What Risk? - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0750638109 ISBN 13: 9780750638104

Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd, 1997

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review

"A collection of learned scientists, professors of epidemiology, radiology, pharmacology, microbiology, from Yale, Stockholm, Berkeley, London, Harvard, Glasgow, have published an astonishing book edited by (Roger) Bate. What Risk? Seems to show that our favourite phobias are either irrational or exaggerated." --THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

"It is not often that one comes across a book that reads like the smell of fresh air after being cooped in a smell room; such a book is this." --SAFETY AND HEALTH PRACTITIONER

"I strongly recommend every chemist to read its step-by-step refutation of nine popular myths." --CHEMISTRY IN BRITAIN

"This stimulating book considers the likely effects resulting from the emission of small quantities of potentially harmful toxins into the environment and how these substances should be controlled. A number of specific substances are chosen by the authors, including benezene, asbestos, environmental tobacco smoke, ionising radiation and and dioxins. Nine authors have contributed to the book. Their aim is to bring to the attention of a wider audience scientific literature that may have been overlooked. The book achieves this in a thought-provoking style and is an ideal reference text for those involved in risk management." --OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH

"I strongly recommend this book to all engineers and scientists, as a whiff of sanity in a minefield of risk regulations." --SIR BERNARD CROSSLAND, HAZARDS FORUM

"Topical and controversial, a striking paperback." --OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH, MAY 1999 "An impressive array of alternative and authoritative views on these controversial matters has just been published in a book called 'What Risk? Published on behalf of the independent European Science and Environment Forum, 'What Risk?' consists of chapters written by experts prepared to question the fundamental assumptions behind many public health scares." --THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Edition details

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0750638109
• ISBN 13: 9780750638104
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 360
• Editor: Bate Roger