA) has become an essential analysis framework for setting environmental standards and regulations. It requires a dollar value be assigned to human life. The value of a life is usually the price that others put, on an individual’s life. For Eg, I would pay my entire income to save my own life or of my husband or my son. The practice of putting dollar value on life has been practiced in courts. Value of life estimates helps the juries to award compensations in death and injury cases.
Read this investigative article here on OMB watch from Associated Press (AP), on how EPA puts a price on human life and how it has shrunk.
Under the Clinton administration, human life was valued at $6.1 million/life, while Bush administration came up with a figure of $3.7 million for an individual younger than 70 yrs and $2.3 million for individuals older than 70 [Obtained From here]. Smaller the monetary value of human life, lesser is the chances of environmental protection.
Time ran an interesting article valuing human lives internationally at $50,000. Read the complete article here
‘This value is routinely calculated by several agencies, each putting its own dollar figure on the worth of life -- not any particular person's life, just that of a generic American. The figure is then used to judge whether potentially lifesaving policy measures are really worth the cost.’
What do you think is the value of human life?
Posts
