Risk and Reason: Safety, Law, and the EnvironmentCambridge University Press, 2002 - 342 pages What should be done about airplane safety and terrorism, global warming, polluted water, nuclear power, and genetically engineered food? Decision-makers often respond to temporary fears, and the result is a situation of hysteria and neglect--and unnecessary illness and death. Risk and Reason explains the sources of these problems and explores what can be done about them. It shows how individual thinking and social interactions lead us in foolish directions. Offering sound proposals for social reform, it explains how a more sensible system of risk regulation, embodied in the idea of a "cost-benefit state," could save many thousands of lives and many billions of dollars too--and protect the environment in the process. Cass R. Sunstein is the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Television Broadcasters. His many books include Republic.com (Princeton, 2001) and Designing Democracy (Oxford, 2001). He has worked in the United States Department of Justice and advised on law reform and constitution-making in many nations. |
Contents
Beyond 1970s Environmentalist | 10 |
Thinking About Risks | 28 |
Are Experts Wrong? | 53 |
This Months Risk with Timur Kuran | 78 |
Reducing Risks Rationally | 99 |
Health Health Tradeoffs | 133 |
The Arithmetic of Arsenic | 153 |
Of Courts and Law CostBenefit Default Principles | 191 |
Tools | 251 |
On Consequences and Technocrats | 289 |
Worldwide Health Statistics | 296 |
Statistical Risks US General Mortality Trends | 301 |
CostBenefit Numbers for Ozone and Particulates | 311 |
DoseResponse Curves | 318 |
Acknowledgments | 325 |
327 | |
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Common terms and phrases
affect heuristic agencies air pollution air quality ancillary risks arsenic assessment availability cascades availability heuristic cancer carcinogens Chapter Clean Air Act cognitive concern Congress consider context cost-benefit analysis cost-benefit balancing costs and benefits court create dangerous Daniel Kahneman DC Cir deaths decision dioxide discount rate dose-response drinking water economic incentives emissions ensure Environmental Protection EPA's estimates evidence example experts exposure fact fear feasible fuel genetically modified food goals groups harm hazardous health effects health-health tradeoffs increase informational cascade intuitive involved issue judgments less lives Love Canal million NHTSA ordinary OSHA ozone Paul Slovic people's percent possible precautionary principle prevent problem produce question reasonable regulatory relevant require respiratory risk reduction risk regulation safety saved sense serious significant social standards statistical statute suggest sulfur dioxide supra note Table toxic Univ