Who\u27s Afraid of the Precautionary Principle?

The precautionary principle – the notion that lack of scientific certainty should not foreclose precautionary regulation – has become enormously popular in recent years, as reflected by its endorsement in many important international declarations and agreements. Despite its growing influence, the precautionary principle recently has come under fire by critics who argue that it is incoherent, potentially paralyzing, and that it will lead regulators to make bad choices. They maintain that society faces greater peril from overly costly regulations than from exposure to sources of environmental risks whose effect on human health and the environment is not fully understood at present. This paper argues that critics of the precautionary principle are attacking a straw man. It maintains that they are confusing the precautionary principle with the separate question of how precautionary regulatory policy should be. While precaution long has been an important element of much of U.S. environmental law, in practice, only in rare circumstances have activities that generate environmental risks been subjected to strict regulatory action when the risks they generate were entirely theoretical. Although such truly precautionary regulation is rare, the essential notion embodied in the precautionary principle -- that uncertainty should not be used as an excuse to eschew cost-effective preventive measures -- is fundamental to modern environmental law’s quest to transcend the limits of its common law legacy. It does not require that innovation come to a halt whenever any risks may be conjured. The paper argues that, properly understood, the precautionary principle is neither incoherent, paralyzing, nor a prescription for overregulation. Rather it cautions that regulatory policy should be pro-active in ferreting out potentially serious threats to human health and the environment, as confirmed by the history of human exposure to substances such as lead and asbestos

Research progress on coal mine laser methane sensor

This paper discusses the research progress of low-power technology of laser methane sensors for coal mine. On the basis of environment of coal mines, such as ultra-long-distance transmission and high stability, a series of studies have been carried out. The preliminary results have been achieved in the research of low power consumption, temperature and pressure compensation and reliability design. The technology is applied to various products in coal mines, and achieves high stability and high reliability in products such as laser methane sensor, laser methane detection alarm device, wireless laser methane detection alarm device, and optic fiber multichannel laser methane sensor. Experimental testing and analysis of the characteristics of laser methane sensors, combined with the actual application

A Survey on Secure and Private Federated Learning Using Blockchain: Theory and Application in Resource-constrained Computing

Federated Learning (FL) has gained widespread popularity in recent years due to the fast booming of advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence along with emerging security and privacy threats. FL enables efficient model generation from local data storage of the edge devices without revealing the sensitive data to any entities. While this paradigm partly mitigates the privacy issues of users' sensitive data, the performance of the FL process can be threatened and reached a bottleneck due to the growing cyber threats and privacy violation techniques. To expedite the proliferation of FL process, the integration of blockchain for FL environments has drawn prolific attention from the people of academia and industry. Blockchain has the potential to prevent security and privacy threats with its decentralization, immutability, consensus, and transparency characteristic. However, if the blockchain mechanism requires costly computational resources, then the resource-constrained FL clients cannot be involved in the training. Considering that, this survey focuses on reviewing the challenges, solutions, and future directions for the successful deployment of blockchain in resource-constrained FL environments. We comprehensively review variant blockchain mechanisms that are suitable for FL process and discuss their trade-offs for a limited resource budget. Further, we extensively analyze the cyber threats that could be observed in a resource-constrained FL environment, and how blockchain can play a key role to block those cyber attacks. To this end, we highlight some potential solutions towards the coupling of blockchain and federated learning that can offer high levels of reliability, data privacy, and distributed computing performance

The Impacts Of Lead Contamination On The Community Of Herculaneum, Missouri

Lead contamination in Herculaneum, Missouri presents a complex context where the long history of a large lead processing plant has created an environmental health hazard. Local residents have been forced to balance their interest in promoting a clean and healthy local environment against their desire to preserve community identity and honor the history of their city and its most prominent industry. Additionally, contamination and related controversy has substantively impacted this community and its citizens on multiple levels--e. g., education, health, and financial well-being. The study presented in this dissertation explores not only the impact of contamination upon the community, but also the influence of the community upon local lead management. The study crosses disciplinary boundaries and is situated at the intersection of science education literature with environmental policy and public understanding of science research. The research questions guiding the project focused on: 1) the approaches taken in applying regulatory tools to the management of local lead contamination, and: 2) the ways that local stakeholders describe the problem of lead contamination in Herculaneum. Accordingly, the findings of this project reflect two primary themes. First, a policy cycle in which the understandings of lead contamination and management is described. The influence of this local policy cycle on the revision of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for lead in 2008 is discussed as a second policy cycle in which the definition of lead contamination on the national scale was expanded and refined. Second, two activist perspectives that have dominated local lead controversy over the past decade are characterized and changes in their activist strategies are traced. Community Health Activists advocated for increased regulation and restrictive measures to protect the health of local community members from lead industry activities. Community Preservation Activists fought restrictive regulatory measures and advocated instead for initiatives that would support community prosperity and growth. The dissertation concludes with a secondary analysis of the findings in terms of environmental policy learning, defined here as the adaptation of stakeholder perspectives and approaches in response to changes in physical or political conditions. The ways that environmental policy learning influenced changes in both policy approaches and stakeholder perspectives with regard to lead management in Herculaneum provide insight into educational dimensions of the context of lead contamination in Herculaneum in terms of changes in the perspectives and approaches of local stakeholders. Implications for research in science studies, interpretive policy research, and science education, as well as for environmental regulatory representatives and citizen activists are explored. The dissertation concludes with a brief outline of two research studies stemming from this dissertation as directions for further work

Evaluation of Stakeholders’ Roles in the Management of Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Anka, Zamfara State, Nigeria

