Group items tagged

The Perfect Spill: Solutions for Averting the Next Deepwater Horizon By Robert Costanza, David Batker, John Day, Rusty Feagin, M. Luisa Martinez, Joe Roman National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) f we refuse to take into account the full cost of our fossil fuel addiction-if we don't factor in the environmental costs and national security costs and true economic costs-we will have missed our best chance to seize a clean energy future." -President Barack Obama, Carnegie Mellon University, June 2, 2010 he continuing oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon is causing enormous economic and ecological damage. Estimates of the size and duration continue to escalate, but it is now the largest in U.S. history and clearly among the largest oil spills on record.1 s efforts to plug the leak and clean up the damages continue, it is not too soon to begin to draw lessons from this disaster. We need to learn from this experience so we can prevent future oil spills, reevaluate society's current trajectory, and set a better course. ne major lesson is that our natural capital assets and other public goods are far too valuable to continue to put them at such high risk from private interests. We need better (not necessarily more) regulation and strong incentives to protect these assets against actions that put them at risk. While the Obama administration's demand for a trust fund to compensate injured parties is appropriate, it arrived only after the fact. Common asset trusts and new financial instruments like assurance bonds would be better able to shift risk incentives and prevent disasters like the Deepwater Horizon. The Costs: Damages to Natural Capital Assets he spill has directly and indirectly affected at least 20 categories of valuable ecosystem services in and around the Gulf of Mexico. The $2.5 billion per year Louisiana commercial fishery has been almost completely shut down. As the oil extends to popular Gulf Coast beaches, the loss of tourism

10 MAY 2010: ANALYSIS The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: An Accident Waiting to Happen The oil slick spreading across the Gulf of Mexico has shattered the notion that offshore drilling had become safe. A close look at the accident shows that lax federal oversight, complacency by BP and the other companies involved, and the complexities of drilling a mile deep all combined to create the perfect environmental storm. by john mcquaid It's hard to believe now, as oil from the wrecked Deepwater Horizon well encroaches on the Louisiana marshes. But it was only six weeks ago that President Obama announced a major push to expand offshore oil and gas drilling. Obama's commitment to lift a moratorium on offshore drilling reflected the widely-held belief that offshore oil operations, once perceived as dirty and dangerous, were now so safe and technologically advanced that the risks of a major disaster were infinitesimal, and managing them a matter of technocratic skill. But in the space of two weeks, both the politics and the practice of offshore drilling have been turned upside down. Today, the notion that offshore drilling is safe seems absurd. The Gulf spill harks back to drilling disasters from decades past - including one off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif. in 1969 that dumped three million gallons into coastal waters and led to the current moratorium. The Deepwater Horizon disaster is a classic "low probability, high impact event" - the kind we've seen more than our share of recently, including space shuttle disasters, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. And if there's a single lesson from those disparate catastrophes, it's that pre-disaster assumptions tend to be dramatically off-base, and the worst-case scenarios downplayed or ignored. The Gulf spill is no exception. Getty Images/U.S. Coast Guard Fire boats battle the fire on the oil rig Deepwater Horizon after the April 21 explosion. The post-mortems are only beginning, so the precise causes of the initial

Building Resilience on the Prairies Adaptation as Resilience Building What's New? Manitoba Agricultural Producer Primer This brochure provides a summary of how Manitoba producers have coped and adapted to past weather-related shocks and stresses. It is based on Masters degree research undertaken by Peter Myers at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba. In October 2004, IISD initiated a new project in partnership with the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (the rural extension service of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) and the University of Manitoba's Natural Resources Institute. This two-year project funded by Canada's Climate Change Action Fund will examine the resilience of prairie communities to past climate stresses as a means of strengthening adaptation to future climate change. The project is based on the premise that prairie agro-ecosystems, or the inter-relationship between social and ecological systems in the prairie region, have been continuously adapting (successfully and unsuccessfully) to historic climate variability. By examining successful examples of how agro-ecosystems have adapted to past climate stress, IISD and its partners believe that we learn how to promote adaptive capacity and build the resilience of prairie agro-ecosystems to present climate change. It is expected that the project's research findings will make an important contribution to the design of Canada's evolving Agricultural Policy Framework. Project Reports Farmer Responses to Weather Shocks and Stresses in Manitoba: A Resilience Approach (PDF - 644 kb) A Masters Thesis by Peter Myers describing how producers in Manitoba have dealt with past weather- related shocks and stresses as a view toward future coping and adaptation for climate change. Living with Climate Change: How Prairie Farmers Deal with Increasing Weather Variability (PDF - 2.4 mb) A technical report by Masters student Kent Pearce describing how producers in Saskatchewan

