The Role of Risk Communication in Environmental Gridlock

Abstract

This is a particularly timely volume, given the growing difficulties that health and science experts, government officials, business representatives, and public interest groups are having with the communication of risk factors to the press and to the general public. Analysis of the risk communication process also is imperative in light of the increasing awareness that risk communication problems, along with several other factors, contribute to the general difficulty that we have in this country in forging coherent, lasting solutions to our most intractable environmental problems. Let us examine risk communication today in the context of this larger phenomenon and address how improvements in risk communication can help us out of the bind environmental policy-makers at all levels of government are experiencing. We face imposing obstacles in moving toward more effective risk communication strategies.