Science & Society
Scientists plumb the unknowable future Most agree that social and economic institutions will have to change to accommodate to new economic demands Perceptions have changed. The words no longer shock, nor is the idea casually dismissed: American society— western society, indeed, global society —is on a collision course with the resource and environmental limitations of the earth. That said and the premises accepted, is it possible for scientists, economists, and futurists to reach a hard consensus on the extent of the difficulties —where on the spectrum between nuisance and catastrophy reality will lie? Not really. Granting the premises, can the scientists, economists, and futurists agree on specific courses of action that will avoid disastrous consequences? Only vaguely. The American Association for the Advancement of Science tried to answer the questions. In Philadelphia at the recent 138th AAAS meeting, numerous sessions probed the implications of such concepts as "steadystate earth," "resource-limited world," "energy crisis," "zero population growth," and "zero economic growth." Basic. The basic problem, in its simplest terms, is that the future is unknowable. "The uncertainties dominate," is how futurist Herman Kahn, director of the Hudson Institute, states it. Much also depends on personal philosophy—whether future possibilities and probabilities are assessed from an optimistic base or a pessimistic one. Even for intuitive optimists, it's difficult if not impossible to dismiss the data of the curve-makers. And if the curve-makers extrapolate their data to disaster, it's difficult if not impossible for the pessimists to dismiss the arguments that adaptations can and will be made before disaster is reached. Despite the wide variability in views of the damned-if-you-do/damned-if-
you-don't situation, the problem is a real and serious one, even if it should be as Dr. Kahn states "orders of magnitude less than described." Dr. Kahn also agrees that "there is no question that business-as-usual will be a disaster in a few decades." On what do most agree? There is at least one point: What economists call external diseconomies—costs external to the pricing system such as those related to the environment— will have to be internalized, and social and economic institutions will have to change to accommodate to such new economic demands. Resources. A strong case in regard to resources is made by Dennis L. Meadows, professor of the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is associated with the Club of Rome, an international group of industrialists, academics, and systems analysts using systems analysis to foretell interactions in world growth parameters that would lead to catastrophic conclusions. "There is no conceptual possibility," Dr. Meadows says, "of continuing with virgin resources for more than 50 years." The dominant characteristic of resource flow today, he says, is exponential growth. Countering arguments that there are still large amounts of undiscovered resources, he points out that under large exponential growth, large errors in quantity available make little difference in the exponential axis, the time of availability. For the U.S., Dr. Meadows says, the important point is that resources are increasingly held by others. Although he professes to having faith that technology will open up new sources and new ways of using materials, he doesn't see how technological developments in the U.S. will relieve the social and political constraints of foreign sources. Economist Frank Falero, Jr., and political scientist Jack D. Salmon of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University fear just this situation. Within a few years, they say, the economies of the present developed countries will be inescapably based on raw material imports from
the less-developed nations. This situation for them has implications for a new imperialism—a possible return to the use and threat of military force in establishing direct control-dependency relations. Scenario. One scenario they draw concerns a developing country undergoing an internal breakdown of its social, political, and economic structure (perhaps because of population growth pressures). If this breakdown results in resources becoming unavailable to the main users, then, they feel, it is likely that the developed countries will be moved to some sort of action. And the scarcer and more necessary the resource, the higher the probability that the resulting action will be imperialist in nature. Two interim solutions suggested by Dr. Falero and Dr. Salmon: population limitation, and elaboration of possible steady-state economies in which the drain on resources could be better planned, better understood, and perhaps held to a lower level. One example of such a steady state is provided in the field of energy by Earl Cook, professor of geography and geology at Texas A&M University. His "best hope" for the energy approach to a steady-state North American society (see diagram) assumes that the rate of total energy consumption in the U.S. will continue to rise to a plateau of about four times the present level. Although the flat top denotes stabilization of consumption, it means only that the product of population and per capita consumption is stable. Dr. Cook sees the future of man's use of energy divisible into three phases, each dominated by a particular type of constraint on energy use: • The mining phase, which will last another few decades for petroleum and natural gas; a century for oil shales, tar sands, and fissile uranium, a few centuries for coal. Resource availability is the dominant constraint. • The rock-burning phase, which will last perhaps a few hundred years. The dominant technology is that of the breeder reactor, the primary fuels are fertile uranium and thorium, and the dominant constraint is environJAN.