Does The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Mean That The U.S. Is Headed For Gas Lines, Higher Food Prices And A Broken Economy? The Economic Collapse June 23, 2010 As the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis enters a third month, the economic impact of this environmental nightmare is starting to become clearer.  The truth is that the "oil volcano" spewing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf has absolutely decimated the seafood, tourism and real estate industries along the Gulf coast.  Not only that, but energy industry insiders are now warning that the chilling effect that this crisis will have on offshore drilling could precipitate a new 1970s-style energy crisis.  Considering the fact that the U.S. economy was already on incredibly shaky ground even before the oil leak, the last thing we needed was a disaster of this magnitude.  But it has happened, and the reality is that the long-term effects of this crisis are potentially going to reverberate for decades.  The American people certainly have a negative view on the impact that this oil spill will have on the economy.  According to a new poll, about eight out of every 10 Americans expect the oil spill to damage the U.S. economy and drive up the cost of gas and food. But is a new 1970s-style energy crisis really a possibility? Could we actually soon be headed for blackouts and gas lines? Well, former Shell executive John Hofmeister believes that is exactly what we are headed for…. "Within a decade I predict the energy abyss looks like brownouts, blackouts and gas lines."  In fact, Hofmeister claims that some of his fellow energy industry insiders expect things to be even worse than he is projecting in the years ahead. Why? Hofmeister says that the problem is the U.S. government…. "Our federal government, when it comes to energy and the environment, is dysfunctional, it's broken, and it's unfixable in its current form." Without a doubt, the oil spill will have a chilling effect

           Volume 85    Issue One: November 2010   The French Revision of Prescription: A Model for Louisiana?, Benjamin West Janke & François-Xavier Licari (Lead Article)      The Rome II Regulation: A Comparative Perspective on Federalizing Choice of Law, Clay H. Kaminsky   Why the Beginning Should Be the End: The Argument for Exempting Post-Complaint Materials from Rule 26(b)(5)(A)'s Privilege-Log Requirement, Douglas C. Rennie   Essay: The Quran and the Constitution, L. Ali Khan   Book Review: Saving Civil Justice: Judging Civil Justice by Hazel Genn, Elizabeth G. Thornburg   Comment, Foolish Revenge or Shrewd Regulation? Financial Industry Tax Law Reforms Proposed in the Wake of the Financial Crisis, Richard T. Page    Comment, Breathing Life Into the "Dead Zone": Can the Federal Common Law of Nuisance Be Used to Control Nonpoint Source Water Pollution?, Endre Szalay        Issue Two: November 2010   "Sports Law": Implications for the Development of International, Comparative, and National Law and Global Dispute Resolution, Matthew J. Mitten & Hayden Opie (Lead Article)    A Uniform Framework for Patent Eligibility, Efthimios Parasidis    Tracing the Origins of "Fairly Traceable": The Black Hole of Private Climate Change Litigation, Mary Kathryn Nagle    Convergence in Contort, Melissa T. Lonegrass    Comment, Forum and Venue Selection Clauses in Seaman's Employment Contracts: Can Contractual Stipulations Be Used to Defeat a Seaman's Choice of Forum or Venue in a Jones Act Claim?, Jeremy Jones    Comment, The Downside of Success: How Increased Commercialism Could Cost the NCAA Its Biggest Antitrust Defense, Jeffrey J.R. Sundram      Issue Three: February 2011  Mixed Public-Private Speech and the Establishment Clause, Claudia E. Haupt   Clarity and Confusion: RICO's Recent Trips to the United States Supreme Court, Dr. Randy D. Gordon   Did You Ever Hear of the Napoleonic Code, Stella? A Mixed Jurisdi

