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Note that the talk on Low-Level Chemical
Exposures: A Challenge for Research and Public Policy by Nicholas
Ashford, Ph.D., J.D., Professor of Technology and Policy, M.I.Twhich was
previously scheduled for this day, has been postponed. He is tentatively
scheduled to present on May 29, 2002 as a Special Session.
Radiological Health and Cleanup Issues at Nuclear
Weapons Sites
Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.,
President, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research,
Takoma Park, Maryland
Summary: Exposure to ionizing radiation has been a major occupational-health
issue for workers at the U.S.'s nuclear-weapons complex. Arjun Makhijani
will discuss: (1) the historical and typical conditions workers have experienced
at uranium processing facilities, (2) the state and quality of worker
radiation dose records, (3) the relationship between inadequate policies
regarding those records and similar policies regarding plant emissions
and health, and (4) the implications of these inadequate policies for
both implementation of the workers compensation legislation and the cleanup
of plant sites.
Biography: Arjun Makhijani received his Ph.D. from the University
of California at Berkeley, where, in the Department of Electrical Engineering,
he specialized in applying plasma physics to controlled nuclear fusion.
He has produced an array of studies on nuclear fuel cycle-related issues,
including weapons production, testing, and nuclear waste. Dr. Makhijani
has served on the Radiation Advisory Committee of the EPA's Science Advisory
Board. In addition, he has been a member of the EPA's advisory subcommittee
on Radiation Cleanup Standards of the National Advisory Committee on Environmental
Policy and Technology.
Dr. Makhijani has authored and co-authored numerous articles, reports,
and books on nuclear waste, ozone layer protection, energy issues, and
related environmental and security issues. His publications include the
books High-Level Dollars, Low-Level Sense (Apex Press, 1992),
for which he is the principal author, and Nuclear Wastelands: A
Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental
Effects (MIT Press, 1995), for which he is the principal editor.
This latter work arose by a Special Commission of International Physicians
for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize,
and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER). [Note:
Last month's SRA-NE speaker Howard Hu is a coeditor of Nuclear Wastelands,
and recent SRA-NE presenters Dick Clapp and Albert Donnay are contributors
to this volume.] Dr. Makhijani is the founder and president of IEER, which
is based in Takoma Park, Maryland, and which publishes the quarterly periodical
Science for Democratic Action.
Local Human Exposures to Industrial Emissions: A Case
Study of Five Cities in China
Shuxiao Wang, Ph.D.,
Harvard University Center for the Environment's China Project
A joint research project of the Institute of Environmental Science and
Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, People's Republic of China,
and the Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE). Sponsored
by the China Sustainable Energy Program and Energy Foundation.
Summary: China's reliance on coal for the production
of energy has produced severe and costly damage to health and the environment.
In order to estimate the public health consequences from the air pollution
generated from the burning of this fossil fuel, the typical approach has
been: (1) to use air dispersion models to characterize the link between
emissions and the atmospheric concentration of pollutants, (2) to estimate
the human health impacts based on exposure-response functions, and (3)
to utilize econometric equations to place a monetary value on this damage.
To do all of this scientifically, however, research must be conducted
over many years and at significant expense for a large number of localities.
Such research, for the most part, remains to be done.
In response to both the scarcity of data and local air dispersion
models in China and the need for policy-makers to make decisions concerning
air pollution and public health in China, the joint research team from
IESE and HUCE has proposed a novel methodology. Taking into account the
limited available information, this approach links human exposures from
air pollutants to energy use by employing data from various economic sectors.
As a case study to illustrate this methodology, Dr. Wang talk will focus
on five cities in China. She will discuss the methodology and explain
how this approach would provide a best-case assessment of the human exposure
to key air pollutants and should more easily allow decision-makers to
prioritize pollution sources for intervention in national energy and emissions
control policies.
Biography: Shuxiao Wang received her Ph.D. degree
from the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at Tsinghua
University in Beijing in 2001. At that institution, her research focused
on the policies relevant to, and the technologies for, the control of
acid rain and SO2 pollution in China. Her present work with the Harvard
University Center for the Environment includes the control of air pollution
originating from the combustion of coal, air quality modeling, research
on climate change, and the control of emissions from mobile sources.
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