A scientific voice on environmental problems SCOPE, the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment, is a group of scientists from 36 national committees that constitutes the environmental science voice worldwide. SCOPE represents international cooperation among leading scientists of the world without regard to politics or national position. The scientific objective of the group is to advance knowledge of the influence of humans on their environment and the effects of these environmental changes on human health and welfare. It takes on projects of interest to more than one country. These scientists do not generally engage directly in research at the bench and field levels for SCOPE, although they may do so personally. Rather they are involved in • stimulating new approaches to problems, • synthesizing existing information, • organizing balanced appraisals, and • identifying important research needs. John Farrington, chairman of the U.S. national committee, is an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Océanographie Institution. He said that his committee was reorganized in May 1984 as a standing committee of the Environmental Studies Board of the National Research Council. He also said his committee was involved with an outreach program, trying to involve more U.S. scientists in SCOPE activities. General assembly shapes future Since its establishment in 1969, SCOPE has developed scientific activities within an overall program that is reshaped every three years by its general assembly. SCOPE is part of ICSU, the International Council of Scientific Unions, whose secretariat is in Paris. ICSU is evaluating and planning an international project in the 1990s on global change; an advanced sensory network may be deployed as part of this project. 0013-936X/84/0916-0345A$01.50/0
clarify the science. A first workshop was held in Brisbane, Australia; a second was held in October 1984 at Asilomar, Calif.; a third workshop will be held in South Africa in late 1985; and a fourth workshop will be held in 1986 in London. The final synthesis symposium is expected to be held in mid1986.
John Farrington The U.S. national committee will host the forthcoming Sixth General Assembly of SCOPE, which will convene in Washington, D.C., Sept. 8-13, 1985. General assemblies are held every three years and it is at these assemblies that new directions are taken for the next three years of scientific attention. For example, the Fifth General Assembly in 1982 approved new studies for the general project area of biogeochemical cycles. From such activity, a number of workshops were conducted from which many books have appeared as SCOPE publications. Although some of the earlier studies on biogeochemical cycles actually date back to 1976, specific carbon cycle studies now in progress include transport of carbon in major rivers, continuation of sulfur cycles, and new studies on acidification, metals cycling, and nitrogen in aquatic ecosystems. A typical SCOPE project, which came from the last general assembly, is a series of workshops on the ecology of biological invasions; that is, problems arising from the introduction of species that are not native to the region of the world where they are introduced. Examples of such entries include water hyacinths, kudzu vines, sea lampreys, and the carp that were brought from Arkansas to eat weeds in the Potomac River. This project looks at what is known about the subject and indicates what research must be undertaken to
© 1984 American Chemical Society
SCOPE publications All told, SCOPE activities have led to 23 books; all are published by John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, England. Some forthcoming books dealing with chemicals in the environment are in press. For example, Norton Nelson of the New York University Medical Center, chairman of an ecotoxicology group, says that a first report (SCOPE publication 20) looked at methods for assessing the effects of chemicals on reproductive function of humans. The most recent publication, SCOPE 22, is "Effects on Pollutants at the Ecosystem Level." Next spring, ICSU will publish a report on a wide-ranging study of the effects of nuclear war. It will be the first international study on the subject by a nongovernmental group of international scientists. In addition, scientists are likely to write individual reports, subsequent to the main report, on the environmental consequences of nuclear war as it relates to their regions. For example, R. E. Munn, a Canadian and editor-in-chief of SCOPE publications, said that a subreport on the effects of nuclear winter, the expected aftereffect of such a war, will be made available to Canadians. Additional reading Books in press that are to be published in 1985 include the following: "The Relevance of Laboratory and Field Tests to Predict the Environmental Behavior of Chemicals," "Quantitative Risk to Human Health of Chemicals," and "Methods for Measuring Chemical Injury to Ecosystems." —Stanton Miller Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 18, No. 11, 1984 34SA