This paper evaluates the roles of stakeholders in the management of Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) in Anka, a typical ASGM town in Zamfara State, North-western Nigeria, dominated by sporadic and mostly unlicenced ASGM activities. Conceptual, SWOT, PESTLE, MOTAP and SELOP analyses were used to evaluate stakeholders’ roles in the management of ASGM in the area. From the evaluation, weak legislation, poor policy implementation, stringent licencing procedures, centralised government functions and poor government attention were identified to be the major factors militating against the effective functioning of ASGM regulators. Lack of management skills by the ASGM operators in the area was identified as a major barrier to their economic prosperity. Child labour, poor environmental management and cultural practices contribute to the environmental, health and safety hazards ravaging the sporadic ASGM activities by the local miners. Community leaders are thus left to grapple with the control of ASGM activities in their domain. Relief agencies and international organisations were identified as the main anchors of intervention programmes, the success of which is linked to the support and cooperation of the community leaders. Decentralisation of government functions on ASGM and organisation of miners into cooperative groups and their full integration into the formal licenced mining sector are recommended for sustainable, effective and efficient ASGM in Anka. Keywords: Artisanal and small-scale gold mining, Management functions, Environmental degradation, Rural development, Regulators, Stakeholders, Community leaders

Adapting to climate risks and extreme weather: guide for mining - minerals industry professionals

AbstractExtreme weather events in Australia over recent years have highlighted the costs for Australian mining and mineral processing operations of being under-prepared for adapting to climate risk. For example, the 2010/2011 Queensland floods closed or restricted production of about forty out of Queensland’s fifty coal mines costing more than $2 billion in lost production.Whilst mining and mineral professionals have experience with risk management and managing workplace health and safety, changes to patterns of extreme weather events and future climate impacts are unpredictable. Responding to these challenges requires planning and preparation for events that many people have never experienced before. With increasing investor and public concern for the impact of such events, this guide is aimed at assisting a wide range of mining and mineral industry professionals to incorporate planning and management of extreme weather events and impacts from climate change into pre-development, development and construction, mining and processing operations and post-mining phases. The guide should be read in conjunction with the research  final report which describes the research process for developing the guide and reflects on challenges and lessons for adaptation research from the project.The Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) led the development of the guide with input from the Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, University of Queensland and a Steering Committee from the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy’s Sustainability Committee and individual AusIMM members, who volunteered their time and experience. As the situation of every mining and mineral production operation is going to be different, this guide has been designed to provide general information about the nature of extreme weather events, and some specific examples of how unexpectedly severe flooding, storm, drought, high temperature and bushfire events have affected mining and mineral processing operations. A number of case studies used throughout the guide also illustrate the ways forward thinking operations have tackled dramatically changing climatic conditions.Each section of the guide outlines a range of direct and indirect impacts from a different type of extreme weather, and provides a starting point for identifying potential risks and adaptation options that can be applied in different situations. The impacts and adaptation sections provide guidance on putting the key steps into practice by detailing specific case examples of leading practice and how a risk management approach can be linked to adaptive planning. More information about specific aspects of extreme weather, planning and preparation for the risks presented by these events, and tools for undertaking climate related adaptation is provided in the ‘Additional Resources’ section

Multimedia Waste Disposal Optimization under Uncertainty with an Ocean Option

Many communities face a waste management crisis. An increase in waste generation and decline in available landfill capacity have led to rapid increases in waste management costs. Using sewage sludge management in coastal New York and New Jersey as an example, this paper examines optimal multimedia waste disposal under cost uncertainty. Using expected value-variance analysis, the study looks at the effects on the optimal disposal strategy of uncertainty associated with waste-management cost and the community's risk preferences. The results indicate that, based on available cost data, the optimal strategy of a moderately risk-averse decision maker is to manage sludge through land-based facilities. These results hold over a wide range of risk-aversion parameters and even at low levels of cost uncertainty. Thus, the Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988 is consistent with such results.waste disposal, ocean dumping, EV (expected value-variance) analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Science in Sanitary and Phytosanitary Dispute Resolution

The World Trade Organization Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS Agreement) relies heavily on science and expert organizations to avoid and resolve trade disputes over measures enacted under the rationale of food safety or plant and animal health protection. However, the state of science for sanitary and phytosanitary risk analysis is highly uncertain, and the SPS Agreement leaves many science policy issues unsettled. The international agencies charged under the SPS Agreement with harmonizing standards and forging international scientific consensus face a daunting and politically-charged task. Two case studies are briefly developed. In the first case, the international scientific consensus strongly supports the U.S. challenge of the European Union’s ban on cattle growth hormones, but the root causes of the dispute go much deeper. The case suggests that establishing a precedent for SPS measures based solely on "sound science" may be a slippery objective. In the second case, domestic avocado producers challenged a U.S. Department of Agriculture assessment which concluded that a partial lifting of the ban on Mexican avocado imports posed a negligible plant pest risk. Although the Department’s phytosanitary risk assessment gained endorsement by independent scientists, a contributing factor to resolving this dispute was the threat of retaliation against U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico. A recent survey of current and proposed technical barriers to U.S. agricultural exports suggests that the trade impacts could approach $5 billion a year and that the most common SPS disputes in the future will be over biological hazards�particularly plant pests and food-borne microbial pathogens. This poses a tremendous challenge, however, because the practice of risk assessment for biological stressors is much less developed than that for chemical substances. The paper concludes with some proposed criteria for evaluating the weight of scientific evidence in SPS risk assessment.