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The Nature of Risk (Contrary Opinion Library)

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The Nature of Risk
Still near the top of the list
Best book I have read on the psychology of trading!
Not useful if you have the 2 better ones
So-So

The Nature of Risk (Contrary Opinion Library)
Justin Mamis
Manufacturer: Fraser Pub. Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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How to Buy: An Insider's Guide to Making Money in the Stock Market
When to Sell: Inside Strategies for Stock-Market Profits
How I Trade and Invest in Stocks and Bonds
Tape Reading and Market Tactics
How I Made $2,000,000 In The Stock Market

ASIN: 0870341324

Book Description

Sometimes the biggest risk of all is taking one, and the need to be sure you are making the right choice actually increases the risk. The market is not efficient and hedging doesn't work. To rely on charts to understand the market is Mamis' way. The author is an excellent market technician who offers sound financial guidance and insights into the prepared mind. He gets your thinking going with a comfortable investment philosphy that will often go against convention. There are enough anecdotes, war stories, and charts to make for sound advise. The path to market freedom is technique, and you don't have to be one of the best traders to succeed with experience. It seems to me that the entire 1990s have confirmed the ambiguities of market language and how to operate in such a world. You will know how to keep risk at bay which most of us find not to be an easy task. 241 pages.

Customer Reviews:

The Nature of Risk.......2007-05-06

One of only a handful of must read, must own books for any trader.

Still near the top of the list.......2004-01-11

It's been four years since I first reviewed this book (see the next to the last, below), and I still consider it to be absolutely essential for anyone considering any sort of involvement in the financial markets. In fact, it's probably essential for anyone who is considering anything at all that entails more than minimum risk.

The amateurs miss the point. This is not about the best stochastic settings or how to massage the bid and the ask. This is about facing up to the very real risks inherent in the financial markets, including the very real risk of financial ruin. Amateurs don't see the risk; therefore, they don't bother to grapple with it. Instead, they would rather blow up and disappear. If one wants to last, he must come to terms with the nature of risk, his own tolerance for risk, an understanding of how to manage risk. Without that, he's doomed.

Best book I have read on the psychology of trading!.......2002-06-17

I was reluctant to buy this book based on the first reviews I read. However, I have been daytrading for four years now, and frequently go against the crowd. Perhaps it is this contrarian view that keeps me in this business. I manage a proprietary firm in Denver (Bright Trading) and recommend this to ALL the new traders as well as veterans of the craft. It is fresh, insightful and really gets to the meat of what makes one trader successful while another fails. A great companion to this book is Mark Douglas' book Trading In The Zone.

Not useful if you have the 2 better ones.......2002-04-16

Firstly, I have a lot of respect for Mamis, so this is NOT to run him or his writing style down.

In-fact, I have given his other books, When to Buy and How to Sell the Five Star ratings as they are very useful and well written.

However, after reading those, this book seems to repeat some of the points made in them and seems a little defensive about Technical Analysis. Avoid this one but positively buy the other two.

So-So.......2001-09-08

If you are going to buy one of his books, get "When to Sell". This one was long, wordy, and tough to read the whole thing - looking for content. Lots of fluff. Could have used a good editor.

Biodiversity and the Precautionary Principle: Risk and Uncertainty in Conservation and Sustainable Use

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Biodiversity and the Precautionary Principle: Risk and Uncertainty in Conservation and Sustainable Use

Manufacturer: Earthscan Publications Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Mastering the Art of Performance: A Primer for Musicians
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The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

ASIN: 1844072762

Making Better Environmental Decisions: An Alternative to Risk Assessment

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Brilliant?
The Dangerous 'Game' of Risk Assessment
Some good points are raised but then lost in emotionalism

Making Better Environmental Decisions: An Alternative to Risk Assessment
Mary O'Brien
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing The Precautionary Principle
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Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (The Seeley Lectures)

ASIN: 0262150514

Book Description

For the past quarter-century, government and the private sector have relied heavily on risk assessment for making decisions, allowing widespread environmental deterioration. In this book, Mary O'Brien recommends a simple yet profound shift to another decision-making technique: "alternatives assessment." Instead of asking how much of a hazardous activity is safe (which translates into how much damage the environment can tolerate), alternatives assessment asks how we can avoid or minimize damage while achieving society's goals.

