All industrial countries have developed regulatory systems to assess and manage the risk of chemical substances to the working and natural environment. The pressure to harmonize these often specialized regulatory systems is increasingly strong at the international level. Such harmonization not only entails the assessment of particular chemicals, but also the way assessment procedures and their boundary with risk management is organized. As these initiatives intensify, they increasingly raise important questions of how to integrate national differences in the international regulatory arena. How will national consultation procedures relate to international decision-making on chemical risks? How will differences in national risk assessment procedures be accommodated? How will the international regulatory system be integrated with different national styles of regulation and government? Presenting the experiences and insights of both people from within the worlds of risk assessment and management and from the field of Science Studies, this book forms a state-of-the-art in the discussion on the Politics of Chemical Risk. By offering scenarios, or sketches of a regulatory future, it points to the choices that can be made and the opportunities to be explored. As such, it offers an agenda for environmental and occupational scientists, policy-makers and students of science and technology alike.
This volume presents research on current trends in chemical regulations – a fa- growing, complex, and increasingly internationalized field. The book grew out from a multidisciplinary research project entitled ‘Regulating Chemical Risks in the Baltic Sea Area: Science, Politics, and the Media’, led by Michael Gilek at Södertörn University, Sweden. This research project involved scholars and experts from natural as well as social sciences, based at Södertörn University, Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Karolinska Institutet, and Umeå University. The project group organized a multidisciplinary research conference on chemical risk regulations, held in Stockholm, August 15–17, 2007. Most of the contributions published in this book were, in draft form, first presented at this conference. The conference, like the ensuing edited volume, expanded the geographical focus beyond the Baltic Sea area to include wider European, and to some extent also global trends. Many thanks to all project colleagues and conference participants! We are very grateful for the generous financial support received from The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (Östersjöstiftelsen), The Swedish Research Council Formas, and from Södertörn University. Without this support the present book would not have been possible. Special thanks to all of our fellow contributors, all of whom have submitted to- cal papers based on high-quality research. Many thanks also to Tobias Evers, who assisted us with technical editing. Finally, we are grateful for the professionalism shown by our editors at Springer.
This new fifth edition of Information Resources in Toxicology offers a consolidated entry portal for the study, research, and practice of toxicology. Both volumes represents a unique, wide-ranging, curated, international, annotated bibliography, and directory of major resources in toxicology and allied fields such as environmental and occupational health, chemical safety, and risk assessment. The editors and authors are among the leaders of the profession sharing their cumulative wisdom in toxicology's subdisciplines. This edition keeps pace with the digital world in directing and linking readers to relevant websites and other online tools.Due to the increasing size of the hardcopy publication, the current edition has been divided into two volumes to make it easier to handle and consult. Volume 1: Background, Resources, and Tools, arranged in 5 parts, begins with chapters on the science of toxicology, its history, and informatics framework in Part 1. Part 2 continues with chapters organized by more specific subject such as cancer, clinical toxicology, genetic toxicology, etc. The categorization of chapters by resource format, for example, journals and newsletters, technical reports, organizations constitutes Part 3. Part 4 further considers toxicology's presence via the Internet, databases, and software tools. Among the miscellaneous topics in the concluding Part 5 are laws and regulations, professional education, grants and funding, and patents. Volume 2: The Global Arena offers contributed chapters focusing on the toxicology contributions of over 40 countries, followed by a glossary of toxicological terms and an appendix of popular quotations related to the field.The book, offered in both print and electronic formats, is carefully structured, indexed, and cross-referenced to enable users to easily find answers to their questions or serendipitously locate useful knowledge they were not originally aware they needed. Among the many timely topics receiving increased emphasis are disaster preparedness, nanotechnology, -omics, risk assessment, societal implications such as ethics and the precautionary principle, climate change, and children's environmental health. - Opens with an overview of the international toxicology scene, organizations and activities involved with both the science and regulatory framework, and a specific look at the European Union's efforts - Offers an extensive collection of chapters covering over 40 countries and their toxicological infrastructure which includes listings of major books and journals, organizations, professional societies, universities, poison control centers, legislation, and online databases - Provides the Second Edition of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry's Glossary of Terms Used in Toxicology, a carefully constructed and peer reviewed collation of critical terms in the science - Concludes with a potpourri of quotes concerning toxicology and their use in the arts and popular culture - Paired with Volume One, which offers chapters on a host of toxicology sub-disciplines, this set offers the most comprehensive compendium of print, digital, and organizational resources in the toxicological sciences with over120 chapters contributions by experts and leaders in the field
Can sociology help us to tackle environmental problems? What can sociology tell us about the nature of the environment and about the origins and consequences of environmental risks, hazards and change? In this important new book Alan Irwin maps out this emerging field of knowledge, teaching and research. He reviews the key sociological debates in the field and sets out a new framework for analysis and practice. Among the themes examined are constructivism and realism, sustainable development and theories of the risk society. Readers are also introduced to communities at risk, institutional regulation and the environmental consequences of technology. Particular topics for discussion include genetically modified organisms, nuclear power, pesticide safety and the local hazards of the chemical industry. Rather than maintaining a fixed boundary between nature and society, Irwin highlights the hybrid character of environmental issues and emphasizes the role of social and cultural factors within environmental policy. Combining theoretical discussion and case-studies with a sensitivity to the concerns of environmental policy and practice, Sociology and the Environment provides an excellent introduction to an expanding and immensely important field. It will be a valuable text for students and scholars in sociology, geography, environmental studies and related disciplines.
