Environmental Risk Assessments and the Need to Cost-Effectively Reduce Uncertainty

Abstract

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) was instrumental in the dawning of environmental awareness by alerting the public to the hazards of chemical Stressors such as DDT. This classic work also focused on the need to guard against unnecessary degradation of the natural environment and sparked a new era of environmental activism and regulation. The “green movement” was borne, and the legislative ground swell has been overwhelming. The environmental pendulum swung from extreme leniency linked to ignorance, to extreme intolerance and mistrust. Impractical terms such as “zero discharge” and “remediation to non-detect” became the ultimate goal of public policy. Fortunately however, the environmental policy pendulum is swinging back to a center point following the exertion of forces such as national and international economics, and a more sound understanding of environmental processes.