Review by Choice Review
This collection of essays focuses on the use of comparative risk analysis (CRA) as a means of correcting the imbalance the authors claim is present in environmental policy; i.e., wasting resources on low-risk problems while more urgent problems are left unattended. The risk-based techniques favored here involve assigning a numerical value to the possibility that injury or damage will be caused by a substance, technology, or activity, and then ranking the different risks. The articles overlook the opinions of those scientists who fear this technique will lead to lower environmental standards with more pollution and environmental degradation, and they ignore the extinction of species, global warming, and other important issues. Instead, the articles describe how different states and other jurisdictions have applied CRA. Richard A. Minard's essay dismisses critics of CRA and portrays state governments as "laboratories of democracy." He acknowledges the limitations of CRA, but he is confident about its "possibilities" and claims the worst mistake its adherents have made is to have stayed "too quiet about [their] successes." Biologists and other scientists searching for solutions to environmental problems will not be easily persuaded by such reasoning. General. J. S. Schwartz CUNY College of Staten Island
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
