This paper analyzes the potential implications, in terms of net social costs and distribution of risks and abatement costs, of a policy to address the problem of air toxics “hot spots.” The policy we analyze involves regulation of air toxics sources at increasingly finer spatial resolutions....

An intensive program of 40 years of research has produced various conceptual cognitive and affective approaches to environmental risk perception. In this short review of the most relevant conceptual approaches, appraisal theory is presented as a useful means of integrating cognitive and...

This paper reviews evidence for the use of analogies and comparisons to understand risks and conflation of different risks, from mental model studies of lead paint hazard, global climate change and smallpox disease and vaccine. For each study participants use analogies with other risks...

This paper outlines a decision framework that incorporates state-of-the-art earthquake engineering information and decision maker preferences into multicriteria decision models to support earthquake risk mitigation decisions. Seismic risk analysis of a structure is utilized for probabilistic...

This paper analyzes whether regulating "hot spots" of toxic air pollution by increasing the spatial resolution of regulation could address environmental justice (EJ) concerns. To examine this question, this paper develops a decision model of a regulator choosing emission controls within a net...

Energy lies at the backbone of any advanced society and constitutes an essential prerequisite for economic growth, social order and national defense. However there is an Achilles heel to today׳s energy and technology relationship; namely a precarious intimacy between energy and the fiscal,...

This paper reviews implementation of the risk management frameworks used by eight federal and foreign agencies—including the Minerals Management Service (MMS, now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, or BOEMRE)—and summarizes the features of a robust tolerable...