Chasing a specter: Risk management for global environmental change.

摘要

Global environmental change is both a concept and a process that changes in meaning with scientific discovery, public concern, and political responsiveness. It is the relationship between the problems as perceived and the various institutions that help shape and adapt to such problems that defines global environmental change. There is a kind of race between scientific detective work and political adjustment to lessen the likely impacts that predictive science is trying to verify. Risk analysis, because of its capacity to recognize this relationship in many spheres of problem identification, can contribute to the political debate, mostly by proposing institutional redesign of the relationship among scientific research, public entry, and experimental readjustments to consensus formation and international action. This paper discusses the factors involved in global environmental change, the risk management involved, the holistic interpretation, and the environmental impacts. 21 refs., 5 figs., 5 tabs.