Alternatives assessment is a simple, commonsense alternative to risk assessment. It is based on the premise that it is not acceptable to damage human and nonhuman health or the environment if there are reasonable alternatives. The approach calls for taking precautionary measures even if some cause-and-effect relationships have not been fully established scientifically. The process must involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action at all. Equally important, it must be democratic and include potentially affected parties.

O'Brien not only makes a persuasive case for alternative assessment; she tells how to implement it. She also shows how this technique has profound implications for public health, for our stewardship of the environment, and for a truly democratic government.

Published in association with the Environmental Research Foundation.

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant?.......2002-02-16

This book raises a number of good points about Risk assessment and it's potential flaws. As many of us know, there are many. The book is short and interesting and definitely worth the read. I agree with the second reviewer who said that the methodology that she presents is a little unclear - a pseudo-method. There IS much value, though, in insisting that a wider range of options are considered in decision-making at every level of society.

The book is a little repetitive - obviously stemming from the author's desire to have each chapter tell part of her story and be a stand alone piece.

It seemed to me that the author could have used many more supporting examples throughout the book, instead of hitting the same ones over and over. Without prior knowledge of the issue, the book seems to show you a few examples and say 'trust me the rest are like these few'

The ending is definitly a little touchy feely, go out and change the world esque. But it is also just a few short chapters that you blast through.

The Dangerous 'Game' of Risk Assessment.......2000-11-26

This brilliant little book should be made compulsory reading for all politicians, environmental health officers, and officials from environmental agencies. It completely debunks the idiocies of the 'game' of 'risk assessment' in a comprehensible, readable and intelligent way and comes up with a realistic, sane alternative.

If you've ever been involved in a campaign against against a polluting industry, as I have, you'll recognise the following tactics used by them: Downplay estimates of hazard: Discount harmful effects experienced and reported by local communities as 'anecdotal'. Downplay estimates of exposure: Use complicated mathematical models or formulas that can only be analysed in a complicated computer program, that community groups cannot easily gain access to or understand. Downplay risks: Compare the risks to other 'voluntary' activities like smoking. Do not discuss whether the risks are necessary or whether they could be avoided entirely through reasonable alternative behaviours.

It is on this common sense latter point that the book really concentrates. Mary O'Brien gives the example of a woman standing besides an icy river that she needs to cross. Four 'experts' are advising her. The toxicologist tells her the water is probably free of chemicals; the cardiologist says she is at little risk as her heart is sound; the hydrologist states that the currents are probably safe; and the EPA specialist tells her she will probably survive the crossing as it is a low risk compared to many other environmental problems. They are amazed when she continues to refuse to wade the river. Until, of course, she points to the bridge a few yards away which they all had conveniently ignored or failed to notice!

O'Brien also emphasises the public right to know; after all, it is those living in a community who will suffer the impact of pollution. If we could actually name those individuals who will die from the effects of pollution, we could accuse agencies and businesses of premeditated murder. But why is it any different when they talk of a 0.1% increase in the likely number of premature deaths resulting from a process? Even though we can't name the people who will die, death is still death. And the polluting process still killed them.

O'Brien calls for all government agencies and businesses to put their options in understandable language, and to consider ways of creating the least possible environmental damage. She argues that all citizens should be given easy access to relevant information, especially on health effects, and that we should have access to legal and financial resources to enforce environmental laws.

For those campaigning on these issues, take a really close look at Chapter 16, 'Getting Started'. Here O'Brien gives step-by-step advice on how 'Alternatives Assessment' could be carried out, forcing regulators and industries to evaluate the real impact of their actions and forcing them to find the environmentally best options, not a statistical justification for the harm they are already doing.

For campaigners, don't get swallowed up in the 'Risk Assessment' game. At the end, however much scientific expertise and statistical skill you acquire, you will probably be defeated. And in the process, you are helping to justify a fundamentally flawed approach. Instead, ask the basic questions, and try to get the local politicians, regulators and bureaucrats to take on board the real issues of 'should we be doing this at all' and 'what could we do instead'.

