Bottom-up risk regulation? How nanotechnology risk knowledge gaps challenge federal and state environmental agencies

Nanotechnologies have been called the "Next Industrial Revolution." At the same time, scientists are raising concerns about the potential health and environmental risks related to the nano-sized materials used in nanotechnologies. Analyses suggest that current U.S. federal regulatory structures are not likely to adequately address these risks in a proactive manner. Given these trends, the premise of this paper is that state and local-level agencies will likely deal with many "end-of-pipe" issues as nanomaterials enter environmental media without prior toxicity testing, federal standards, or emissions controls. In this paper we (1) briefly describe potential environmental risks and benefits related to emerging nanotechnologies; (2) outline the capacities of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resources Conservation and Recovery Act to address potential nanotechnology risks, and how risk data gaps challenge these regulations; (3) outline some of the key data gaps that challenge state-level regulatory capacities to address nanotechnologies' potential risks, using Wisconsin as a case study; and (4) discuss advantages and disadvantages of state versus federal approaches to nanotechnology risk regulation. In summary, we suggest some ways government agencies can be better prepared to address nanotechnology risk knowledge gaps and risk management.

Lifelong learning and environmental sustainability

The current policy focus on lifelong learning ensures a gendered and class-based skills-driven agenda, with lifelong learners expected to become neo-liberal subjects rather than empowered members of communities. What complexities and challenges arise from attempts to align lifelong learning with social justice? What are the costs of a focus on learning which rests on economic imperatives? Lifelong learning is at the forefront of the educational arena, both nationally and internationally, although what it means is highly contestable. In recent times, lifelong learning has increasingly come to mean vocational education and training within a globalised knowledge economy.

Vulnerability and disobedience:new repertoires in French environmental protests

The emergence of the counter-globalisation movement in France has been accompanied by an apparent diversification of social protest repertoires. Protest events carried out by groups associated with a wide array of issues have been remarkable for their use of spectacular and novel actions, while civil disobedience campaigns have been prominent features of environmental and civil rights protests in particular. Drawing on a number of examples of contemporary environmental and global justice campaigns, opposing advertising, four-wheeled drive vehicles, nuclear energy and, especially, open field trials of genetically modified crops, this article discusses the rise of such new forms of protest, placing them in the wider context of transformations in protest repertoires in France. It identifies key examples of innovation, before discussing the twin processes of diffusion and domestication that shape them. It is argued that, although transnational agents and processes are key determinants of repertoire innovation, it is vital to identify the national, movement and sectoral contexts and discourses which enable the naturalisation and legitimisation of new action forms.