SUMMARY AND ENVOI 367 



problems of politics, war, peace, poverty, heroin, and birth control. I reject that 

 suggestion out of hand, not on the grounds of being a conservative, which was 

 his defense when someone tried to put him in a similar spot, but on the grounds 

 of being an unreconstructed radical. 



So, having abdicated both my scientific and my social responsibility, I would 

 still like to recall a few of what seemed to be the high points of this symposium. 

 The thing I enjoyed most was the graph of data from Mauna Loa showing the 

 change of C0 2 in the atmosphere. For those of you who had read the SCEP 

 Report and the Journal of Geophysical Research with proper care, the 

 majestically rising seasonal cycles may not have had the same freshness, but they 

 made me feel as if I had just put my finger on the beating, living heart of the 

 world. Those data furnished an intellectual and aesthetic experience that was 

 separate from their practical and scientific importance. 



I felt the same way when the men from the National Center for Atmospheric 

 Research met each other coming back from their survey of carbon monoxide 

 and methane in the atmosphere. The cycles fell together in the way a geochemist 

 always hopes things will, with agreement within a factor of 3. As an organism 

 who has to breathe the stuff, I was also reassured by their estimate of the normal 

 flux of carbon monoxide through the atmosphere. Biologists around me in the 

 audience gasped at the great quantities of CO that were involved, but I was 

 immensely pleased to learn that, although our local inputs are unpleasant and 

 locally dangerous, we are not likely to wreck the system with them. 



During this symposium I have noticed that some authors seemed to be 

 regretting our lack of argument and discussion. These regrets, if such they are, 

 should be abandoned, for they are no more than a complaint about the basic 

 nature of geochemistry. 



In science there is a strong tendency to substitute argument for measurement 

 when measurements are hard to come by. Ecologists trying to compare two 

 things, one of which they cannot measure and the other of which they do not 

 understand, are bound to generate a lot of discussion when they meet. They 

 have no choice. Geochemical measurements are not always easy, but they are 

 possible. When the measurements are inadequate, we all know that they can be 

 improved by good careful work. Geochemical meetings may generate less heat 

 than ecological ones, but it is light, not heat, that we are all after in science. 



If I were a productivity merchant or a carbon geochemist myself, I would 

 run some risk of feeling complacent and smug. As I am neither, but only a kind 

 of ichthyologist turned pollen analyst, I can say freely what I believe, that this 

 has been an absolutely splendid meeting. I express my own thanks and also, I am 

 sure, the thanks of all who have participated, to George Woodwell for organizing 

 this symposium and also to the Brookhaven staff who handled the details that 

 made it all possible. They have done so with hard work and good humor and 

 with a personal charm, wit, and hospitality that have made this an extremely 

 pleasant three days all of us will remember for years to come. 



