Consequences of Thinking About Environmental and Occupational Health as Separate Entities (Pathways to Sustainable Development)

This lecture will emphasize the dangers of addressing environmental or occupational health problems separately, resulting in a shift of locus of problems from one venue to the other. It can also shift the nature of the problems from toxicity to accident potential. Solutions to both require comprehensive system changes to prevent media and problem shifting.

This seminar was held on March 30, 2005.

Video

To watch the streaming video, your computer needs:

• Internet connection with a 56K modem or faster.
• Sound card with speakers so you can hear the audio portion of the course.
• Real Player Software - if it isn't installed on your computer, download it for free at http://real.com.

Video of the March 30, 2005, NORA Symposium

Objectives

Upon completion of the sessions, participants should be able to:

1. distinguish pollution control from pollution prevention,
2. describe the importance of technological innovation in materials use, process technology, and new product formulation,
3. design strategies for co-optimizing environmental and occupational health.

Speaker

Nicholas A. Ashford, JD, PhD, is Professor of Technology and Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches courses in Environmental Law and Policy; Technology, Law and Public Policy; and Sustainability, Trade and Environment. Dr. Ashford is a Faculty Associate of the Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development in the School of Engineering; the Institute for Work and Employment Research in the Sloan School of Management; and the Environmental Policy Group in the Urban Studies Department. He holds both a Ph.D. in Chemistry and a Law Degree from the University of Chicago, where he also received graduate education in Economics. Dr. Ashford also holds adjunct faculty positions at the Harvard and Boston University Schools of Public Health.

Dr. Ashford is the author of a major policy work for the Ford Foundation, Crisis in the Workplace: Occupational Disease and Injury, (1976, MIT Press). He co-authored four additional books: Public Participation in Contaminated Communities (2001); Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes (second edition 1998, John Wiley Press); Technology, Law and the Working Environment (second edition 1996, Island Press) and Monitoring the Worker for Exposure and Disease (1990, John Hopkins University Press). He was a public member and chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety & Health, served on the EPA Science Advisory Board, and was chairman of the Committee on Technology Innovation & Economics of the EPA National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. Dr. Ashford is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and 2003 chair of its Section on Societal Impacts of Science and Engineering. He serves as an advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme and is also legislation, regulation, and policy editor of the Journal of Cleaner Production. He currently serves as co-chair of the US-Greece Council for the Initiative on Technology Cooperation with the Balkans.

Dr. Ashford's research interests include regulatory law and economics; the design of government policies for encouraging both technological innovation, and improvements in health, safety and environmental quality; pollution prevention and cleaner/inherently safer production; the effects of liability in improving product and process safety; the consequences of low-level exposure to chemicals; sustainability, trade and environment; labor's participation in technological change; and environmental justice. He has developed methodologies for decision-making in the regulation of chemicals and has extensively investigated the effects of regulation on technological innovation in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and automobile industries. Dr. Ashford's research activities include work for the United Nations Environment Programme, the OECD, and the European Union, as well as for U.S. regulatory agencies and the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment.