As progress towards a greater knowledge in sustainability science continues, the question of how better to integrate scientific progress with actual decisions made by practitioners remains paramount. This book aims to help close the gap between science and practice. Based on a two year collaborative project between Harvard and Clark Universities, the book takes as its focus the vulnerability and resilience of people around the world to the effects of environmental change, a mature area of research in which one might expect the gap between science and policy/practice to have been extensively bridged. The book presents analysis of past studies, interviews conducted with the producers and users of scientific knowledge, and case studies performed by leading scholars across a spectrum of international settings and political systems. Crucially, the authors identify new directions and tools for closing the gap between science and policy across a range of situations and societies. The result is an illuminating collection of studies and analyses that suggest to researchers, students, practitioners, and policy-makers alike how best to ensure that high quality environmental research informs good environmental policy and practice. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors and authors are grateful to Lu Ann Pacenka, who formatted the text of the book.? The editors also wish to express their appreciation to Bill Clark and Nancy Dickson of Harvard University, who commissioned and provided oversight for the preparation of the volume.? Both editors and authors wish to express their appreciation to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation for providing funds to support the project.? Finally, the editors are grateful for the continuing support of the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University. Published with Science in Society

A risk conundrum can be viewed as a risk that poses major issues in assessment, and whose management is not easily engaged. Such perplexing problems can either paralyze or badly delay risk analysis and directions for progression. Rather than simply focusing on the progress in risk analysis that has already been made, it is crucial to consider what has been learnt about these seemingly unmanageable problems and how best to move forward. Risk Conundrums seeks to answer this question by bringing together a range of key thinkers in the field to explore key issues such as risk communication, uncertainty, social trust, indicators and metrics, and risk management, drawing upon case study examples including natural disasters, terrorism, and energy transitions. The initial chapters address risk conundrums, their properties, and the challenges they pose. The book then turns to a greater emphasis on systemic and regional risk conundrums. Finally, it considers how risk management can be changed to address these unsolvable conundrums. Alternative pathways are defined and scrutinized and predictions for future developments set out. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of risk governance, environmental policy, and sustainable development.

A risk conundrum can be viewed as a risk that poses major issues in assessment, and whose management is not easily engaged. Such perplexing problems can either paralyze or badly delay risk analysis and directions for progression. Rather than simply focusing on the progress in risk analysis that has already been made, it is crucial to consider what has been learnt about these seemingly unmanageable problems and how best to move forward. Risk Conundrums seeks to answer this question by bringing together a range of key thinkers in the field to explore key issues such as risk communication, uncertainty, social trust, indicators and metrics, and risk management, drawing upon case study examples including natural disasters, terrorism, and energy transitions. The initial chapters address risk conundrums, their properties, and the challenges they pose. The book then turns to a greater emphasis on systemic and regional risk conundrums. Finally, it considers how risk management can be changed to address these unsolvable conundrums. Alternative pathways are defined and scrutinized and predictions for future developments set out. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of risk governance, environmental policy, and sustainable development.

Brown and her colleagues offer an unprecedented analysis of how multinational corporations and developing countries manage, in the face of differing values, to relate as each proceeds in the interest of particular development objectives. Through three case studies involving Du Pont Agrichemical, Occidental Chemical, and Xerox and the countries of India and Thailand, the authors illustrate how the differing values of the host country and the corporation influence decisions. It offers valuable insights into the anatomy of decision-making in a highly sensitive and increasingly scrutinized segment of contemporary business.

This is a particularly timely examination of multinational enterprises, of the impact of corporate cultures, sustainable development, hazard management and environmental issues seen in relationship to developing countries' values, needs, and objectives.

