APPENDIX 



SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS 



Reprinted from the Third Annual Report of the National Science Board Environmental 

 Science — Challenge for the Seventies (NSB 71-1). 



Modern civilization has reached the stage where, hence- 

 forth, no new use of technology, no increased demands on the 

 environment for food, for other natural resources, for areas to 

 be used for recreation, or for places to store the debris of 

 civilization, can be undertaken to benefit some groups of indi- 

 viduals without a high risk of injury to others. No environ- 

 mental involvement of man can any longer be regarded as all 

 good or all bad. Problems can be mitigated, but absolute 

 solutions are probably unattainable. The best that can be 

 sought, therefore, is to optimize, to try to achieve the wisest 

 cost-benefit decision for society for each action contemplated. 

 Such a strategy requires a strong base of scientific knowledge 

 and understanding of the environment, ability to predict reli- 

 ably its future course, and, especially, the ability to construct 

 models through systems analysis of the environment and of 

 man's interaction with it on a scale never previously achieved. 



It is within this perspective that the present status of 

 Environmental Science has been examined. Environmental 

 Science is conceived in this report as the study of all of the 

 systems of air, land, water, energy, and life that surround 

 man. It includes all science directed to the system-level of 

 understanding of the environment, drawing especially on such 

 disciplines as meteorology, geophysics, oceanography, and 

 ecology, and utilizing to the fullest the knowledge and tech- 

 niques developed in such fields as physics, chemistry, biology, 

 mathematics, and engineering. Included, therefore, are such 

 diverse matters as climate, air turbulence, the air-sea interface, 

 estuaries, forests, epidemics, earthquakes, and groundwater. 

 These environmental systems contain the complex processes 

 that must be mastered in the solution of such human problems 

 as the maintenance of renewable resources (water, timber, 

 fish), the conservation of non-renewable resources (fuels, 

 metals, species), reducing the effects of natural disasters 

 (earthquakes, tornadoes, floods), alleviating chronic damage 

 (erosion, drought, subsidence), abating pollution by man 

 (smoke, pesticides, sewage), and coping with natural pollution 

 (allergens, volcanic dust, electromagnetic "noise"). 



Environmental Science is now exceedingly vigorous, con- 

 sidered in relation to its development over many centuries. 

 Notable advances are being recorded at an accelerating rate 

 New tools and techniques, borrowed from all of science and 

 technology, are being brought to bear on the problems of 

 observation, measurement, and analysis. Across all of environ- 

 mental science there is a heightened awareness of the essential 

 nature of the environment and the directions that scientific 

 effort should take. Nevertheless — and it is the principal con- 

 clusion of this report — 



Environmental science, today, is unable to match 

 the needs of society for definitive information, pre- 

 dictive capability, and the analysis of environ- 

 mental systems as systems. Because existing data 

 and current theoretical models are inadequate, 

 environmental science remains unable in virtually 



all areas of application to offer more than qualita- 

 tive interpretations or suggestions of environmental 

 change that may occur in response to specific 

 actions. 



There are two primary reasons for this state of affairs. 

 One involves the nature of environmental science itself, the 

 other the resources available for its advancement. 



(1) The natural environment is not a collection of iso- 

 lated events and phenomena, but rather a vast, integral, 

 mutually interacting system. The recent advent of new 

 technology and technique (satellites, advanced computers, 

 instrumentation of many types, and the methods of sys- 

 tems analysis) for the use of environmental science has, 

 indeed for the first time, provided feasibility for attacking 

 the scientific problems that this environmental system 

 presents. The tasks ahead, however, are of unprecedented 

 magnitude and difficulty. 



(2) The trained scientific manpower available to meet 

 this challenge is extremely limited in each of the essential 

 aspects of environmental science. More serious is the fact 

 that this manpower is spread exceedingly thin, both with 

 respect to the manifold problems presented and to the 

 institutions within which research is conducted, new sci- 

 entists are educated, and scientific results are applied to 

 the solution of problems of the public interest. Indeed, 

 the institutions of environmental science, as here defined, 

 remain in an early stage of development. 



This situation constitutes a crisis for the Nation. While 

 environmental problems are so diverse and diffused that virtu- 

 ally every activity of civilization interacts with the environ- 

 ment, few persons can be aware of the full scope of challenge 

 that lies ahead. The current mismatch between capability and 

 need is at least comparable to any other challenge to science 

 and technology that was encountered during this century. 



To meet this situation the National Science Board offers 

 five groups of recommendations: 



1. NATIONAL PROGRAM 



Several factors emphasize the urgency of establishing a 

 national program for advancing the science of environmental 

 systems: (a) New organizations formed at the highest level 

 of the Federal Government, the Council on Environmental 

 Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency, have been 

 charged with responsibilities that include the assessment of the 

 environmental impact of civilized man. These agencies must 

 foresee secondary effects and compare quantitatively the 

 multiple consequences of alternative courses of action. Such 

 efforts are severely limited by the present level of understand- 

 ing of the behavior of environmental systems. They would 

 become progressively more feasible as advances in environ- 

 mental science increase man's predictive power, (b) The use of 

 energy and the processing of material by man are doubling 



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