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ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES }| 



global economy has reinforced the geographic separation of resource extrac- 

 tion, production, and consumption. Hence, those who reap the economic 

 benefits of using natural resources are often different from those who bear 

 the environmental costs. This complex of issues was brought into sharper 

 fcKus by the preparations for the United Nations Conference on Environ- 

 ment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in June 1991 and by the confer- 

 ence itself This new awareness led to an international agenda for research 

 on environment and development and various nonbinding agreements, but 

 much more must be done to stem global environmental degradation. 



THE KEY ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL R&D 



The nation will be able to deal much more effectively with environmental 

 problems once they are better understood. Our ability to understand eanh 

 processes and human dynamics is determined by what research is conducted, 

 how it is organized, and how well it is assessed and presented in establishing 

 and implementing environmental policy. And our ability to identify, con- 

 trol, prevent, and clean up pollutants is limited by the effeaiveness of the 

 technologies we develop and our ingenuity in finding sound means of pro- 

 moting the widespread adoption of those technologies. Environmental prob- 

 lems pose a special challenge to the world's scientific and engineering com- 

 munities, one that evokes the image of the first human steps on the moon: 

 Can scientists and engineers generate the kind of large-scale and highly focused 

 effort that took us into space and apply it to developing the understanding 

 necessary to protea our global environment? 



S^ AS SOURCES OF INNOVATION 



We believe that our ability to respond to the environmental and economic 

 challenges of today and tomorrow is strongly dependent on the information 

 produced by a well-organized and productive federal research and devel- 

 opment system. But we also recognize that protecting the environment will 

 require a new and more effective application of scientific and technological 

 skills. Many of the accomplishments of science and technology that have 

 helped achieve a higher standard of living in the past have been geared 

 to using more and more resources to produce more and more goods and 

 services. 



As Congressman George E Brown, Jr., recently described the problem: 

 "If we embrace the belief in science and technology as the great contributors 



