Uncertain Hazards by Sylvia Noble Tesh

Uncertain Hazards by Sylvia Noble Tesh

Ordinary citizens frequently organize around environmental issues on which little scientific evidence exists to back activists' claims. Should we then dismiss such claims as spurious? Or should we side with citizens against the polluters? Uncertain Hazards takes neither path. In exploring the all-too-common problem of scientific uncertainty about links between pollution and public health, Sylvia Noble Tesh shows that much of the problem can be traced to the newness of the environmental movement. The inability of scientists to find data corroborating citizens' claims stems partly from the "pre-environmentalist" assumptions still influencing the environmental health sciences, Tesh says. On the other hand, the conviction of activists that industrial pollutants threaten their health results from the environmental movement's success in promoting new ideas about nature. Tesh points to ways that environmentalist ideas have begun to affect science, thus making more likely the discovery of links between exposure to industrial pollutants and a community's health problems. Those ways include the expansion of diseases construed as environmental in cause, the study of society's most vulnerable citizens in determining safe levels of pollution, and a new focus on the effects of exposure to chemical mixtures. Using community activists' own words and experiences, Tesh argues against the familiar charge that activists are naive about science. It is inaccurate, she says, to characterize debates over the hazardous nature of pollution as debates between laypeople and experts Instead, they are debates between two groups of experts. It is also inaccurate, however, to see the conflict over environmental pollution only in scientific terms. The conflict has culturally important moral dimensions, and community activists draw heavily, although often unconsciously, on the lessons taught by environmentalism.

Concerned community members and activists who are grappling with the difficulties in understanding the riskes of environmental toxins will find Sylvia Tesh's book, Uncertain Hazards, though provoking and insightful.. Tesh does an excellent job of presenting important concepts relating to environmental riskks and calling for necessary change in scientific methods of inquiry. Her emphasis on the need for community based activists to facilitate that change is welcomed.

-- John Fogarty * Voices from the Earth *

Drawing on interviews with activists and social movement theory in her analysis of the social construction of enviornmentalism, Tesh balances the views that such political-ethical activists are naive about science and that science fails to support their concerns about such hazards as pollution.

* Reference and Research Book News *

Even though it is too brief, Uncertain Hazards presents a provocative mapping of environmental politics that will be useful to a broad range of readers.

-- William Chaloupka, University of Montana, Missoula * Canadian Journal of Political Science *

Tesh offers a remarkable book for exploring the problems environmental activists encounter with the scientific establishment and scientific proofs.... The book will be used by environmental scientists and activists as well as social and behavioral scientists. Graduate students; faculty and researchers.

* Choice *

Sylvia Noble Tesh is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Political Science Department at Yale University. She is the author of Hidden Arguments: Political Ideology and Disease-Prevention Policy.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780801485404
ISBN 10	0801485401
Title	Uncertain Hazards
Author	Sylvia Noble Tesh
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cornell University Press
Year published	2001-07-17
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.