EDITORIAL
Chemistry and the quality of man’s environment Chemistry has a major role to play in understanding the water, air, and land environments and in preventing their degradation. The Division of Water, Air, and Waste Chemistry of the ACS has made significant efforts through its research programs and symposiums to advance sound chemical approaches to natural water quality, air pollution phenomena and their control, and the technology of domestic and industrial water and waste treatment. In recent years. successful efforts in the development of joint research symposiums between the Division of Water, Air, and Waste Chemistry and other divisions of the ACS (Colloid and Surface Chemistry, Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Chemical Education) and in the organization of multidisciplinary programs within the division itself (“Equilibrium concepts in natural water systems,” “Capacity of streams to assimilate wastes”) have underscored the interdependence of research knowledge from chemistry and from other disciplines concerned directly or indirectly with the quality of the environment. As a journal of chemical research, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY will strive to foster those exchanges between the various branches of chemistry and between chemistry and other sciences which have seen such encouraging beginnings in the work of the Division of Water. Air, and Waste Chemistry of the ACS. As scientists we are coming more and more to recognize that the exercise of ecological foresight in the face of technological change cannot be based upon one field of science alone. The biosphere and the land, air, and water environments are all coupled in one way or another. The role and significance of chemistry in the study and control of the environment are often linked to other physical, biological, or social sciences. In the publication of research papers, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCEAND TECHNOLOGY will place particular stress upon advances in chemistry and chemical technology in relation to the understanding of the nature of the natural environment and control of environmental pollution. It will focus as well on the relationship of chemistry to other branches of science and technology which contribute significantly to the understanding and control of man’s environment. The journal will publish critically reviewed research papers which represent significant scientific and technical contributions to our understanding in all relevant areas within the broad field of environmental science and technology. The research pages are thus devoted to all aspects of environmental chemistry, and especially water, air, and waste chemistry, and to significant chemically related research papers from such other fields as biology, ecology, economics, meteorology, climatology, hydrology, geochemistry, limnology, toxicology, biological engineering, medical sciences. marine science, and soil science, as these may contribute directly to increased understanding and control of man’s environment. Scientific understanding of the environment and the development of chemical technologies for environniental control are not ends in themselves. The goal is the benefit of man. Society must decide, in the light of the best information that science can provide, what kind of environment it wants. Significant questions of economics and policy are involved in these decisions. For these reasons, in addition to research papers, reviews, and communications, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY will work to keep its readers abreast of important technical, economic. and political developments, and it will contain the viewpoints of technically qualified individuals from different fields on significant environmental problems and policies. James J. Morgan Volume 1, Number 1, Januar? 1967
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