|
||
For most of us ‘risk’ refers to the probability of loss of injury to ourselves or others. Within the scientific community, however, risk is assessed through a multi-stage analysis involving a “risk assessment”, “risk characterization” and “risk management”. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a risk assessment is “the evaluation of scientific information on the hazardous properties of environmental agents, the dose-response relationship, and the extent of human exposure to those agents.” The result of this analysis “is a statement regarding the probability that populations or individuals so exposed will be harmed and to what degree,” also known as a risk characterization. Once risk has been assessed and characterized, “political, social, economic and engineering implications together with risk-related information” are gathered “in order to develop, analyze and compare management options and select the appropriate managerial response to a potential chronic health hazard”. Since science is a product of human rationalization, it is not surprising that this mode of thinking parallels our everyday decision-making process. Each day we weigh risk. We weigh the risk of injury when driving a car or riding a bicycle against the joy or convenience of each particular mode of transportation. We factor the acceptability of the activity and the probability that other people are engaged in similar activities. The scientific approach to environmental risk simply takes this form of rationalization and incorporates it into a framework of public health. Such cost-benefit analysis of risk has been the mode of choice for analyzing environmental health in the United States for the last thirty years. However, this model of risk has a serious flaw. Unlike the individual who makes his/her daily assessments of risk when performing certain activities, the scientific approach to risk analysis does not give a voice or choice to those who are at risk. This has significant implications with regard to risk management. Because this phase of the analysis incorporates economic and political considerations, those lacking power in either realm are at a disadvantage when choosing the appropriate “managerial response” to combat the environmental hazard. This approach to environmental risk also ignores the informal and experiential evidence provided by those who are exposed to environmental hazards. Unable to speak in the scientific language of ‘environmental risk’ or present evidence that accords with the previously described model of risk, communities affected by environmental hazards are prevented from communicating their knowledge, gleaned from experience, in a manner that is accepted by scientific authorities. Two serious consequences result from this situation. First, those affected by environmental hazards are deprived of any agency in dealing with their problems, and are left to wonder how or whether their voice is being incorporated into a supposed democratic dialogue. Secondly, science – a method in and of itself that gives credence to the observed and the experiential – fails to take advantage of the large repository of local knowledge that exists within every community. This failure reproduces the divisions between professionals and laymen, which, in turn, works to undermine our faith in the benefits attributed to society through science. References Corburn, Jason. 2005. Street Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Environmental Protection Agency. 2007. Glossary of Integrated Risk Information System Terms. http://www.epa.gov/iris/gloss8.htm#r (accessed March 20, 2007). Fiorino, D. 1989. Environmental risk and democratic process: a critical review. Columbia Journal of Environmental Law 14:501-547.
For further reading:
|
||
| |
