Although acid rain and ozone layer depletion are highly-publicized issues, they have not received the legal attention they warrant. This detailed analysis fills this gap. With a thorough scientific background and a review of technically feasible countermeasures, it addresses the applicable rules of international law, exposing the tension between the traditional concept of sovereignty and the need for international cooperation. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

Proceedings of a conference sponsored by the Air Resources Information Clearinghouse ARIC, a project of the Center for Environmental Information, Inc.

This book offers a principal collection of all of the material necessary to understand the legal debates on climate change, ozone depletion and air pollution within their scientific and policy contexts. The mountain of information coming out of the respective regimes on climate change, ozone depletion and air pollution is monumental. This work attempts to assemble all of the important documents and resolutions generated by the various regimes, analyze them and provide enough background information to understand the issue and its context. The book provides guidance to those actively involved or interested in the negotiations to come to better regimes for climate change, ozone depletion and air pollution.

This groundbreaking study of environmental assessment “provides an essential examination of the factors that shape and dictate our climate policy” (Choice). Discerning Experts reexamines the assessments that many governments rely on to help guide environmental policy and action. Through their close look at reports involving acid rain, ozone depletion, and sea level rise, the authors explore how experts deliberate and decide on the scientific facts about problems like climate change. They also seek to understand how the scientists involved make the judgments they do, how the organization and management of assessment activities affects those judgments, and how expertise is identified and constructed. Discerning Experts uncovers factors that can generate systematic bias and error, and recommends how the process can be improved. As the first study of the internal workings of large environmental assessments, this book reveals their strengths and weaknesses, and explains what assessments can—and cannot—be expected to contribute to public policy and the common good.

Protecting the Ozone Layer: Lessons, Models, and Prospects Since the mid-1980s, the international community has adopted several significant instruments designed to reverse the degradation of the life support systems of the planet. None of these international agreements have been as successful as the 1987 Montreal Protocol in creating the incentives and mechanisms for protecting the ozone layer. Through the efforts of industry, government and public interest groups, national commitments and achievements have progressed further and faster than expected, while the list of controlled chemicals has expanded. Now in its second decade, the Protocol enters a crucial phase of its implementation. Protecting the Ozone Layer: Lessons, Models, and Prospects presents a wealth of information about the scientific, legal-political, and technological hurdles that we will have to overcome if humanity is to reverse its self-destructive course. The technology section in particular should appeal to industries affected by ozone layer protection as well as those affected by climate protection, since this is the first ozone publication featuring insights by the companies that spearheaded the major technological breakthroughs. Every initiative to improve the environmental performance of industry has been accompanied by pronouncements of economic devastation, from acid rain to auto emissions standards, from auto mileage improvements to the protection of the ozone layer. Each new initiative brought claims from industry that this situation was different, yet none of their predictions have come true. At a time when industry fights efforts to protect the environment, the ozone experience shows both how technical breakthroughs have enabled environmental protection policies to work in the past and how they will work again in the future. Protecting the Ozone Layer: Lessons, Models, and Prospects is the product of a Colloquium that was organized in September 1997 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Montreal Protocol. Contributions have been gathered from researchers and practitioners in the field, including some of the very same scientists whose work awakened the international community to the seriousness of the danger that humanity now faces. Other contributors include the scholars and diplomats who wrote and negotiated the text of the Protocol and its amendments, and the key figures who have been influential in convincing industry to support the process.

The Forgiving Air is a refreshingly readable account of our efforts to understand Earth's global environment and our impact in it.

Acid rain, global warming, the greenhouse effect, ozone holes, CFCs, radioactive wastes, water disinfectants, the Bhopal gas tragedy, carbon monoxide emissions, methane levels, flash fires, mercury poisonings - Hot Topics demystifies and explains these terms and many others that are an increasing part of our everyday lives. All these topics and more are covered in eight lucid chapters written in an easy-to-read style with case histories and illustrations.

Global Environment Monitoring System.