Governing Disasters The Challenges of Emergency Risk Regulation Alberto Alemanno Edited by Alberto Alemanno, Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law and Risk Regulation, HEC Paris, France 2011 320 pp Hardback 978 0 85793 572 4 Hardback £75.00 on-line price £67.50 Qty This book is also available as an ebook  978 0 85793 573 1 from - www.EBSCOhost.com www.myilibrary www.ebooks.com www.ebookscorporation.com www.dawsonera.com www.ebrary.com/corp/ www.books.google.com/ebooks Description 'This comprehensive edited volume makes an important and much needed contribution to an increasingly important dimension of risk assessment and management, namely emergency risk regulation. Drawing upon the responses of government, businesses, and the public to the 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland - which disrupted European air travel, it offers important lessons for policy-makers who are likely to confront similar unanticipated global risks. The recent nuclear power disaster in Japan makes this volume both timely and prescient.' - David Vogel, University of California, Berkeley, US Contents Contributors: A. Alemanno, N. Bernard, V. Brannigan, C.M. Briggs, M. Broberg, A. Burgess, G.G. Castellano, S. Chakraborty, A. Fioritto, F. Hansstein, L. Jachia, A. Jeunemaitre, C. Johnson, C. Lawless, F.B. López-Jurado, D. Macrae, M. Mazzocchi, V. Nikonov, M. Ragona, M. Simoncini, A.M. Viens Further information 'The challenges posed by risky decisions are well documented. These decisions become even more daunting when they must be made in a midst of a crisis. Using the European volcanic risk crisis as the principal case study, Alberto Alemanno and the other contributors to this thought provoking volume derive valuable lessons for how policy makers can cope with the attendant time pressures, uncertainties, coordination issues, and risk communication problems. Once the next emergency risk situation occurs, it may be too late to learn about how to respond. Governing Disasters should be re

Natural Hazards Center Publications Descriptions and links to publications of the Natural Hazards Center are provided below. In most cases, downloadable versions of the publications are available, along with archives of past publications. An updated PDF file listing all of the Natural Hazards Center Publications is available. For information on ordering hard copies of any publications, visit our publications purchasing page. Natural Hazards Observer The Natural Hazards Observer is the bimonthly periodical of the Natural Hazards Center. It covers current disaster issues; new international, national, and local disaster management, mitigation, and education programs; hazards research; political and policy developments; new information sources and Web sites; upcoming conferences; and recent publications. Disaster Research Disaster Research (DR) is a biweekly e-newsletter that includes some news items that also appear in the Natural Hazards Observer as well as other timely articles about new developments, policies, conference announcements, job vacancies, Web resources, and information sources in the field of hazards management. Quick Response Reports With funds contributed by the National Science Foundation, the Natural Hazards Center Quick Response program offers social scientists small grants to travel to the site of a disaster soon after it occurs to gather valuable information concerning immediate impact and response. Scholars participating in the program submit reports, which the Center makes available for free online. Research Digest Research Digest is a quarterly online publication that compiles recent research into an easily accessible format for the hazards and disasters community. It provides complete references and abstracts (when available) for current research in the field. The issues include more than 35 peer reviewed publications. Natural Hazards Review The Natural Hazards Review is a joint publication of the Natural Hazards Center and the American Societ

