PART X — ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINANTS 



Alternative Courses of Action 



All of the above considerations are 

 aspects of the general impact of tech- 

 nology on the environment. The con- 

 cept that technological development 

 constitutes "progress" must be modi- 

 fied so that all effects of the develop- 

 ment are weighed, not just the profits 

 to industry and the immediate benefit 

 to the consumer. All the social costs, 

 including the far-reaching conse- 

 quences to the health of the commu- 

 nity, the aesthetic properties of the 

 environment (e.g., visibility), and the 

 soiling of clothes and buildings, 

 among others, must be figured in the 

 benefit/cost ratios that are used to 

 evaluate the desirability of a tech- 

 nological change. 



The problems of conservation of 

 natural resources and of waste dis- 

 posal enter in an interacting fashion. 

 Nonretrievable consumption of re- 

 sources must be replaced as much as 

 possible by recycling, in which wastes 

 are retrieved and re-used rather than 

 thrown away in the air, water, or soil 

 where they constitute a pollution 

 problem. The whole production-con- 

 sumption organization of society 

 needs careful study, to develop proc- 

 esses that truly maximize social bene- 

 fits and minimize harmful conse- 

 quences. The corollary is that social, 

 political, and economic organization 

 of society will likewise require revi- 

 sion, for under the present pseudo- 

 laissez-faire situation long-range ef- 

 fects will not be given priority over 

 immediate profits in determining the 

 course of action. 



Much of the impact of man on the 

 environment has arisen because, as a 

 result of technological advances, the 

 human population has increased ex- 

 ponentially. This increase cannot go 

 on. Even with exploitation and even- 

 tual degradation of every part of the 

 earth, a point must be reached when 

 food, air, and water are inadequate to 

 support one additional person at the 

 lowest level of subsistence compatible 

 with life. Figure X-5 illustrates some 

 of relevant variables. We can hope 

 that this stage will never be reached. 



We should strive for a stabilization 

 of the population at a level at which 

 the quality of life, as sustained by the 

 quality of the environment, is not 

 merely tolerable but truly enjoyable. 



It has been suggested that man will 

 adapt to a polluted environment, just 

 as organisms in general adapt to sur- 

 rounding conditions by evolutionary 

 processes. However, the changes pro- 

 duced by technology have been too 

 rapid for evolutionary processes to 

 cope with. Long before mutations 

 produce humans whose blood rejects 

 carbon monoxide — rather than hav- 

 ing it combine to form carboxyhemo- 

 globin, which limits the transport of 



oxygen by the blood — the accumu- 

 lation of carbon monoxide and other 

 toxic substances in the atmosphere 

 may make man extinct. 



One alternative is technological 

 adaptation: development of appropri- 

 ate gas masks, air-conditioned homes 

 and vehicles, or even enclosures of 

 entire cities in which the air is proc- 

 essed to remove toxic substances 

 and protect man from the poisons he 

 puts into the surroundings. But surely 

 it is more sensible to use technology 

 to avoid putting the contaminants into 

 the atmosphere than to apply it to 

 processing the air to remove them be- 

 fore we breathe it. 



Figure X-5 — PROJECTION OF PHYSICAL, ECONOMIC, 

 AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS 



POPULATION 



2100 



The graph shows five physical quantities"plotted on different vertical scales, but 

 combined in the same graph to emphasize their relationship. The variables and 

 their units, projected to the year 2100, are: population (total number); industrial 

 output per capita (dollar equivalent per person per year); food per capita (kilogram- 

 grain equivalent per person per year); pollution (multiple of the 1970 level); 

 nonrenewable resources (fraction of 1900 reserves remaining). Although the model 

 is at best only a first approximation containing many assumptions and gaps of 

 knowledge and data, it does suggest some of the factors that could combine to 

 limit world growth. 



338 



