128 



JO ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 



The combination of population growth and rising consumer de- 

 mand has particularly ominous implications for the future. The people in 

 poorer nations want and deserve living standards more like those of the de- 

 veloped world. However, the challenge is to raise their living standards without 

 further damaging the environment and making them more vulnerable to 

 natural disaster. As William Ruckelshaus has warned, "If the four-fifths of 

 humanity now in developing nations attempt to create wealth using the 

 methods of the past, at some point the result will be unacceptable world 

 ecological damage."'' 



SCALE OF ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE 



The scale of environmental damage has also increased dramatically. Human- 

 induced environmental damage was once characterized by local episodes 

 of pollution that were confined to discrete geographical areas. Now cause 

 and effect often lie in different parts of the globe. For example, pollutant 

 emissions from factories in one part of the globe may cause acid rain half 

 a continent or more away. Introducing irrigated farming in one pan of the 

 world may reduce the produaivity of marine fisheries elsewhere by altering 

 water quality and flow patterns through damming or consumption. The 

 use of chlorofluorocaibons (CFCs) in the developed world affects the at- 

 mosphere for people on every continent. 



The need to address environmental problems in the context of local 

 communities, each with its distinctive combination of resources and people, 

 is becoming more and more urgent. Significant environmental degradation 

 is taking place over decades and yean, not centuries. Moreover, the actions 

 of humans today can have effects far into the future that will be difficult 

 to reverse in the shon run. Some, such as the extinction of species, arc 

 irreversible. Because environmental systems are operating closer to their limits, 

 the problems are likely to occur sooner, and systems are likely to take longer 

 to recover. For example, the CFCs we emit today will continue to deplete 

 stratospheric ozone for decades, and arresting the growth of emissions of 

 greenhouse gases still leaves us with the possibility of global climate change 

 for years into the fiiture. 



ECONOMIC BENEHTS, ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS 



The pressing and widespread threats to the biosphere appear more closely 

 linked with the functioning of the world economy than ever before. Today's 



