Environmental Risk Analysis: Robustness Is Essential for Precaution

Uncertainty and precaution in European environmental risk assessment of chemicals.

It is recognised that there is a need for a proper treatment and transparency of uncertainty in risk assessment and management, especially in view of the upcoming proposed new chemical policy REACH, which delegates the responsibility for conducting risk assessments to industry. The current EU risk assessment for new and existing substances is largely deterministic and prudential measures are im...

Avoiding Environmental Catastrophes: Varieties of Principled Precaution

The precautionary principle is often proposed as a guide to action in environmental management or risk assessment, and has been incorporated in various legal and regulatory contexts. For many, it reflects the common sense notion of being safe rather than sorry, but it has attracted numerous critics. At times, proponents and critics talk at cross purposes, due to the multiplicity of ways the pre...

Uncertainty and precaution in environmental management.

In this paper, two different visions of the relationship between science and policy are contrasted with one another: the "modern" vision and the "precautionary" vision. Conditions which must apply in order to invoke the Precautionary Principle are presented, as are some of the main challenges posed by the principle. The following central question remains: If scientific certainty cannot be provi...

Precaution Environmental Science and Preventive Public Policy

The Lowell Center for Sustainable Production has sought to engage scientists, policy-makers, advocates, and students in a broad public discussion about whether the tools and methods of environmental science and its integration in policy are adequate to address complex, highly uncertain environmental and health risks. It did so in an International Summit on Science and the Precautionary Principl...

Environmental robustness