ACS NEWS
1970 C&EN Merit Award Winners named Students see pollution control, population explosion as key environmental issues— suggest interdisciplinary approach to solutions Peter Abdella, Wheeling College. One of the major problems is lack of concern. People's only interest is their immediate surroundings—they don't see the overall picture. If we don't keep everyone informed about what's going on the whole system breaks down. . . . The population problem is very serious. It's an extremely difficult situation to deal with. It gets to be very personal. How do you explain the problem of overpopulation of the world in a meaningful way to a given family? It's a very touchy issue. It's a whole global issue that must be handled on an individual basis. It involves the difference between knowledge and the realization of what that knowledge really means. People have to go beyond their immediate circle of contact. Government will have to play a big part in solving environmental problems—and be forceful about it. If the government backs something and takes a stand, people will hear about it and take notice.
It has been nearly six weeks since the Earth Day events were touted loud and clear, but the memory as well as the philosophy lingers on, at least among the campus set, if what C&EN's 1970 Merit Award Winners have to say is any reflection of student thinking. Last year's college and university clamor was directed mainly against the draft and the war—this year, environmental issues shared the spotlight. The 12 awardees, in discussing with C&EN the broad chemical aspects of current environmental problems, showed great awareness of the current state of affairs and offered enlightening insight into reasons for the imminent crisis and what can be done about it. Discussion questions posed to the students for the purposes of developing their remarks were quite general: • What is the key environmental issue of today? • Who is to blame for the inadequacies of the nation's current situation? • What role should universities, industry, and the Government play in turning the tide away from environmental chaos? • What should be the nature and extent of student involvement in environmental issues? The student award winners unanimously agreed that the public needs to be better informed of the problems associated with environmental improvement. They hesitated to accuse any one segment of the population of
precipitating today's environmental problems, but they said that the scientists who have access to the facts about situations that need to be corrected should do a better job of making useful information available to the nonscientific portions of society. The merit award winners also feel that the people of the country as a whole should take more of an interest—a personal interest—in just what the problems are. Concern for increased "awareness" of over population's causes and potential solutions was stated repeatedly as the students called for a "new philosophy," "a re-evaluation of our thinking," and personal involvement in environmental matters. The word interdisciplinary came up in the course of several conversations, suggesting the student's desire to see more effective communication among the various components of the scientific community and between scientists and government. Many students see the technological and theoretical solutions to environmental problems coming from scientists, particularly those in academic institutions. But they believe that with responsibility for action in the hands of government, the deficiency in understanding and communication leads to tortoiselike progress in solving environmental problems. C&EN recognizes inherent difficulties in speaking for the Merit Award Winners but in the quotations which follow they speak for themselves.
Charles A. Lieder, University of Toledo. Chemical pollution is certainly close to everybody today. Right here in Holland we have a small lake that empties into Lake Michigan—it's seriously polluted on one side by one plant and on the other side by another. We've been monitoring this very closely. We go out and get water samples and run atomic absorption spectroscopy and x-ray emission tests on them. Industry should take the responsibility for cleaning it up, but the consumer, I think, will have to pay for it. Industry should take all things into consideration when selling the product, including the cost of getting rid of it after it is used.
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tail. We must re-evaluate our philosophy. A major problem has always been the lack of communication between people who realized what was happening and people who were in a position to be able to do something about it. The fundamental environmental problems are definitely not new—the biologists, ecologists, and certain segments of chemical science have seen the current crisis coming for a long time. It's just that everyone else is only now becoming aware of it. Things have gone so far now that enormous sums of money will be needed to bring about effective changes. The Federal Government will have to become more involved. People will have to make solutions politically desirable. They'll have to put community pressure on industry and government, make it an election issue, and elect people who will do the job.
Gregory A. Petsko, Princeton University. The whole environment issue has become a philosophical question. Progress was the ultimate good for which everyone would strive, and all the associated problems many of which we now know as pollution were incidental. Progress can be self-destroying—we are just getting to the point of understanding that. The environment is, in a sense, a tool with which we work that must be kept in good working order, otherwise it's like a snake eating its own
We're reminded that air and water respect no political boundaries. Solutions to the situation will have to involve judgments of legal, political, social, and scientific segments of the population. We also need an adequately motivated public. Many students are trying to do this by marshalling manpower to promote constructive change. Much of the future research will center on studying the effects of man's pollution on the ecology and the balance of nature. We probably won't see any results of the current steps now being taken for about four or five years.
Veronica Bierbaum, Catholic University of America. The problems of the environment are so complex that any solutions that are to be effective will have to be inter- or multidisciplinary. Air pollution, I think, is probably the most serious because air cannot be treated or purified as needed. Whatever we do to the air directly affects plants and lower animals in addition to man. It also upsets the normal processes of weather and climate. We certainly can't overlook the fact that about half of the air pollution is caused by motor vehicles.
