In the past there have been several major cases involving environmental health and public safety, including asbestos in schools, arsenic in the water system and Alar and PCBs in food. In such cases some quarters sounded the alarm, others said the public was safe, and both had science on their side. The questions then arise: whom are we to trust and how are we to know? Amid this chaos of questions and conflicting information, this text provides a factual look at how the rival claims of environmentalists and industrialists work, what they mean and where to start sorting them out. Working with his students at a risk analysis centre, Wildavsky examined all the evidence behind the charges and countercharges in several controversial cases involving environmental health and public safety. This text lays out these cases in a comprehensible fashion, weighs the merits of the claims of various parties and offers reasoned judgements on the government's response.
Covering incidents and topics including Love Canal, Times Beach, DDT, Agent Orange, acid rain, global warming, saccharin, asbestos, nuclear waste and radon, Wildavsky shows how it is possible to achieve an informed understanding of the contentious environmental issues that confront the public daily. The book supports the conclusion Wildavsky reached himself, both as a citizen committed to the welfare of the earth and its inhabitants and as a social scientist concerned with how public policy is made: though it is bad to be harmed, it is worse to be harmed in the name of health.
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Illustrationen
3 line illustrations, 28 tables
Maße
Höhe: 243 mm
Breite: 170 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-674-08922-8 (9780674089228)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Introduction - toward a citizen's understanding of science and technology. Part 1 Were the early scare justified by the evidence?, cranberries, dieldrin, saccharin; the Cranberry scare of 1959; "silent spring" and dieldrin; the saccharin debate. Part 2 PCBs and DDT - too much of a good thing?: which regulations governing PCB residues are justified?; is DDT a chemical of ill repute?. Part 3 Dioxin, agent orange, and times beach. Part 4 Love canal - was there evidence of harm?. Part 5 Superfund's abandoned hazardous waste sites. Part 6 No runs, no hits, all errors - the asbestos and alar scares: is asbestos in schoolrooms hazardous to students' health?; does alar on apples cause cancer in children?. Part 7 Does science matter?: is arsenic in drinking water harmful to our health?; whom can you trust? the nitrate contoversy. Part 8 Do rodents predict cancer in human beings?. Part 9 The effects of acid rain on the United States (with an excursion to Europe). Part 10 CFCs and oxone depletion - are they as bad as people think?. Part 11 Who's on first?, a gobal warming scorecard. Part 12 Reporting environmental science. Part 13 Citizenship in science. Part 14 Detecting errors in environmental and safety studies. Conclusion - rejecting the precautionary principle.
