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People living in the Great Lakes region are already feeling the effects of a changing climate. Shifts in seasonal temperatures and precipitation patterns could have dramatic impacts on the economy, ecology, and quality of life. In this illuminating and thorough volume, leading scholars address the challenge of preparing for climate change in the region, where decision makers from various sectors—government, agriculture, recreation, and tourism—must increasingly be aware of the need to incorporate climate change into their short- and long-term planning. The chapters in this revealing book, written by some of the foremost climate change scholars in North America, outline the major trends in the climate of the Great Lakes region, how humans might cope with the uncertainty of climate change impacts, and examples of on-the-ground projects that have addressed these issues.

In the two decades since a new social movement put environmental issues high on the national policy agenda, Washington has become home to a small group of people—the risk professionals—whose careers center on the identification, assessment, and management of risks to public health and safety. These men and women, experts working in federal agencies, Congress, activist organizations, and corporations, help transform mass concern into government policy, shaping the way our society responds to environmental and technological hazards. Based on nearly 230 interviews, The Risk Professionals provides the first comprehensive sociological analysis of our "danger establishment." Dietz and Rycroft explore the social, educational, and career profiles of risk professionals; their worldviews and ideologies; their networks and norms. Not content to view risk professionals from a single perspective, the authors build an integrated description that considers commonalities in their subjects' backgrounds, interests, values, and communication patterns. The result is a uniquely revealing look into the heart of the risk policy system, and a broader illumination of the social structures and dynamics that will influence environmental policy for years to come. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation's Social Science Frontiers Series