Risk and Environmental Decision-making

2-3 Credit Hours

At the heart of many of the "tough" decisions that public policy makers, lawyers and judges, and business leaders face in the environmental area is how to address uncertainty surrounding factual information and judgements needed to make decisions. In other words, how to deal with risk. Examples of risk in the environmental context range from USEPA deciding at what level to set a health-based ambient environmental standard to a business leader trying to gauge how much money the future clean up of contaminated property will add to a contemplated acquisition. This seminar will address how risk is and could be addressed in decision making involving environmental issues that arise in the public policy, judicial and business arenas. We look at both how risk is identified and measured, how it is incorporated into a decision-making regime, and how it is managed once the decisions are made. We will start by examining the nature of risk itself and an overview of the regulatory structure and policy issues presented in the environmental area. We will next examine different types of risks and how they arise in different types of environmental issues. Among the types of risks we will look at will be risks presented by existing but unknown facts or information; scientific unknowns, judgment and uncertainties; predicting future events; and the intersection of these and other risks in both simple and complex systems. The environmental issues that we will examine will include air, water and land contamination, predicting both human health and environmental impacts from pollutants, and long-term global ecological problems such as greenhouse warming and the potential environmental changes therefrom. We will look at these risks and environmental issues from the perspective of different decision-makers, including legislative and regulatory, judicial, and business. We will conclude by discussing different criteria and approaches to address risk in environment decision-making and, once decisions are made, manage risk on an on-going basis. Each student will be expected to participate in classroom discussions and prepare a paper at the end of the course. Method of evaluation: Research Paper This course will be taught on the University ten-week calendar.