805 
My final comments have to do with chapter 5, the global environ- 
ment and in particular the portion of that which refers to monitoring 
and predicting weather conditions. I read this chapter with special 
interest because I have come to believe over the years that monitoring 
and predicting medium- to long-term changes in weather, climate, and 
the ocean is becoming more urgent every year. 
Modification of weather and ocean conditions by interference with natural en- 
vironmental processes is a growing reality, which the Nation is only beginning 
to confront. 
Waste products are being poured into the air and the sea in ever 
greater amounts. These waste products have immediate as well as 
lingering consequences and among the more portentous lingering con- 
sequences may be the planetary warming which some scientists expect 
as a result of carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere. 
Others acknowledge the shadowing effects of particulates which are 
also accumulating in greater amounts. This might lead to a long-term 
cooling also with portentous implications over time. 
I think it is a cause for regret and self-criticism by the scientific 
community that even the sign, plus or minus, warming or cooling, 
of such long-term climate changes is not really determinable on the 
basis of present knowledge. 
I think it could be determined and perhaps even its rate estimated 
if sufficient effort, and this does not mean large effort, were directed 
toward developing the capability for monitoring and predicting long- 
term climate changes. 
In general, evevy‘hing in the chapter on global environment de- 
pends upon the availability of more, and more adequate, data, Al- 
most all the activities reported in that section are data-limited and 
I think the Commission’s recommendations on global monitoring and 
prediction are very important and underlie most of the scientific work 
which is described there. 
In particular the international framework for such monitoring and 
prediction activities is I think important and I think the Commis- 
sion’s recommendations for collaboration with the World Weather 
Watch, the so-called IGOSS program and the global] atmosphere re- 
search program are sound and perceptive. 
In a very brief summary, Mr. Chairman, I have tried to emphasize 
the positive rather than the negative in this critique I have focused 
on those portions of the report that seemed to me most directly re- 
lated to advancing the whole national interest in the marine area 
rather than some component of it. 
I understand the national interest to be more pragmatic than philo- 
sophical. I believe it has economic, political and military payoffs 
uppermost in mind and that it evaluates these in the context of the 
world power balance among nations. 
In the pragmatic light of these national policy considerations, I 
consider the Nation’s renewed interest in the sea and the attention 
of this committee most auspicious. I have emphasized first and fore- 
most the importance of the organizational recommendations of the 
Sas in particular the recommendation that a new agency be 
ormed. 