Responsabilidade Penal e Análise Econômica Horas-aula: 30 Professor(es): Giácomo Balbinotto Neto, Tupinambá Pinto de Azevedo Súmula A teoria econômica do comportamento humano Introdução a Teoria Econômica do Crime A contribuição de Gary Becker A Contribuição de Gordon Tullock As bases teóricas da econômica do crime O modelo básico de análise - Gary Becker O modelo de alocação do tempo O modelo de migração O modelo de portfólio O modelo de agente principal O modelo de interação social A teoria do crime organizado A teoria econômica da corrupção A organização industrial da corrupção O sistema de justiça criminal e a economia das prisões Aplicações: controle de armas, roubos a bancos; evasão fiscal, pena de morte. Evidências empíricas para o caso brasileiro. Objetivos da Disciplina Introdução de conceitos econômicos fundamentais, autores, abordagem referentes à teoria econômica do crime, bem como aplicações a temas correlacionados e aplicações ao caso brasileiro. Metodologia de Ensino Aulas expositivas com lâminas de power point e debates em aula sobre temas e textos específicos. Critérios de Avaliação A avaliação será baseada no desempenho de uma prova escritas, com conteúdo bem como num conjunto de exercícios que serão propostos ao longo do curso. As datas das provas serão marcadas em datas oportunas. A nota final será obtida da seguinte forma: provas escritas (0,80) + exercícios propostos (0,20). Aulas Teoria Econômica do Crime Artigos para leitura ARAÚJO, A.F.; FAJNZYLBER, P. Crime e Economia: um estudo das microrregiões mineiras. In: IX Seminário sobre a Economia Mineira, UFMG, 2000. ARAÚJO, A.F.V.; RAMOS, F.S. Estimação da Perda de Bem-estar causada pela Criminalidade: o caso da cidade de João Pessoa-PB. In: XII Encontro Regional de Economia, 19 e 20 de julho de 2007, Fortaleza-CE. BERGER, Luiz Marcelo. Um modelo baseado em agentes para estudo das propriedades emergentes decorrent

Edward Paice's Wrath of God: Lisbon 1755 I read this book very quickly, while away on half term last week. It is a brilliantly researched and well-written account of a world-changing tragedy - and there is no small, grim irony that this is the week in which the Porguguese island of Madeira has suffered more natural disaster. That Lisbon 1755 was a terrible moment (earthquake followed by rampant fires followed by tsunami) is not in doubt and simply as a human story, it is entirely deserving of study. Indeed, it was such a huge event that the impact was felt 100s of miles away, and the sea was affected on the other side of the Atlantic (in the Caribbean). It thus qualified as one of only two 'teletsunami' (a tsunami that has travelled over 1000km) ever recorded in the Caribbean. But its wider importance cannot be underestimated either, because of the philosophical and moral repercussions it had on European thought. As Paice describes Voltaire's brilliant deconstruction of prevailing ideas: In Voltaire's deft hands the Lisbon earthquake became the vehicle for an assault on optimism and the orthodox view of divine Providence which would change the way people thought for ever; and it in turn it arguably became the last disaster in which God held centre stage. (p195) The reasons are many - but if a city could ever have claimed to have been 'Christian' Lisbon was one that would have tried (although many Protestants at the time including the likes of Wesley and Whitefield would have disputed it). It's Catholicism was very strong - perhaps 1/6th of the population were so called 'religioso' - but its forms were (even by many european Catholics' admissions) rampantly corrupt and hypocritical. Worse, though, was that the first big quake struck at 10am on Saturday 1st November 1755 - which was at precisely the moment that many of Lisbon's citizens would have been in church. For 1st November is also All Saints' Day, and this was a huge fea

