Description

How does pollution impact our daily quality of life? What are the effects of pollution on children's development? Why do industry and environmental experts disagree about what levels of pollutants are safe? In this clearly written book, Moore traces the debates around five key pollutants---lead, mercury, noise, pesticides, and dioxins and PCBs---and provides an overview of the history of each pollutant, basic research findings, and the scientific and regulatory controversies surrounding it. Moore focuses, in particular, on the impact of these pollutants on children's psychological development--their intellectual functioning, behavior, and emotional states, and provides practical strategies for avoiding exposure to environmental contaminants in a final chapter entitled "Protect Your Family, Protect Our Planet." Only by understanding the impact of pollution can we prevent future negative effects on quality of life and even pollution disasters from occurring. This volume will be of great interest to child health care experts, public health officials, regulators, health and environmental advocates, and parents.

Features

• The only book to examine the extensive scientific evidence on whether or not environmental pollutants negatively impact children's development
• Explores the challenges of interpreting scientific research, and why scientists may disagree about the meaning of scientific data
• Includes a final chapter "Protect Your Family, Protect Our Planet", on practical ways that readers can avoid exposure to environmental contaminants
• Clearly-written, thought-provoking, and objective

Reviews

"Suffice it to say I liked this book a lot. Its reasoning transcends approaches that unduly simplify complex environmental problems that beg for multidimensional, integrated approaches....this book is rich in information. Professor Moore argues passionatel for evidence-driven approaches in an environmental context. In the appendix, Dr. Moore provides an axis label, that of the actual (but forever unknown) state of reality that must be correlated with our collective scientific decision-making. Therein lies the sparkling contribution made by this book."--Doody's

Product Details

376 pages; 6 1/8 X 9 1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-538666-0ISBN10: 0-19-538666-3