Options for broadening and deepening the LCA approaches

Health impact and damage cost assessment of pesticides in Europe.

European and U.S. regulatory policies have changed considerably over the past 30 years. In Europe, since the mid-1980s, consumer and environmental regulation has become more politically salient and regulations have by and large become stricter. On the other hand, in the United States consumer and environmental issues have become less salient and contentious, and regulations have not become (comparatively) stricter. This apparent “flip-flop” of regulatory systems has not been analyzed in much detail to date. This perspective is an attempt to analyze some examples in which it has occurred and identifies one possible cause—namely, credibility.



Commentary Ortwin Renn, p.406



Commentary David Slater, p.410



Commentary Michael D. Rogers, p.412

https://courses.washington.edu/eulaw09/supplemental_readings/lofstedt_vogel_changing.pdf

The changing character of regulation: a comparison of Europe and the United States.

This guide seeks to help by providing national law and policy makers with practical information and guidance for developing of strengthening legal and institutional frameworks on alien invasive species, consistent with Article 8(h) of the CBD, as well as pertinent obligations under other international instruments. It provides a structured framework for dealing with alien invasive species issues and contains illustrations and practical examples to assist in understanding their impact

/pdf/a-guide-to-designing-legal-and-institutional-frameworks-on-3oa8lrzwh6.pdf

A guide to designing legal and institutional frameworks on alien invasive species

Complete collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) would raise global sea level by around 5 m, but whether collapse is likely, or even possible, has been `glaciology's grand unsolved problem' for more than two decades. Collapse of WAIS may result from readjustments continuing since the last glacial maximum, or more recent climate change, but it is also possible that collapse will result from internal flow instabilities, or not occur at all in the present inter-glacial. Such complexity led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to conclude in its Second Assessment Report that `estimating the likelihood of a collapse during the next century is not yet possible'. However, a refusal by scientists to estimate the risk leaves policy-makers with no sound scientific basis on which to respond to legitimate public concerns. Here we present a discussion of the likelihood of WAIS-collapse, drawing input from an interdisciplinary panel of experts. The results help to summarise the state of scientific knowledge and uncertainty. While the overall opinion of the panel was that WAIS most likely will not collapse in the next few centuries, their uncertainty retains a 5% probability of WAIS causing sea level rise at least 10 mm/year within 200 years. Since this uncertainty reflects both the unpredictability of the physical system and the scientific uncertainty, it will undoubtedly change as a better understanding is established.

Risk estimation of collapse of the west antarctic ice sheet

The aim of this book is to give an overview of the methods for, and application of, environmental risk assessment in the European Union. It provides information on the basic concepts applicable to all environmental risk assessments including human health risk assessments, ecological risk assessments and industrial applications of risk assessment. Existing knowledge and research in this field is vast and this book aims to identify unifying concepts, discuss currently used methodologies, examine their application and give examples of risk assessment in practice, and guide the user to information sources relevant to their needs. Part I of this guidebook provides an introduction to the subject area, Part II provides comprehensive sources of specific, further information for each area covered in the text, including (1) international and national organisations; databases; software models; publications; directories; web sites and the European legislation relevant to environmental risk assessment.

R Fairman

Papers

Environmental Risk Assessment: Approaches, Experiences and Information Sources