10, 1972 C&EN
27
Here's how energy sources may change in the future Annual energy consumption (10 2801
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With per capita consumption stable after 2000, but population increasing according to official projections
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120
80
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2000
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2100
2150
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2250
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mental quality, principally wastemanagement limits. • The solar phase, which will last until man or the sun fades out. The dominant constraint will be the cost of power in relation to its benefits as measured by a fully internalized benefit-cost formula. If fusion power enters the scheme, it will fall into the first phase if it re quires lithium, into the second phase if only deuterium. Transition. How will the transition between phases be made? Because man is altering his environment faster than his cultural evolution can pro vide species-protective constraints on his actions, Dr. Cook argues that cost, in the broad sense, can be the only con straint on man's ultimate use of en ergy. But, he says, costs divorced from pricing strategy, as much of the social costs of energy use now is, will work against the attainment of sta bility in the man-energy-environment system. Only a pricing strategy that reflects fully internalized social costs will move toward stability. Internalizing the external costs—it is the one point common to almost every argument or point of view. Many feel that ordinary market mech anisms and incentives will work if such costs are included. Allen Kneese of Resources for the 28 C&EN JAN. 10, 1972
Future, Inc., for example, sees the problem as one of collective action. Potentials of the price system, he says, haven't anywhere been fully exploited. Dr. Kahn feels that economists under estimate the sensitivity of the price system. Adjusting mechanisms, he says, are more sensitive by orders of magnitude than frequently described. How might the costs be internal ized? Governments, says J. H. Hollomon, assistant to the president of MIT, are the only mechanism (through taxation and lawsuits, for example). Moreover, he says, there is no way to solve the current problems but to use incentives and disincentives. Internalizing the external costs isn't an easy way out. It would have a major impact on how things are done in society, Dr. Kneese points out. For example, he says, there would be a considerable increase in the price of virgin material. Although there are still large unex* ploited opportunities for recycling, Dr. Kneese says, recycling is not a pana cea, but is part of a whole pattern of materials use. He lists a number of responses to the new situation that might be expected: • The way production processes and technologies are chosen would change. • Final product design would change. For example, there would
probably be more modularity to make products easier to repair and thus more durable overall. • Design specifications of products would change. • Products would be designed dif ferently to improve recoverability of materials. • Innovations to reduce material flow would be required. • Materials substitution would be more common. Impacts. There are also broader im pacts. Technological innovation would probably slow down if prod ucts were more durable. And there might be an impact on location of eco nomic activities. Recycling, for ex ample, would probably lead to further concentration of economic activities in now-concentrated areas—an increased tendency toward urbanization. The pricing system, properly ad justed, seems to be the only solution to future resource and environmental problems. At least, it is the only spe cific tool mentioned. Still, with all the faith shown in the pricing system, it's difficult to be comfortable with Dr. Meadows' data. Or with his warn ing: If implementation of policies waits until the material standard of living starts to decline, it's too late because of inherent time lags in the social-economic system.