"Transparency is not only in the public interest, it is part of the scientific process. We want to make sure that independent scientists, engineers and other experts have every opportunity to review this information and make their own conclusions." -Secretary Chu As part of the Obama Administration's ongoing commitment to transparency surrounding the response to the BP oil spill, the Department of Energy is providing online access to schematics, pressure tests, diagnostic results and other data about the malfunctioning blowout preventer. Secretary Chu insisted on making the data widely available to ensure the public is as informed as possible, and to ensure that outside experts making recommendations have access to the same information that BP and the government have. This site is updated regularly with new data and additional documentation. Latest Information July 9th Combined Total Amount of Oil and Gas Recovered Daily from the Top Hat and Choke Line oil recovery systems. (.xls) (.ods) Visual Breakout of the Cummulative Barrels of Oil Recovered by the LMRP Cap and Q4000. Oil and Gas Flow Data from the Top Hat and from the Choke Line (.xls) (.ods) July 1st Key Events Timeline (.ppt) - This document lists key events beginning with the April 20 fire on the Deepwater Horizon through June 30th. Data Summary from Deepwater Horizon The following documents are a collection of data from operations to control flow from the Deepwater Horizon well. All information was provided directly by BP. The file names have been preserved in order to maintain a traceable record of where each file came from in the BP tracking system and whenever possible, we have worked to ensure that the contents are data readable. Description of System This page gives a general overview of the well, the blow out preventer, the lower marine reservoir package and the riser configuration as best known after the April 20 fire on the Deepwater Horizon. Well Configuration (.pdf)- showing the dept

Socializing Risk: The New Energy Economics May 27, 2010frankackermanLeave a commentGo to comments from Frank Ackerman Despite talk of a moratorium, the Interior Department's Minerals and Management Service is still granting waivers from environmental review for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including wells in very deep water. Until last month, most of us never thought about the risk that one of those huge offshore rigs would explode in flames and then sink, causing oil to gush out uncontrollably and befoul the oceans. The odds seemed low, and still do: Aren't there lots of drilling rigs in use, year after year? Twenty years ago, your elected representatives thought that you'd be happy to have them adopt a very low cap on industry's liability for oil spill damages.  Nuclear power was never quite free of fears; it was too clearly a spin-off of nuclear weapons to ignore the risk of a very big bang. Yet as its advocates point out, we have had hundreds of reactor-years of experience, with only a few accidents. (And someday when Nevada's politicians aren't looking, maybe we can slip all of our nuclear waste into a cave in the desert.) Again, the risks are so low that you'd be happy to learn about a law limiting industry's liability for accidents, wouldn't you?  Environmentalists have long warned that the world could run out of energy and resources, from the "limits to growth" theories of the 1970s to the more recently popular notion of "peak oil." The response from economists has been that prices for energy and raw materials are still moderate, and declined over the course of the 20th century; if we are running out of something, why doesn't its price skyrocket? The problem is that what we're running out of is low-risk conventional energy supplies. Because our economy conceals and socializes energy risks, prices remain deceptively low for an increasingly risky energy supply. The market wasn't supposed to work this way. In the

A History of Moral Hazard David Rowell and Luke Connelly (University of Queensland)d.rowell@uq.edu.au The term 'moral hazard' was initially developed 150 years ago within the insurance-industry literature, to describe a positive relationship between insurance and a claim. It has been asserted that the concept of moral hazard spontaneously evolved with insurance. However, the earliest insurance contracts predate the first recorded use of the term moral hazard by almost 500 years. When interpreted literately, the phrase moral hazard can evoke a strong rhetorical tone, which has readily been used by a variety of stakeholders, most notably insurers, to influence public attitudes to claimers and claiming. In contrast, the discipline of economics has treated moral hazard as an idiom which 'in fact, has little to do with morality' to analyse the role that incentives play in a broad range of principal-agent relationships. This paper seeks to explore the underlying historical reasons for this impasse by reviewing four distinct and disparate literatures: theological, probabilistic, insurance and economic. The theological literature contains a rich discussion of the liceity of insurance that reveals a medieval concept of providence, which had profound implications for the conceptual development of moral hazard. The emergence of a probability literature from the field of mathematics also contributed to the theory of risk, (e.g. Bernoulli's resolution of the St Petersburg paradox) which were precursors for conceptual development of moral hazard. The eventual genesis of moral hazard in The Practice of Fire Underwriting in 1865 was followed by some ambiguity in the interpretation of this term. A careful inspection of the early insurance literature suggests that the term moral hazard was used pejoratively to also describe the related actuarial process of adverse selection, i.e., morally suspect people were observed to purchase insurance with a view to committing fraud. The insuranc