Certainly the most helpful, and practical book of this kind that I have read in ten years of environmental campaigning.

Adrian Fox Chair of Environmental Working Group, West Wiltshire District Council, United Kingdom

Some good points are raised but then lost in emotionalism.......2000-09-23

I began reading this book with great expectation given the bold title and the accolades that are printed on its back cover. However, I was soon disappointed. While she raises some important points about the limitations of risk assessment, her argument is occluded by a rash sentimentalism about environmental concerns that is removed from the real economic choices that risk-takers may CHOOSE to make. There are indeed many problems with sole reliance on risk assessment and the author raises some good methodological points. However, her alternative to risk assessment is a somewhat ad hoc and feel-good process which she calls "alternative assessment." I think it is somewhat disingenuous for Ms. O'Brien to suggest that risk assessors do not consider alternatives -- risk assessment is a further step by which each alternative is subsequently analyzed with analytic rigor to make sure all factors of hazard and exposure are accounted for. Perhaps we should heed Ms. O'Brien's advice and further institutionalize the consideration of alternatives. However, that alone cannot substitute the subsequent assessment and comparison between the alternatives. Ms. O'Brien, in my opinion, is presenting a sort of pseudo-methodology, that is predicated on a belief that the right to a clean environment should be placed before all other criteria. I agree with her completely that de facto, all communities have a right to a clean environment and pollution should never be inflicted upon them. However, individuals and communities, inevitably make choices about their lifestyles and may CHOOSE to tolerate a certain measure of environmental harm for other benefits. In this case they should have measurable indicators by which those choices are made -- hence the need for risk assessment. My fear is that in her aversion for risk assessment Ms. O'Brien has thrown away the proverbial baby with the bathwater.

Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks, Vol. 1: A Comparative History of Social Responses to Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and Acid Rain (Politics, Science, and the Environment)

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Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks, Vol. 1: A Comparative History of Social Responses to Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and Acid Rain (Politics, Science, and the Environment)
Social Learning Group , Jill Jaeger , Josee van Eijndhoven , and Nancy Dickson
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks, Vol. 2: A Functional Analysis of Social Responses to Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and Acid Rain (Politics, Science, and the Environment)

ASIN: 0262692384

Book Description

This long-awaited two-volume book examines how the interplay of ideas and actions applied to environmental problems has laid the foundations for global environmental management. It looks at how ideas, interests, and institutions affect management practice; how management capabilities in other areas affect the ability to deal with specific environmental issues; and how learning affects society's approach to the global environment.

The book focuses on efforts to deal with climate change, ozone depletion, and acid rain from 1957 (The International Geophysical Year) through 1992 (the UN Conference on Environment and Development). The settings include Canada, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and international environmental organizations. Topics include problem framing, agenda setting, issue attention, risk assessment, monitoring, option assessment, goal and strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Volume 1 provides an overview of the project, of global environmental management in general, and of the three central environmental issues studied; it also contains the individual country studies. Volume 2 contains the management function studies and the book's conclusion.

Authors in the set include: Jeannine Cavender-Bares, William C. Clark, Ellis Cowling, Nancy M. Dickson, Gerda Dinkelman, Rodney Dobell, Renate Ell, Adam Fenech, Alexander Ginzburg, Elena Goncharova, Peter Haas, Eva Hizsnyik, Michael Huber, Peter Hughes, Jill Jäger, Marc Levy, Angela Liberatore, Diana Liverman, Justin Longo, David McCabe, Donald Munton, Elena Nikitina, Karen O'Brien, Edward Parson, Vladimir Pisarev, Ruud Pleune, Miranda Schreurs, Simon Shackley, Peter Simmons, Heather Smith, Vassily Sokolov, Ferenc L. Tóth, Jeroen van der Sluijs, Josee van Eijndhoven, Claire Waterton, Cor Worrell, and Brian Wynne.

More information is available from the SLG web site.