In 2000 OpdenKamp Registration & Notification organized a two-day symposium in The Hague, The Netherlands, on `The Practical Applicability of Toxicokinetic Models in the Risk Assessment of Chemicals'. Several speakers from Europe and the United States were invited to present the different aspects. A vast range of areas was discussed in relation to toxicological modeling and risk assessment, such as occupational toxicology and biomonitoring, exposure to organic solvents and crop protection products, dose-response relations in carcinogenicity, regulatory toxicology, estimation of dermal penetration, uptake and disposition of organic chemicals in fish, the possibilities of in vitro methods in hazard and risk assessment, and the extrapolation between animal and human species. Based on their presentations, the speakers prepared comprehensive papers for this symposium book, reflecting the state of the art of modeling and toxicological risk assessment at the beginning of the third millennium.
This publication presents recent OECD papers on risk and regulatory policy. They offer measures for developing, or improving, coherent risk governance policies.
The worst chemical disaster ever could be happening right now. In India and Bangladesh between forty and eighty million people are at risk of consuming too much arsenic from well water that might have already caused one hundred thousand cancer cases and thousands of deaths. Many millions elsewhere in South-East Asia and South America may soon suffer a similar fate. Venomous Earth is the story of this tragedy: the geology, the biology, the politics and the history. It starts in Ancient Greece, touches down in today's North America and takes in William Morris, alchemy, farming, medicine, mining and a cosmetic that killed two popes.
The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. Each volume focuses on a particular part of the discipline, with volumes on Public Policy, Political Theory, Political Economy, Contextual Political Analysis, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Law and Politics, Political Behavior, Political Institutions, and Political Methodology. The project as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with each volume being edited by a distinguished international group of specialists in their respective fields. The books set out not just to report on the discipline, but to shape it. The series will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone working in political science and adjacent disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis sets out to synthesize and critique for the first time those approaches to political science that offer a more fine-grained qualitative analysis of the political world. The work in the volume has a common aim in being sensitive to the thoughts of contextual nuances that disappear from large-scale quantitative modelling or explanations based on abstract, general, universal laws of human behavior. It shows that 'context matters' in a great many ways: philosophical context matters; psychological context matters; cultural and historical contexts matter; place, population, and technology all matter. By showcasing scholars who specialize in the analysis of all these contexts side-by-side, the Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis shows how political scientists can take those crucial contextual factors systematically into account.
This book traces the evolution of environmental principles from their origins as vague political slogans reflecting fears about environmental hazards to their embodiment in enforceable laws. Since the early 1970s environmental issues have taken on an ever increasing profile. This has been duein part to a fundamental change in the type and scale of risk posed by industry. Issues such as global warming, GM food, and mad cow disease typify the new kinds of risk: potentially catastrophic consequences could ensue yet there is no scientific agreement over their precise causation, duration andother concerns. Environmental law has always responded to risks posed by industrial society but the new generation of risks have required a new set of environmental principles, emerging from a combination of public fears, science, ethics and established legal practice. This book shows how three ofthe most important principles of modern environmental law grew out of this new age of ecological risk: the polluter pays principle, the preventive principle and the precautionary principle. The author examines the legal force of these principles and in the process offers a novel theory of normformation in environmental law by unearthing new grounds of legality.The book will be of interest to all with an interest in environmental law and policy, in the relationship between law and science, and in the ways in which political and ethical values can become embodied in laws.
The growing urgency, complexity and "wickedness" of sustainability problems—from climate change and biodiversity loss to ecosystem degradation and persistent poverty and inequality—present fundamental challenges to scientific knowledge production and its use. While there is little doubt that science has a crucial role to play in our ability to pursue sustainability goals, critical questions remain as to how to most effectively organize research and connect it to actions that advance social and natural wellbeing. Drawing on interviews with leading sustainability scientists, this book examines how researchers in the emerging, interdisciplinary field of sustainability science are attempting to define sustainability, establish research agendas, and link the knowledge they produce to societal action. Pairing these insights with case studies of innovative sustainability research centres, the book reformulates the sustainability science research agenda and its relationship to decision-making and social action. It repositions the field as a "science of design" that aims to enrich public reasoning and deliberation while also working to generate social and technological innovations for a more sustainable future. This timely book gives students, researchers and practitioners a valuable and unique analysis of the emergence of sustainability science, and both the opportunities and barriers faced by scientific efforts to contribute to social action.
