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From reviews of the first edition:

“Covers a wide range of issues with balance and clarity. . . . I can recommend the book highly as an intermediate-level source of information and insight into the international aspects of the acid rain problem.”—J. F. Hornig, Ambio

“A masterful analysis of the policy problems raised by acid rain in the U.S. and Canada . . . detailed, objective, understandable, and compelling. Weaving substantive and institutional factors into their analysis, the authors skillfully portray the controversy’s multifaceted nature.”—Tracy Dobson, American Journal of International Law

“[A] thorough, well-balanced analysis . . . [that] could serve as a model for analysis of complex policy issues.”—Choice

“Reveals the interface between science, technology, and public policy as being the co-extensive network it really is. . . . Timely and welcomed.”—John de la Mothe, Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de Politiques

Discerning Experts assesses the assessments that many governments rely on to help guide environmental policy and action. Through their close look at environmental assessments involving acid rain, ozone depletion, and sea level rise, the authors explore how experts deliberate and decide on the scientific facts about problems like climate change. They also seek to understand how the scientists involved make the judgments they do, how the organization and management of assessment activities affects those judgments, and how expertise is identified and constructed.
 
Discerning Experts uncovers factors that can generate systematic bias and error,  and  recommends how the process can be improved. As the first study of the internal workings of large environmental assessments, this book reveals their  strengths and weaknesses,  and explains what assessments can—and cannot—be expected to contribute to public policy and the common good.
 

The climate change reckoning looms. As scientists try to discern what the Earth’s changing weather patterns mean for our future, Rachel Rothschild seeks to understand the current scientific and political debates surrounding the environment through the history of another global environmental threat: acid rain.
 
The identification of acid rain in the 1960s changed scientific and popular understanding of fossil fuel pollution’s potential to cause regional—and even global—environmental harms. It showed scientists that the problem of fossil fuel pollution was one that crossed borders—it could travel across vast stretches of the earth’s atmosphere to impact ecosystems around the world. This unprecedented transnational reach prompted governments, for the first time, to confront the need to cooperate on pollution policies, transforming environmental science and diplomacy. Studies of acid rain and other pollutants brought about a reimagining of how to investigate the natural world as a complete entity, and the responses of policy makers, scientists, and the public set the stage for how societies have approached other prominent environmental dangers on a global scale, most notably climate change.
 
Grounded in archival research spanning eight countries and five languages, as well as interviews with leading scientists from both government and industry, Poisonous Skies is the first book to examine the history of acid rain in an international context. By delving deep into our environmental past, Rothschild hopes to inform its future, showing us how much is at stake for the natural world as well as what we risk—and have already risked—by not acting.