Hazards, Vulnerability and Environmental Justice (Earthscan Risk and Society Series)

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Hazards, Vulnerability and Environmental Justice (Earthscan Risk and Society Series)
Susan L. Cutter
Manufacturer: Earthscan Publications Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Disaster Relief | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Natural Disasters | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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Shelter from the Storm: Repairing the National Emergency Management System after Hurricane Katrina (The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Series)
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Lessons of Disaster: Policy Change After Catastrophic Events (American Governance and Public Policy)
Disasters and Democracy: The Politics Of Extreme Natural Events

ASIN: 1844073114

Book Description

In a world of increasingly prominent hazards and disasters, from those with their genesis in natural events such as the South Asian tsunami, to human-induced atrocities and terrorist attacks, and the profound effects of climate change, this collection provides a timely assessment of these critical themes. Presenting the top selections from Susan L. Cutter’s twenty-five years of scholarship on hazards, vulnerability, and environmental justice, this collection brings together powerful and difficult-to-find literature, framed by a fresh introduction that maps out the terrain and draws out the salient themes and conclusions. This essential collection is ideal for academics and students studying hazards, risk, disasters, and environmental justice across a range of disciplines.

The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: An Assessment of Vulnerability

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The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: An Assessment of Vulnerability

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521632560

Book Description

The degree to which human conditions and the natural environment are vulnerable to the potential effects of climate change is a key concern for governments and the environmental science community worldwide. This book from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides the best available base of scientific information for policymakers and public use. The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: An Assessment of Vulnerability reviews state-of-the-art information on potential impacts of climate change for ecological systems, water supply, food production, coastal infrastructure, human health, and other resources for ten global regions. It also illustrates that the increasing costs of climate and climate variability, in terms of loss of human life and capital due to floods, storms, and droughts, are a result of the lack of adjustment and response in society's policies and use of resources. This book points to management options that would make many sectors more resilient to current variability in climate and thus help these sectors adapt to future changes in climate. This book will become the primary source of information on regional aspects of climate change for policymakers, the scientific community, and students.

At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters

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A short review of "At risk : natural hazards"

At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters
Ben Wisner
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People
Methods of Disaster Research
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Disasters by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the United States (Natural Hazards and Disasters)
Catastrophe & Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster (School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series)

ASIN: 0415252164

Book Description

The term "natural disaster" is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, or floods. However, the phrase suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed.
This new edition of At Risk confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters since it was first published, and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream development. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant root causes to unsafe conditions in a progression of vulnerability. The other uses the concepts of access and livelihood to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. The book then concludes with strategies to create a safer world.

Customer Reviews:

A short review of "At risk : natural hazards".......2004-08-08

The four authors of "At Risk, natural hazards, people's vulnerability, and disasters" (three from the UK, one from USA, active in the field of social and development studies) claim that natural disasters are not only caused by the natural environment, but also (or maybe even more) by the social, political and economic environment. It is shown throughout the book when they concentrate on the various hazard types: floods, coastal storms, earthquakes, landslides, vulcanoes, biological hazards and famine. They consistently use a flow diagram describing the framework of the root causes, dynamic pressures, unsafe conditions (on the one side), the hazard (on the other side), and the disaster (in the middle).

The book describes 12 principles towards a safer environment. It cannot be made by technical measures alone. It should address the root causes by challeging any ideology, political or economic system which causes or increases vulnerability. It should reduce pressures by developing by macro forces such as urbanisation, re-afforestation, a.o. It should achieve safe conditions by protected environment, resilient local economy and public actions, such as disaster preparedness. Together with technical measures to reduce certain hazards (such as flood defences, shelter breaks, etc), it should all lead to a substantial reduction in disaster risk.

The book illustrates natural hazards from a social studies point of view, with striking observations, such as the bureaucratic blindness and biased relief assistance in South Carolina following hurricane Hugo in 1989 to the needs of many African Americans who lacked insurance and other support systems. The huge North Vietnam floods in 1971 only resulted in a few hundred deaths, largely because of a highly efficient wartime village-level organisation that allowed rapid evacuation and provision of first aid, whereas the similar 1970 Bangladesh floods killed a record 300,000 people.

