Rationality and public risk management

Citizen protests have resulted, in part, from the perceived failure of government and industry to protect the health and safety of people. Acts of civil disobedience, in turn, have also helped to mobilize public awareness of a variety of environmental risks.
In the last 10 years, around 50 % of attempted sitings of oil refineries have failed because of public opposition. Industry spokespeople attribute the blocking of oil refineries, nuclear reactors and toxic waste dumps to public ignorance. They charge that nisguided and irratinoal citizens have successfully delayed so many technological facilities, driving up their costs, that wise investors now avoid them.
Industry sympathizers claim that aversion to societal risks stems not so much from any real or apparent danger but from group attitudes that are anti-industry, antiogovernment, and antiscience.
Risk assessment include 3 main stages :
1. identification of some public or societal hazard
2. estimation of the level and extent of potential harm associated with it
3. evaluation of the acceptability of the danger relative to other hazards.
Once these tasks are accomplished, policymakers then determine the best way to accomplish risk management of a particular public threat - for example, through regulation, prohibition, or taxation.