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Judges for the Award Program:
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Donald B. Anthony, University of To ledo. Locally we are concerned with Lake Erie and air pollution. Toledo is involved in trying to establish codes for refinery emissions. Part of the reason for the current crisis is the idea that each individual or factory is only pollut ing a little bit—but it has all added up. We can't expect industries to survive on community spirit and good will that would result from its antipollution efforts because it needs much more then the community to survive. Indus try simply cannot do it unilaterally. We will have to have some realistic legislation that can be enforced. It should not be hastily rushed through and it should not be "committee-ed" to death. The public needs to be better informed. An interesting point was made recently in an article I read by a professor at MIT who said that the rhet oric and emphasis given to the issue is forcing industry to sacrifice tech nology so they can spend money for compensatory public relations pro grams. I hate to see students wasting energy as they do at times but there is a real desire to alert people to the prob lem—this does have the effect of tak ing some of the burden off of govern ment and industry for doing it.
Anthony Bryk, Boston College. I don't think most people realize the problem that is generated by the need to dispose of the mass of materials that we accum ulate. Our resources are finite—we have to figure out ways to recycle sub stances. Our fast population growth also adds to the problem. I don't think we can specifically blame anyone—gov ernment, industries, or universities. Scientists have for a long time been able to observe the situation that we are in. They should assert themselves more to tell the public what is going on. Only recently has the public become really aware of what is happening with pollution. Scientists will have to assist in solving the problems that they find exist. The universities are in a unique position to influence what is done by their research and programs because they are somewhat free from the politi cal and economic pressure faced by government and industry.
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John E. Heinze, Oklahoma Baptist Uni versity. I was looking through a book in the library just the other day in which the author was warning of dire consequences if pollution is allowed to continue—the book was published in 1946. Environmental improvement is an extremely broad issue. I think it is becoming more connected with the im portance of the quality of life—provid ing a pleasant and pleasing life. Pollu tion is only a part of it. In terms of today's problems, I think everyone has shared in the guilt—industry for not controlling itself, government for not setting standards and enforcing them, and the general public for just letting it happen. I was pleased to see the ACS report and coverage in C&EN. ACS has the advantage of having access to input from many fields so they can get a total perspective much better than gov ernment, industry, or the universities can. Pollution will never really be solved. It's largely a preventive prob lem now—to not let it get worse.
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Georgia J. Fisanick, Polytechnic Insti tute of Brooklyn. A lot of value can be generated by activities such as Earth Day. The real weakness in student movements of this sort is that every-
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one gets all excited about it on one day —and then they go out and throw their beer cans along the highways the next. One of the situations contributing to today's problems is planned obsolescence—paper cups and nonreturnable bottles and autos. Universities are where many of the new ideas could come from. Organizations like ACS should stimulate interests and create and promote awareness of the problems. Students might be advised in selecting and planning their programs to go into really useful areas of research and carry their activities outside the university to action groups.
Robert D. Shuman, Furman University. The rate of pollution per capita in the U.S. is astounding. We have been too concerned with the present and not enough with the future. Environmental problems should be ascribed to two aspects of human nature rather than to particular groups of people. First of all, most of us have been guided by experience rather than reason. Secondly, by far the greatest majority of us do not make collective or social problems our personal responsibility until we are forced to do so. Science and government share much of the responsibility for the current situation because in the past they have not informed the public and looked far enough into the future. Solutions will have to be multidisciplinary but chemistry will probably be most directly relevant. Universities could do more to educate the public by sponsoring films, conferences, classes, teach-ins, and so forth. Scientists today are much too narrow. Students should broaden themselves and engage in meaningful responsible protest if that is what they want. They could also go to work for companies and government agencies that really need their help in fighting pollution.
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Douglas K. Miller, University of North Dakota. In North Dakota we don't have quite the pollution problem faced by many parts of the country. Some problems result from the use of pesticides by farmers and we have some pollution from sugar beet refineries, but even that is mostly biodegradable. I think people are finally waking up to the reality of pollution. We can expect the chemists to develop an understanding of the problem involved—such as smog producing reactions and the interactions of UV light and the oxides. Biochemists, for example, will be finding out what happens in the body as a result of the effects of pollutants. Universities should take the leadership in promoting solutions by calling attention to the is-
sues and providing a forum for discussions. Students should stimulate people to think about the issues. When people see the accomplishments of students, such as their campaigns to clean up litter and junk and their efforts to really be constructive, then they will be more likely to listen to what students are saying.
