Moving Ahead 



This first NACOA report is a beginnintr. It begins to examine the spec- 

 trum of critical national needs and priorities in the light of our Nation's 

 role in man's stewardship of the oceans and atmosphere. 



These are not abstract, remote problems for a few experts to worry 

 about. They are basic to this country's well-being and perhaps even to 

 its survival. It is already very late. In some places the oceans, coastal 

 waters, and atmosphere have been degraded and their resources despoiled. 

 In a few areas, we are close to the peril point and little time is left to 

 turn matters around. 



The preceding chapters provide NACOA's assessment of how things 

 now stand with respect to our interface with other members of the world 

 family, our fisheries resources, weather modification, and the condition 

 of our coastal zones. We are not in good shape in many of these areas, 

 and we are not moving rapidly enough or confidently enough to put our 

 affairs in order. Each of the preceding chapters sets out the condition in 

 which NACOA finds us, and the priorities as NACOA perceives them. 



How did we get in this shape? What failings allowed us to arrive at 

 situations tending toward irreversibility? What should we do to correct 

 the failings? 



National policy is the sum of governmental and private decisions and 

 actions. Neither government nor private parties have been sufficiently 

 alert to the emerging problems, nor prepared to make the adjustments 

 and sacrifices necessary to deal with them. 



The machinery for national policy making for marine and atmospheric 

 affairs has been, and remains, weak and disunited. Responsibility and ac- 

 countability are divided. Coordination is inadequate. Priorities are slow 

 to emerge, decisions even slower, and resources to implement these prior- 

 ities are too little and too late. 



The problems addressed in this first NACOA report all show a com- 

 mon pattern: they arise from the behavior of a system that takes action 



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