The Chornobyl Accident: A Comprehensive Risk Assessment

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The Chornobyl Accident: A Comprehensive Risk Assessment
Victor Bar'Yakhtar , Valerie Kukhar , Ivan Los , Valerie Kukhar' , Ivan Los' , Vladimir Kholosha , and Vyacheslav Shestopalov
Manufacturer: Battelle Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1574770829

Book Description

The authors, all of whom are Ukrainian and Russian scientists involved with Chornobyl nuclear power plant since the April 1986 accident, present a comprehensive review of the accident. In addition, they present a risk assessment of the remains of the destroyed reactor and its surrounding shelter, Chornobyl radioactive waste storage and disposal sites, and environmental contamination in the region. The authors explore such questions as the risks posed by a collapse of the shelter, radionuclide migration from storage and disposal facilities in the exclusion zone, and transfer from soil to vegetation and its potential regional impact. The answers to these questions provide a scientific basis for the development of countermeasures against the Chornobyl accident in particular and the mitigation of environmental radioactive contamination in general. They also provide an important basis for understanding the human health and ecological risks posed by the accident.

Ecological Assessment of Hazardous Waste Sites (Industrial Health & Safety)

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Ecological Assessment of Hazardous Waste Sites (Industrial Health & Safety)

Manufacturer: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0471284769

Book Description

Ecological Assessment of Hazardous Waste Sites James T. Maughan, Ph.D. This book provides the essential technical and regulatory information necessary to plan, prepare, and implement an ecological assessment of a hazardous waste site in compliance with current government regulations. James T. Maughan, with input from several contributing authors, presents a precise, step-by-step approach to analysis of ecological resources present on-site, their risk from contamination, and the potential for remediation and restoration. All aspects of the book are related back to a clearly-stated definition of objectives and needs for ecological assessment of hazardous waste sites. Focusing on both traditional and experimental methods for the evaluation of a hazardous waste site, the book examines the overall approach to assessments as well as techniques for evaluating three prominent aspects of ecological assessments: terrestrial pathways of contaminants, sediment quality and contamination, and toxicity testing. Dr. Maughan catalogs and clarifies the appropriate regulations and agency expectations that must be met in order to avoid noncompliance. In addition, the author includes detailed case studies which elaborate the concepts and techniques of ecological assessment. Ecological Assessment of Hazardous Waste Sites is ideal as both a reference and a training text for ecologists, other biologists, and natural resource planners lacking extensive experience in hazardous waste investigations. Engineers, geologists, chemists, and managers with hazardous waste experience but little or no experience in ecology will find this an invaluable source: This book is of use to a wide cross-section of professionals, educators, and students in the environmental consulting industry and the environmental regulatory community.

Precautionary Politics: Principle and Practice in Confronting Environmental Risk (Urban and Industrial Environments)

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Precautionary Politics: Principle and Practice in Confronting Environmental Risk (Urban and Industrial Environments)
Kerry H. Whiteside
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Binding: Paperback

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A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (Global Environmental Accord: Strategies for Sustainability and Institutional Innovation)
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Forging Environmentalism: Justice, Livelihood, And Contested Environments

ASIN: 0262731797

Book Description

The precautionary principle--which holds that action to address threats of serious or irreversible environmental harm should be taken even in the absence of scientific certainty--has been accepted as a key feature of environmental law throughout the European Union. In the United States, however, it is still widely unknown, and much of what has been written on the topic takes a negative view. Precautionary Politics provides a comprehensive analysis of the precautionary principle--its origins and development, its meaning and rationale, its theoretical context, and its policy implications. Kerry Whiteside looks at the application of the principle (and the controversies it has stirred) and compares European and American attitudes toward it and toward environmental regulation in general.

Too often, Whiteside argues, American critics of the precautionary principle pay insufficient attention to how the principle has been debated, refined, and elaborated elsewhere. Precautionary Politics fills this gap. Whiteside demonstrates the different responses of Europe and the United States, first by describing the controversy over genetically modified crops, and then by using this example throughout the book to illustrate application of the precautionary principle in different contexts. He contrasts the European view that new types of risk require specially adapted modes of regulation with the American method of science-based risk assessment, and argues that despite Bush administration opposition, U.S.-European convergence on precaution is possible. Finally, he looks at the ways in which participatory innovation can help produce environmentally positive results. Whiteside's systematic defense of the precautionary principle will be an important resource for students, scholars, activists, and policymakers and is particularly suitable for classroom use.

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