Michael R Edelstein
Biographic Data
| ID | 3479466 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael R Edelstein |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael R |
| FAMILY NAME | Edelstein |
| SIGNATURE | EDELSTEIN M R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ramapo College |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2293-0674 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 52 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
PFAS Contamination and the Impacts of Environmental Turbulence
PFAS contamination represents a slow, invisible chronic technological disaster with documented long-term psychosocial impacts on affected communities. However, existing research has predominantly focused on toxicological and biomedical outcomes, leaving the lived experiences and narrative dimensions of contamination underexplored. This study investigates how residents of PFAS-contaminated communities experience and narrate environmental contamina…
Disaster by Design
Disaster by Design: The Aral Sea, Lessons for Sustainability addresses the impacts of the Aral Sea disaster. The virtual disappearance of what was the world's fourth largest inland body of water was neither natural nor accidental. It was the result of deliberate policy decisions. The sea's disappearance is hardly the entire disaster. Instead, we find an accumulation of cascading effects, beginning with the decision to grow cotton, reached remotel…
Disaster by Design
Cultures of Contamination
Intends to ponder the cultures that generated the bulk of our global contamination legacy. This title focuses on the psycho-social dynamics of chemical contamination. It deals with nuclear events, both accidents, but also the closed cities and closed society needed to produce a nuclear context.
Sustainable innovation and the siting dilemma
The exercise of siting environmentally stigmatized facilities touches the central nerve of modernity. It represents a true dilemma, a set of conflicting conditions that cannot be brought into harmony. From a local perspective, siting is commonly thought of as an act of inherent violence to place and community. At the same time, modern life generates conditions that demand some form of collective action to solve the problems it generates. Yet, whe…
Weight and weightlessness
This paper reviews the 25-year battle to have psychosocial impacts of contamination weighed in US administrative permit decisions. Despite the establishment of a professional literature and successful application in toxic torts, psychosocial (including psychological) impacts from the siting of hazardous environmental facilities have neither been reviewed substantively in environmental impact statements nor listed as an issue for adjudication in t…
Cultural relativity of impact assessment
Development of the “renewable “ energy resource known as geothermal energy is touted as offering the promise of energy independence and economic development for the “Big Island” of Hawai'i and, by virtue of an undersea transmission cable, to other Hawaiian islands. However, the proposal to implement this project has met with continuing opposition from Native Hawaiians who are followers of the goddess Pele. This article proposes that the conflict …
Citizen participation and emprowerment
Local environmental hazards place millions of citizens at risk of physical, emotional, and financial harm. While the discovery of such hazards can be fundamentally disempowering for individuals and communities, few scholars have examined the dynamics of empowerment in this context. We explore the relationships among forms of empowerment, citizen participation, and local environmental hazards, and offer a model of the processes of empowerment and …
Contaminated Communities
Investigates the social, psychological, and emotional impacts of toxic exposure for individuals, families, and communities.. In this wholly revised Second Edition, Michael Edelstein draws on his thirty years as a community activist to provide a much-expanded theoretical foundation for understanding the psychosocial impacts of toxic contamination. Informed by social psychological theory and an extensive survey of documented cases of toxic exposure…
Citizen participation and emprowerment
Local environmental hazards place millions of citizens at risk of physical, emotional, and financial harm. While the discovery of such hazards can be fundamentally disempowering for individuals and communities, few scholars have examined the dynamics of empowerment in this context. We explore the relationships among forms of empowerment, citizen participation, and local environmental hazards, and offer a model of the processes of empowerment and …
Cultural relativity of impact assessment
Development of the “renewable “ energy resource known as geothermal energy is touted as offering the promise of energy independence and economic development for the “Big Island” of Hawai'i and, by virtue of an undersea transmission cable, to other Hawaiian islands. However, the proposal to implement this project has met with continuing opposition from Native Hawaiians who are followers of the goddess Pele. This article proposes that the conflict …
Sustainable innovation and the siting dilemma
The exercise of siting environmentally stigmatized facilities touches the central nerve of modernity. It represents a true dilemma, a set of conflicting conditions that cannot be brought into harmony. From a local perspective, siting is commonly thought of as an act of inherent violence to place and community. At the same time, modern life generates conditions that demand some form of collective action to solve the problems it generates. Yet, whe…
Contaminated Communities
Investigates the social, psychological, and emotional impacts of toxic exposure for individuals, families, and communities.. In this wholly revised Second Edition, Michael Edelstein draws on his thirty years as a community activist to provide a much-expanded theoretical foundation for understanding the psychosocial impacts of toxic contamination. Informed by social psychological theory and an extensive survey of documented cases of toxic exposure…
Cultural relativity of impact assessment
Development of the “renewable “ energy resource known as geothermal energy is touted as offering the promise of energy independence and economic development for the “Big Island” of Hawai'i and, by virtue of an undersea transmission cable, to other Hawaiian islands. However, the proposal to implement this project has met with continuing opposition from Native Hawaiians who are followers of the goddess Pele. This article proposes that the conflict …
Citizen participation and emprowerment
Local environmental hazards place millions of citizens at risk of physical, emotional, and financial harm. While the discovery of such hazards can be fundamentally disempowering for individuals and communities, few scholars have examined the dynamics of empowerment in this context. We explore the relationships among forms of empowerment, citizen participation, and local environmental hazards, and offer a model of the processes of empowerment and …
Weight and weightlessness
This paper reviews the 25-year battle to have psychosocial impacts of contamination weighed in US administrative permit decisions. Despite the establishment of a professional literature and successful application in toxic torts, psychosocial (including psychological) impacts from the siting of hazardous environmental facilities have neither been reviewed substantively in environmental impact statements nor listed as an issue for adjudication in t…
Sustainable innovation and the siting dilemma
The exercise of siting environmentally stigmatized facilities touches the central nerve of modernity. It represents a true dilemma, a set of conflicting conditions that cannot be brought into harmony. From a local perspective, siting is commonly thought of as an act of inherent violence to place and community. At the same time, modern life generates conditions that demand some form of collective action to solve the problems it generates. Yet, whe…
Cultures of Contamination
Intends to ponder the cultures that generated the bulk of our global contamination legacy. This title focuses on the psycho-social dynamics of chemical contamination. It deals with nuclear events, both accidents, but also the closed cities and closed society needed to produce a nuclear context.
Disaster by Design
Disaster by Design: The Aral Sea, Lessons for Sustainability addresses the impacts of the Aral Sea disaster. The virtual disappearance of what was the world's fourth largest inland body of water was neither natural nor accidental. It was the result of deliberate policy decisions. The sea's disappearance is hardly the entire disaster. Instead, we find an accumulation of cascading effects, beginning with the decision to grow cotton, reached remotel…
Disaster by Design
PFAS Contamination and the Impacts of Environmental Turbulence
PFAS contamination represents a slow, invisible chronic technological disaster with documented long-term psychosocial impacts on affected communities. However, existing research has predominantly focused on toxicological and biomedical outcomes, leaving the lived experiences and narrative dimensions of contamination underexplored. This study investigates how residents of PFAS-contaminated communities experience and narrate environmental contamina…
Political science (5 works) · Environmental planning (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Economics (3 works) · Engineering (3 works) · Environmental ethics (3 works) · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities (3 works) · Environmental resource management (3 works) · Environmental Science (3 works)