What Risk?: Paperback edition

by RogerBate (Editor)

• Used

  Illustrated
  1999

  $3.25

  Whether the public or the environment is at risk is a commonly discussed question in numerous areas of public life, most recently and publicly with regard to issues like BSE, passive smoking and the dangers from pesticides in food production. It is therefore of great importance for everyone concerned with these issues - both policy makers and the public who may be subject to their decisions - to understand the basis on which 'risk' policy is made. The principle objective of this book is to highlight the uncertainties inherent in 'scientific' estimates of risk to the public and the environment resulting from exposure to certain hazards. Numerous examples of potential and real hazards are given. They all show that injury to personal health or the environment is a function not only of the toxicity (i.e. the lethality of a particular hazard) but of the level of exposure to the hazard concerned - in the words of the old maxim, the dose makes the poison. Existing regulation is criticized for being based on a flawed application of a poor epidemiological methodology, where toxicity is the basis of regulation and dose tends to be ignored. Furthermore, some authors conclude that risk is a subjective phenomenon that cannot be eliminated through regulation.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1997

  $4.19

  Whether the public or the environment is at risk or not is an increasingly discussed question in numerous areas of public and business life. Environmental impact assessments are carried out, cost-benefit analyses made, and health and safety decisions are occasionally based on on the presumed relationships between risk to the public or employees and possible punitive costs. It is therefore of great importance for everyone concerned with these decisions and their implications to understand the basis on which they are made and their reliability and legitimacy. The principle objective of this book is to highlight the uncertainties inherent in scientific estimates of risk to humans and the environment resulting from exposure to certain hazards. One of the conclusions of this examination is that the concept of risk is a subjective one and that it cannot be eliminated through regulation. It can also be shown that, for a given regulatory budget, more lives could be saved than at present if economic costs of the regulatory activity are included in the equation. Hence the regulation of some risks makes economic sense, but over-regulation leads to loss of ability to adapt to real hazards.