Iran, BP and the CIA LAWRENCE S. WITTNER Counterpunch June 23, 2010 The offshore oil drilling catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico brought to us by BP has overshadowed its central role over the past century in fostering some other disastrous events. BP originated in 1908 as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company-a British corporation whose name was changed to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company two decades later.  With exclusive rights to extract, refine, export, and sell Iran's rich oil resources, the company reaped enormous profits.  Meanwhile, it shared only a tiny fraction of the proceeds with the Iranian government.  Similarly, although the company's British personnel lived in great luxury, its Iranian laborers endured lives of squalor and privation. In 1947, as Iranian resentment grew at the giant oil company's practices, the Iranian parliament called upon the Shah, Iran's feudal potentate, to renegotiate the agreement with Anglo-Iranian.  Four years later, Mohammed Mossadeq, riding a tide of nationalism, became the nation's prime minister.  As an enthusiastic advocate of taking control of Iran's oil resources and using the profits from them to develop his deeply impoverished nation, Mossadeq signed legislation, passed unanimously by the country's parliament, to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The British government was horrified.  Eager to assist the embattled corporation, it imposed an economic embargo on Iran and required its technicians to leave the country, thus effectively blocking the Iranian government from exporting its oil.  When this failed to bring the Iranians to heel, the British government sought to arrange for the overthrow of Mossadeq-first through its own efforts and, later (when Britain's diplomatic mission was expelled from Iran for its subversive activities), through the efforts of the U.S. government.  But President Truman refused to commit the CIA to this venture. To the delight of Anglo-Iranian, it received

Social theories of risk Sheldon Krimsky, Dominic Golding 2 Resenhas Praeger, 1992 - 412 páginas The social science approach to risk has matured over the past two decades, with distinct paradigms developing in disciplines such as anthropology, economics, geography, psychology, and sociology. Social Theories of Risk traces the intellectual origins and histories of twelve of the established and emerging paradigms from the perspective of their principal proponents. Each contributor examines the underlying assumptions of his or her paradigm, the foundational issue it seeks to address, and likely future directions of research. Taken together, these essays illustrate that the principal achievement of social sciences has been to broaden the debate about risk beyond the narrow, technical considerations of engineers and the physical and life sciences. The authors conclude that expert knowledge is not value-free, that public perceptions of and attitudes toward risks vary according to a wide range of social, psychological, and cultural variables, and that public opposition to particular risks cannot be assuaged by technical fixes. The essays reveal the circuitous paths that lead people to the study of risk, highlight how these paths have crossed and discuss some of the seminal influences on individuals and the field in general. Social Theories of Risk presents a broad, retrospective view of the state of the theory in the social sciences, written by many who have been on the cutting edge of risk research since its early days. The book includes both established and novel perspectives that address the theoretical foundations of the field and reflect what we know about risk as a psychological, social, and cultural phenomenon. The collection of papers not only informs us of the tributary ideas that spawned the social studies of risk, but also how the field has matured. The biographical flavor of the essays provides fascinating reading for established members of the field, and a v

The central goal of this book is to provide a state of the art overview of the literature with respect to the economic analysis of tort law. It sure meets the challenge, offering with great expertise a comprehensive presentation of tort law in both economic and comparative perspectives. The clarity of the text, unusual in the law and economics literature, makes the book accessible to a broad readership of economists with a limited legal background and lawyers with limited economic skills.' Olivier Moreteau, Louisiana State University, US 'Tort Law and Economics, ed. Michael Faure, provides a highly useful economic overview of the most important topics of tort law. The authors clearly show the main developments of the discussion, examining the results of recent studies and stating their own opinions. Detailed bibliographies are included. The volume has to be warmly recommended to friends and foes of economic analysis who are provided with a comprehensive update in this field while also indicating areas which critics have to focus on.' Helmut Koziol, European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law, Austria This volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of the literature on the economic analysis of tort law. In sixteen chapters, the specialist authors guide the reader through the often vast literature in each domain providing a balanced and comprehensive summary. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of the field, further refinements to economic models and relevant conclusions and lessons for the policymaker. Tort Law and Economics is part of the Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, and enables readers, some not familiar with law and economics, to obtain an insight in the relevant economic literature concerning tort law and economics. This book will be of interest to lawyers and economists, practitioners and academics interested in accident law, tort law, insurance and regulation. It will also appeal to students in economic analysis of law and policymakers working on