Michael A. Rudy, Stevens Institute of Technology. Much of the problem that exists is with attitude. The technology is available if enough people wanted to put it to use. One of the most serious problems it seems to me is population—people pollution it's been called. Pollution could be stopped tomorrow, but preventing starvation of millions of people could not be stopped for many years. And we do not have the technology to solve that. . . . We now have pollution for profit. It would reduce profits too much for industries to do what would be necessary to prevent pollution—it's sad. Force will have to come from outside those organizations that are causing the pollution. Companies will have to be told to alter their methods. University research does not have to be profit-oriented the way industry research i s — universities have the ability to carry out pollution research if they can get adequate funding. Students have a tendency to get emotional at times but they are becoming increasingly involved with pollution research. They seem to be more motivated to do pollution-related research and to go into jobs and occupations in environmental areas.
Erin Christine Raschke, University of Texas. It's g o i n g t o t a k e a lot o f t i m e , m o n e y , a n d effort t o w o r k out s o l u t i o n s t o t h e p o l l u t i o n p r o b l e m s . It is d i f f i c u l t t o isolate a single m a j o r i s s u e — o n e t h i n g j u s t leads t o a n o t h e r . A t one t i m e we were concerned only with t e c h n o l o g y f r o m t h e p o i n t of view of m a k i n g p r o d u c t s a n d improving t h e m . We gave no t h o u g h t t o g e t t i n g rid of w a s t e s — i t w a s t o o expensive. People d i d n ' t really t h i n k a b o u t it. E v e r y t h i n g s e e m e d u n l i m i t e d , t h e n all of a s u d d e n t h e y realized it i s n ' t . . . . S t u d e n t s say t h a t p r o t e s t s a n d sit-ins are t h e o n l y w a y t h e y can get a t t e n t i o n focused on the problems. Protesters say t h a t if y o u are i r r i t a t i n g e n o u g h , people will do s o m e t h i n g t o keep y o u quiet. But on the other hand, they can overdo it a n d create r e s e n t m e n t — a n d t u r n e v e r y b o d y a g a i n s t t h e very t h i n g t h e y are t r y i n g t o a c c o m p l i s h . There is a p r e s s i n g need f o r awareness — h o w t o get it is t h e p r o b l e m .
Honorable Mention—C&EN Merit Awards, 1970 Thomas Ala, Michigan Technological University Steven Auvil, Michigan State University Robert Berkland, Iowa State University of Science and Technology Katherine Bisset, Birmingham-Southern College Robert Blankenship, Nebraska Wesleyan University Mary Bronson, University of MissouriColumbia David Case, Michigan State University Hardy Chan, Wisconsin State University-La Crosse Alice Chandler, University of Georgia David Coleman, Southern Illinois University Patrick Coleman, Washington State University Francis Collins, University of Virginia Linda Domel, University of Texas at Austin James Douglas, Jr., Dartmouth College Lee Eberhardt, College of Wooster M a r k Failla, St. Francis College Robert Fräser, Dartmouth College James Fuoss, South Dakota State University Thomas Greenlee, Michigan Technological University Carol Haas, Ursinus College Viveca Hazboun, Immaculate Heart College Richard H e n d r e n , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Raymond Hertz, Indiana Institute of Technology Michael Hunkapiller, Oklahoma Baptist University Patrick Ireland, Christian Brothers College Robert Jackson, University of Notre Dame Robert James, University of Louisville David Johnson, Washington University Robert Kaufman, University of MissouriColumbia
Benjamin Knox, Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science Edward Kostanek, Hiram College Ann Laubach, Gettysburg College Mary Luckey, Hope College William Ludwico, University of Notre Dame Robert M a r m a r a , City College of the City University of New York Barbara Martinek, East Texas State University Carol Martinson, Grinnell College Kay McCarthy, Juniata College Richard McCreery, University of California, Riverside Bette Midgarden, Concordia College Paul Minbiole, University of Detroit Kenneth Mlynarski, Newark College of Engineering Richard Murahata, Michigan State University Gerald Murphy, Merrimack College Richard Olson, Illinois Institute of Technology Donald Palumbo, Boston University Robert Portnoy, Louisiana State University in New Orleans William Roper, University of Alabama Thomas Schmalz, Montana State University Michael Siklosi, Montclair State College Michael Smith, Dartmouth College John Snyder, Le Moyne College Gerald Streit, University of Texas at Austin Anne Swanson, Northern Illinois University Lou Traficante, Long Island University Linda Waring, Washington University Karen Wetterhahan, St. Lawrence University M a r k Wrighton, Florida State University Mark Yeager, Middlebury College Carlotta Zarobila, Notre Dame College
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