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THE ARGUMENT IS THAT OUR CONSUMER SOCIETY ERODES THE SOCIAL BASIS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT BY INDIVIDUALS OF A SENSE OF WELL-BEING AND PERSONAL IDENTITY, AND THAT A CONSERVATION ETHIC BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF CARING COULD PROVIDE A FOUNDATION IN PRACTICAL MORALITY AND PUBLIC POLICY FOR A VIABLE SENSE OF WELL-BEING.

Canada has committed to producing net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Canadian citizens need to understand why our most distinguished climate scientists and our senior political leaders think that we must meet this target. Canada and Climate Change explains the importance of policies that will ensure we meet the net-zero emissions target.

Through a new set of detailed case studies William Leiss shows that while industry and governments have made much progress in responsibly managing risks to health and environment, they generally remain quite poor at managing their involvements with risk issues, that is, with the often intense controversies about the way in which risks should be managed. This organizational risk, associated with misunderstanding the nature of risk management issues, can have damaging consequences, something that remains poorly appreciated.

The recent global economic crisis has revealed that the prevailing risk management systems in the banking and financial sectors are utterly inadequate to protect the public from unacceptable levels of risk. Such "black holes of risk," which expose all of us to catastrophic harm, are increasingly common in the modern world. --Book Jacket

Annotation

The publication of William Leiss' book The Domination of Nature brought him wide recognition as a perceptive and judicious author. In this brilliant new collection of essays on the philosophy of nature, Leiss argues effectively for an attitude of caring and respect for the environment rather than one of domination.

Effective communication between interested parties is widely held to be a vital element in health and environmental risk management decision making. There have been three phases in the evolution of risk communication during the last twenty years. Phase I emphasized risk: in a modern industrial economy, we must have the capacity to manage risks at a very exacting level of detail. Phase II stresses communication: statements about risk situations are best regarded as acts of persuasive communication, that is, as messages intended to persuade a listener of the correctness of a point of view. Now, in Phase III, public and private sector institutions increasingly are recognizing their responsibility to deal adequately with both dimensions and to carry out sound risk communication as a matter of good business practice.

Three phases in the evolution of communication about health & environmental risks since 1975 are identified: (1) emphasized risk -- a modern industrial economy must have the capacity to manage risks at a very exacting level of detail; (2) stressed communication -- statements about risk situations are best regarded as acts of persuasive communication; & (3) public & private sector institutions increasingly are recognizing their responsibility to deal adequately with both dimensions & to carry out sound risk communication as a matter of good business practice. 1 Figure. Adapted from the source document.

Many recent contributions to risk communication research stress the importance of the element of "trust" in the process of successful communication. This paper uses that theme in considering risk communication within the context of seeking consensus on matters of health and environmental risk controversies through stakeholder negotiation. It suggests that there are very good reasons, based on historical experience, for the parties to mistrust each other deeply in such settings. For example there is abundant evidence involving episodes in which risk promoters have concealed or ignored relevant risk data or simply have sought to advance their own interests by selective use of such data. These well‐established practices compound the difficulties other stakeholders face, in all such negotiation, by virtue of the inescapable uncertainties (as well as absence of needed data) inherent in risk assessments. These factors encourage the participants to treat such negotiations as poker games in which bluffing, raising the ante, and calling the perceived bluffs of others are matters of survival. In the end we should recognize the genuine dilemmas that citizens face in trying to figure out who and what to believe in making sensible decisions among the range of risks, benefits, and tradeoffs that confront us.