The result appears to be less precipitation in areas where the bacteria is used. This, of course has significant import for the biosphere and for society. What this means is that quantitative risk assessment is no longer adequate. Any risk assessment must be qualitative as well. Asking only about the human health effects of the engineered organism and quantifying it in terms of human mortality per 100,000 is inadequate for determining the potential harm of introducing these new organisms into the environment.
Risk assessments are the analyses of harm at the individual and societal level.
An EIS, unlike a risk assessment, may address the important questions of systemic stability and sustainability. Giampietro argues that most of our current decisions are made on the individual level. We may give passing reference, occasionally, to the social level. Precious little attention is being given to the biospherical level. At the same time, Giampietro points out that if we are interested in sustainability then, by definition, we have to give primary consideration to the biospherical level.