News Archive Item
Symposium - Right Risks: Ethics and Ecological Risk Analysis
Description:
The IGERT for Risk Analysis for Introduced Species and Genotypes (ISG-IGERT) at the University of Minnesota announces their Spring symposium, Right Risks: Ethics and Ecological Risk Analysis.
The symposium will be held on April 30, 2010 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Some funding is available to IGERT students and faculty who would like to attend. Please contact symposium student coordinators at rightrisks@gmail.com to register or for more information.
What role does ethics play in ecological risk analysis? As a tool to assist decision making about complex issues like the use and management of genetically modified organisms and invasive species, ecological risk analysis (ERA) has been seen as a scientific methodology conducted outside of social and political considerations. Recent scholarship, however, suggests that ethical and political presuppositions are inherent to the ERA processes of identifying, analyzing, and managing ecological risks.
This symposium brings together scholars from environmental ethics, risk analysis, and science and technology policy to ask: How do ethical assumptions underlie and influence ecological risk analysis? How can ethical considerations be better addressed within risk-based environmental decisions?
Dr. Paul Thompson (Michigan State Univ.), Dr. Jennifer Kuzma (Univ. of Minnesota), and Dr. Ronald Sandler (Northeastern Univ) will be speaking. Morning presentations will be followed by a panel discussion and facilitated afternoon round-table discussions with the speakers.
Please email rightrisks@gmail.com for more information.
