Research Catalog

But is it true? : a citizen's guide to environmental health and safety issues

Title: But is it true? : a citizen's guide to environmental health and safety issues / Aaron Wildavsky.
Author: Wildavsky, Aaron B.
Publication: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1995.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	GE145 .W55 1995	Off-site

Description

viii, 574 pages; 25 cm

Summary

Working with his students at a risk analysis center, Wildavsky examined all the evidence behind the charges and countercharges in several controversial cases involving environmental health and public safety. Here he lays out these cases in terms an average citizen can understand, weighs the merits of the claims of various parties, and offers reasoned judgments on the government's response.
From Love Canal to Times Beach, from DDT to Agent Orange, acid rain, and global warming, from saccharin to asbestos, Wildavsky shows how we can achieve an informed understanding of the contentious environmental issues that confront us daily.
The book supports the conclusion Wildavsky reached himself, both as a citizen committed to the welfare of the earth and its inhabitants, and as a social scientist concerned with how public policy is made: though it is bad to be harmed, it is worse to be harmed in the name of health.

Subjects

Bibliography (note)

Contents

Introduction: Toward a Citizen's Understanding of Science and Technology -- 1. Were the Early Scares Justified by the Evidence? Cranberries, Dieldrin, Saccharin. I. The Cranberry Scare of 1959. II. Silent Spring and Dieldrin. III. The Saccharin Debate -- 2. PCBs and DDT: Too Much of a Good Thing? I. Which Regulations Governing PCB Residues Are Justified? II. Is DDT a Chemical of Ill Repute? -- 3. Dioxin, Agent Orange, and Times Beach -- 4. Love Canal: Was There Evidence of Harm? -- 5. Superfund's Abandoned Hazardous Waste Sites -- 6. No Runs, No Hits, All Errors: The Asbestos and Alar Scares. I. Is Asbestos in Schoolrooms Hazardous to Students' Health? II. Does Alar on Apples Cause Cancer in Children? -- 7. How Does Science Matter? I. Is Arsenic in Drinking Water Harmful to Our Health? II. Whom Can You Trust? The Nitrite Controversy -- 8. Do Rodent Studies Predict Cancer in Human Beings? -- 9. The Effects of Acid Rain on the United States (with an Excursion to Europe).
10. CFCs and Ozone Depletion: Are They as Bad as People Think? -- 11. Who's on First? A Global Warming Scorecard -- 12. Reporting Environmental Science -- 13. Citizenship in Science -- 14. Detecting Errors in Environmental and Safety Studies -- Conclusion: Rejecting the Precautionary Principle.

ISBN

0674089227

LCCN

94040407

OCLC

ocm31376030

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries