No detailed description available for "Environmental Protection Policy".

The rapid growth of the world population - nearly six-fold over the last hundred years - combined with the rising number of technical installations especially in the industrialized countries has lead to ever tighter and more strained living spaces on our planet. Because ofthe inevitable processes oflife, man was at first an exploiter rather than a careful preserver of the environment. Environmental awareness with the intention to conserve the environment has grown only in the last few decades. Environmental standards have been defined and limit values have been set largely guided, however, by scientific and medical data on single exposures, while public opinion, on the other hand, now increasingly calls for astronger consideration of the more complex situations following combined exposures. Furthermore, it turned out that environmental standards, while necessarily based on scientific data, must also take into account ethical, legal, economic, and sociological aspects. A task of such complexity can only be dealt with appropriately in the framework of an inter disciplinary group.

Recent scientific advances have made it possible to produce biopharmaceuticals in genetically modified plants and animals, such as maize, tobacco, goats, and chickens. This new branch of biotechnology is termed pharming, composed of the terms pharmaceuticals and farming. Pharming constitutes an overlap of red and green biotechnology. It offers the prospect of a quicker, cheaper, and more flexible production of biopharmaceuticals compared with current production processes. This is a promising perspective in light of the rapidly growing market of biopharmaceuticals, although the economic competitiveness of pharming remains to be proven. Besides possible benefits for producers, patients and health care systems, pharming also raises a number of complex ecological, social, moral and legal questions that have as yet not been thoroughly discussed. The present book contains the findings of an interdisciplinary research project that has addressed a large range of questions associated with pharming: An analysis of the state-of-the-art of plant pharming and animal pharming technologies is followed by an assessment of environmental risks related to pharming and welfare risks for pharming animals. Public views and attitudes to pharming are investigated on the basis of a comprehensive survey in 15 countries. Moreover, ethical and legal questions, posed by present and foreseeable future practices of pharming, are analysed. The concluding chapter presents the authors’ main findings and recommendations, addressed to science, industry, politics and general public interested in the chances and risks of this upcoming field of biotechnology.

Radioactive waste (above all highly radioactive wastes from nuclear installations) caused by research, medicine and technology must be disposed of safely. However both the strategies disputed for the disposal of radioactive waste as well as concrete proposals for choosing a location for final waste disposal are highly debatable. An appropriate disposal must conform to both complex, technical requirements and fulfill the radio-biological conditions to appropriately protect man and nature. Ethical, legal and social conditions must also be considered. An interdisciplinary team from various, relevant fields compiled the current status-quo and developed criteria and strategies, which on the one hand meet the requirements of optimal warning and prevention of risk for present and future generations, and additionally on the other hand meet the needs of what current society agrees what is expected to be allowed. This study can be understood as an advanced and continuing contribution to the corresponding scientific specialized debates, due to its interdisciplinary treatment. At the same time it serves as a fundamentally informing contribution to public and political debates, offering an easily comprehensible executive summary and precise content recommendations.