The ecological risks of engineered crops Jane Rissler, Margaret G. Mellon 3 Resenhas MIT Press, 1996 - 168 páginas What will it mean to have a steady stream of animal and microbial genes entering the gene pools of plants in wild ecosystems? Private companies and the federal government are pouring significant resources into biotechnology, and the major application of genetic engineering to agriculture is transgenic crops. This carefully reasoned science and policy assessment shows that the commercialization and release of transgenic crops on millions of acres of farmland can pose serious-and costly-environmental risks. The authors propose a practical, feasible method of conducting precommercialization evaluations that will balance the needs of ecological safety with those of agriculture and business, and that will assist governments seeking to identify and protect against two of the most significant risks. Rissler and Mellon first define transgenic plants and review research currently under way in the field of crop biotechnology. They then identify and categorize the environmental risks presented by commercial uses of transgenic crops. These include the potential of transgenic crops to become weeds or to produce weeds with transgene properties such as herbicide resistance that may require costly control programs. Plants engineered to contain virus particles may facilitate the creation of new viruses that can affect economically important crops. Looking at global seed trade, the authors discuss the relationship between commercial approval in the United States and environmental risks abroad. Of particular concern is the flow of novel genes into the centers of crop biodiversity, primarily in the developing world, that could threaten the genetic base of the world's future food supply. The authors conclude by reviewing the current status of U.S. regulations governing transgenic crops. They discuss the difficulties that this new terrain presents to regulators, a

In our time, the human species has acquired the capability to destroy both human life and much of the biosphere that hosts it. This potential is even more dangerous as the processes of globalization unfold, especially in their corporate and oligarchic modes, which contribute to increased poverty and environmental degradation. This situation makes the development of a new mode of reason necessary. In this article, I propose to analyze the discursive continuity between the Gaia hypothesis and ecofeminism as a space from where this alternative mode of reason is emerging. This alternative mode of reason, I claim, posits symbiosis rather than independence as the basic form of relatedness between individual entities. Symbiotic reason, I suggest, is exponentially feminine, for women's bodies are predisposed to be two-in-one-to be hosts to other bodies in pregnancy.[ 1] Symbiotic reason understands life as an interrelated web in which each individual is a small node that exists thanks to the others' presence. Life resembles a Deleuzian rhizome, a multiplicity of elements in a free-range order, with each element different from the next, yet all recognizably part of the whole.[ 2] If symbiosis is the axiom on which the new rational mode of thinking rests, then symbiotic reason is ecofeminist.[ 3] Ecofeminism, short for ecological feminism, emerged from a feminist interest in science - the area of knowledge that claims reason and rationality as its own turf. In the 1980s, feminist science studies exposed the white male perspective behind the alleged objectivity of Western science.[ 4] In the 1990s, ecofeminism evolved as a mode of feminist discourse concerned with ecological issues that Western science was unable to resolve.[ 5] While major agents of corporate globalization such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are accustomed to treating the Earth as assemblage of consumable resources, many ecofeminist philosophers are keenly aware that the Earth may ve

