Making Better Environmental Decisions: An Alternative to Risk Assessment

by Mary O'Brien

Book Overview

For the past quarter-century, government and the private sector have relied heavily on risk assessment for making decisions, allowing widespread environmental deterioration. In this book, Mary O'Brien recommends a simple yet profound shift to another decision-making technique: alternatives assessment. Instead of asking how much of a hazardous activity is safe (which translates into how much damage the environment can tolerate), alternatives assessment...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262650533
• ISBN13: 9780262650533
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The Dangerous 'Game' of Risk Assessment

This brilliant little book should be made compulsory reading for all politicians, environmental health officers, and officials from environmental agencies. It completely debunks the idiocies of the 'game' of 'risk assessment' in a comprehensible, readable and intelligent way and comes up with a realistic, sane alternative.If you've ever been involved in a campaign against against a polluting industry, as I have, you'll recognise the following tactics used by them: Downplay estimates of hazard: Discount harmful effects experienced and reported by local communities as 'anecdotal'. Downplay estimates of exposure: Use complicated mathematical models or formulas that can only be analysed in a complicated computer program, that community groups cannot easily gain access to or understand. Downplay risks: Compare the risks to other 'voluntary' activities like smoking. Do not discuss whether the risks are necessary or whether they could be avoided entirely through reasonable alternative behaviours.It is on this common sense latter point that the book really concentrates. Mary O'Brien gives the example of a woman standing besides an icy river that she needs to cross. Four 'experts' are advising her. The toxicologist tells her the water is probably free of chemicals; the cardiologist says she is at little risk as her heart is sound; the hydrologist states that the currents are probably safe; and the EPA specialist tells her she will probably survive the crossing as it is a low risk compared to many other environmental problems. They are amazed when she continues to refuse to wade the river. Until, of course, she points to the bridge a few yards away which they all had conveniently ignored or failed to notice!O'Brien also emphasises the public right to know; after all, it is those living in a community who will suffer the impact of pollution. If we could actually name those individuals who will die from the effects of pollution, we could accuse agencies and businesses of premeditated murder. But why is it any different when they talk of a 0.1% increase in the likely number of premature deaths resulting from a process? Even though we can't name the people who will die, death is still death. And the polluting process still killed them.O'Brien calls for all government agencies and businesses to put their options in understandable language, and to consider ways of creating the least possible environmental damage. She argues that all citizens should be given easy access to relevant information, especially on health effects, and that we should have access to legal and financial resources to enforce environmental laws. For those campaigning on these issues, take a really close look at Chapter 16, 'Getting Started'. Here O'Brien gives step-by-step advice on how 'Alternatives Assessment' could be carried out, forcing regulators and industries to evaluate the real impact of their actions and forcing them to find the environmentally best options, not a st