We live in a 'risk society' where the identification, distribution and management of risks, from new technology, environmental factors or other sources are crucial to our individual and social existence.Jeanne and Roger Kasperson are two of the world's leading and most influential analysts of the social dimensions of risk. 'The Social Contours of Risk' brings together in two volumes their most important contributions to this fundamental and wide-ranging field.Volume 2 centers on the analysis and management of risk in society, in international business and multinationals, and globally. The 'acceptability' of risk to an individual depends on the context, whether in the larger society or in, say, a corporate framework. Their work clarifies the structures and processes for managing risks in the private sector, and the factors that produce or impede effective decisions. Corporate culture is crucial as they show in determining risk management. They analyze the transfer of corporate risk management systems from industrial to developing countries, and how globalization is spreading and creating new kinds of risk -- the combination of traditional and modern hazards presented by climate change, technology transfer and economic growth. They describe the new priorities and capacities needed to deal with these enhanced vulnerabilities around the globe.

Edited by three well-known analysts of risk and its communication, this volume brings together contributions from a group of international experts in risk perception and risk communication. Key conceptual issues are discussed as well as a range of recent case studies that span BSE and food safety, AIDS/HIV, nuclear power, child protection, Y2K, electromagnetic fields, and waste incineration. The volume also draws attention to issues in public policy, risk management and risk communication practice.

We live in a 'risk society' where the identification, distribution and management of risks, from new technology, environmental factors or other sources are crucial to our individual and social existence.Jeanne and Roger Kasperson are two of the world's leading and most influential analysts of the social dimensions of risk. The Social Contours of Risk brings together in two volumes their most important contributions to this fundamental and wide-ranging field.Volume 1 collects their fundamental work on how risks are communicated among different publics and stakeholders, including local communities, corporations and the larger society. It analyses the problems of lack of transparency and trust and explores how even minor effects can be amplified and distorted through media and social responses, preventing effective management. The final section investigates the difficult ethical issues raised by the unequal distribution of risk depending on factors such as wealth, location and genetic inheritance -- with examples from worker and public protection, facility siting conflicts, transporting hazardous waste and widespread impacts such as climate change.Volume 2 centers on the analysis and management of risk in society, in international business and multinationals, and globally. The 'acceptability' of risk to an individual depends on the context, whether the larger society or in, say, a corporate framework. Their work clarifies the structures and processes for managing risks in the private sector, and the factors that produce or impede effective decisions. Corporate culture is crucial as they show in determining risk management. They analyze the transfer of corporate risk management systems fromindustrial to developing countries, and how globalization is spreading and creating new kinds of risk -- the combination of traditional and modern hazards presented by climate change, technology transfer and economic growth. They describe the new priorities and capacities needed to deal with these enhanced vulnerabilities around the globe.

Edited by three well-known analysts of risk and its communication, this volume brings together contributions from a group of international experts in risk perception and risk communication. Key conceptual issues are discussed as well as a range of recent case studies that span BSE and food safety, AIDS/HIV, nuclear power, child protection, Y2K, electromagnetic fields, and waste incineration. The volume also draws attention to issues in public policy, risk management and risk communication practice.

This book provides one of the first systematic accounts of how corporations manage risk to workers and consumers. Careful analysis and interviewing in different corporations elicit a portrait of the myriad hazards that currently confront industry, the corporate programs and resources that have emerged since 1970 to respond to this challenge, and factors that have contributed to successes and failures. In-depth studies of the Volvo Car Corporation, Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, Union Carbide's Bhopal facility, and large chemical and pharmaceutical corporations provide a state-of-the-art assessment of the advances and problems inherent today in industrial safety management. Roger E. Kasperson, Jeanne X. Kasperson, and Christoph Hohenemser are senior researchers at Clark University's Center for Technology, Environment, and Development (CENTED). Roger E. Kasperson is Director of CENTED and its Hazard Assessment Group. Jeanne X. Kasperson is Research Librarian at CENTED and Senior Research Associate in Brown University's World Hunger Program. Hohenemser, a professor of physics, directs the Environment, Technology, and Society Program at Clark University. Robert W. Kates, formerly with CENTED, is Director of the Alan Shawn Feinstein World Hunger Program at Brown University. Ola Svenson, of the Department of Psychology at Lund University in Sweden, is a leading researcher in the field of risk perception and decision analysis.