Managing Food Safety And Hygiene Governance and Regulation as Risk Management Bridget Hutter Bridget M. Hutter, Professor of Risk Regulation, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK 2011 224 pp Hardback 978 0 85793 570 0 Hardback £65.00 on-line price £58.50 Qty This book is also available as an ebook  978 0 85793 571 7 from - www.EBSCOhost.com www.myilibrary www.ebooks.com www.ebookscorporation.com www.dawsonera.com www.ebrary.com/corp/ www.books.google.com/ebooks Description 'One of the most thorough and considered studies we have of the relationship between regulation and business risk management practices. Food regulation provides a revealing canvas for understanding the dynamics of the governance of risk.' - John Braithwaite, Australian National University Contents Contents: Preface Introduction: Setting the Scene 1. Risk Regulation and Business Organizations Part I: The Food Retail and Hospitality Industry and Risk 2. The Food Retail and Hospitality Industry in the UK: A Research Approach 3. The Food Industry and Risk: Official Data and Workplace Understandings Part II: Risk Regulation 4. State Governance of Food Safety and Food Hygiene: The Regulatory Regime and the Views of Those in the Food Sector 5. Risk Regulation Beyond the State: Research Responses about Non-State Regulatory Influences 6. Business Risk Regulation: Inside the Business Organization Part III: Conclusions and Policy Implications 7. Conclusions: Why Manage Risk? What Can We Learn and Improve? Appendix 1: Profile of Phase 2 Respondents Appendix 2: Phase 2 Questionnaires Appendix 3: Phase 3 Interview Schedule Bibliography Index Further information 'One of the most thorough and considered studies we have of the relationship between regulation and business risk management practices. Food regulation provides a revealing canvas for understanding the dynamics of the governance of risk.' - John Braithwaite, Australian National University

From the oil spill to the financial crisis, why we don't plan for the worst Network News X PROFILE View More Activity TOOLBOX Resize Print E-mail Yahoo! Buzz Reprints   COMMENT 50 Comments  |  View All »  COMMENTS ARE CLOSED WHO'S BLOGGING » Links to this article By Richard A. Posner Sunday, June 6, 2010 The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the latest of several recent disastrous events for which the country, or the world, was unprepared. Setting aside terrorist attacks, where the element of surprise is part of the plan, that still leaves the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the global economic crisis that began in 2008 (and was aggravated by Greece's recent financial collapse) and the earthquake in Haiti in January. THIS STORY If it seems unthinkable, plan for it Why is BP's CEO still on the job? In all these cases, observers recognized the existence of catastrophic risk but deemed it to be small. Many other risks like this are lying in wait, whether a lethal flu epidemic, widespread extinctions, nuclear accidents, abrupt global warming that causes a sudden and catastrophic rise in sea levels, or a collision with an asteroid. Why are we so ill prepared for these disasters? It helps to consider an almost-forgotten case in which risks were identified, planned for and averted: the Y2K threat (or "millennium bug") of 1999. As the turn of the century approached, many feared that computers throughout the world would fail when the two-digit dates in their operating systems suddenly flipped from 99 to 00. The risk of disaster probably was quite small, but the fact that it had a specific and known date made it irrational to postpone any remedies -- it was act now or not at all. Such certainty about timing is rare; indeed, a key obstacle to taking preventive measures against unlikely disasters is precisely that they are unlikely to occur in the near future. Of course, if the consequences of the disaster would be very grave, t

Evolution and status of the precautionary principle in international law, Volume 62 Arie Trouwborst 0 Resenhas Kluwer Law International, 2002 - 378 páginas The controversial question of whether or not at present the precautionary principle is to be considered a norm of customary international law is the key theme of this work, which treats the issue as part of a broader discussion of the principle's legal status on the international plane. This discussion, in turn, is put in perspective by an account of the short but remarkable history of the principle in international environmental law and policy. The greater part of this study consists of the mapping and analysis of state practice in respect of the precautionary principle. Pertinent treaties, declarations, decisions of international organizations and domestic instruments pass in review. The book then applies the generally accepted principles governing the formation of customary international law to this body of state practice. Relevant international judicial decisions and the opinions of scholars are treated as well. Two extensive annexes are added, reproducing provisions of international legalinstruments that make reference to the principle. This manuscript was awarded the Franois Prize 2001 by the Netherlands Society of International Law/Netherlands Branch of the ILA.