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on the scale come some surprisingly ill-regarded items such as nuclear power radionuclides, photochemical oxidants, hydrocarbons in air, carbon monoxide, waste heat, and community noise. For the future, the order shifts dra matically. Pesticides drop to a low priority, leaving heavy metals at 135 on top—far worse than the metals' present rating. Also looming much larger in the future are solid waste and radionuclides, tied for second place at 120. The order descends to suspended particulates at 90, waterborne industrial wastes at 84, and carbon dioxide at 75. Still remaining at the bottom of the list are hydro carbons, oxidants, noise, and carbon monoxide. Viewing pollution from the stand point of affected systems rather than affecting stresses, the National Wild life Federation has built up a differ ent index of total environmental qual ity. Begun in 1969, this index takes its latest form in a paper at the AAAS meeting by Thomas L. Kimball, execu tive director of the National Wildlife Federation. Like Dr. Reiquam, director Kimball disclaims any absoluteness in the fed-
Scientists show indexes of pollution After the hue and cry in the past decade about types and dangers of en vironmental insults from a high-tech nology society, discussion is more re laxed today on critical elements of solution. Now facing scientists, busi nessmen, and politicians are the tough core questions on allocating resources for correction: How badly off are we really, and where are the immediate points of attack? To many specialists at the AAAS meeting in Philadelphia, an essential step in cutting through the uncertain ties in pollution is somehow to get numbers into the picture. Although lacing their papers with disclaimers, these scientists have confidently worked up indexes of decline and se verity for specific parts of the e c o sphere and for the system as a whole. Errors. In overriding their own un easiness at the probable errors in volved in forming these gross indexes, scientists cite particularly a growing "environmental credibility gap" be tween themselves and the supporters they need most, the public. As one investigator put it, "public apprecia tion of environmental problems is in some ways enhanced and at the same time made more difficult by state ments and articles by various scien tists who express their personal and sometimes conflicting views." This scientist, Dr. Howard Reiquam of Battelle Memorial Institute in Co lumbus, Ohio, also sees a purely prac tical reason for constructing an index of priorities in handling pollution. "We have been so wasteful of our re sources, natural, human, and eco nomic," he states, "that it is now nec essary to assign some priorities to the problem in order to attempt to minimize the disruption [in taking action]." The size and vagueness of pollution makes even categories for analysis dif ficult to decide. On one hand, Dr. Rei quam wanted to avoid too simple an approach—reducing pollution to spe cific sources without factoring in the interaction and spread of pollutants over distance and time. But at the other extreme, he also had to make "a conscious effort to avoid aggregat ing too soon" and thus vetoed a grand systems analysis which would depend on relationships that are simply not known yet. Dr. Reiquam finally chose to rate 20 discrete "stresses" on the environ ment (see table). These range from
a benchmark nuclear war, which hits the top of the danger scale at a read ing of 225, to pesticides, heavy metals, polluting gases and liquids, heat, and noise. The net reading for each of these stresses is the product of three coeffi cients for persistence (one to five), geographical range (one to five), and inter-system complexity of effects on humanity, resources, and the environ ment (one to nine). Conceding the value judgments leading to these co efficients, Dr. Reiquam also notes that the index omits an obvious economic factor. Nevertheless, he states, "eco nomics pervades these systems: it is therefore included implicitly." Pesticides. The results put pesti cides with a reading of 140 clearly out in front for present environmental stress. Next come heavy metals at 90, and three air pollutants in the 70's range. After these, the scale drops to oil spills and waterborne industrial wastes, at 48. Medium range stresses are solid waste, chemical fertilizer, or ganic sewage, nitrogen oxides, and ra dioactive waste for storage. Below 20
Weighting segments of air pollution reveals particulates by far the greatest concern Particulates SOx NOx CO (Weighted basis—% of grand total)
Source
Transportation Fuel combustion (stationary sources) Industrial processes Solid waste disposal Miscellaneous (forest and agricultural fires, etc.) Total Source:
HC
Total
6.9% 3.7
3.0% 0.1
4.6% 1.1
16.4% 34.9
6.1
0.1
0.3
0.1
27.0
2.0
0.1
0.3
0.2
0.2
2.8
16.1
0.2
1.3
0.5
0.8
18.9
27.2%
12.3%
0.9% 10.2
1.0% 19.8
20.4
49.6%
4.1% 6.8%
100.0%
Dr. Lyndon R. Babcock, Jr., Niren L. Nagda, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
Overall index of U.S. environmental quality finds net score slipping Category
Soil Air Water Living space Minerals Wildlife Timber Total Source:
Index ρ(oints
Score
Relative importance (expressed as % )
1971
1970
1971
1970
30% 20 20 12.5 7.5 5 5
78 34 40 58 48 53 76
80 35 40 60 50 55 75
23.4 6.8 8.0 7.25 3.6 2.65 3.80 55.50
24.0 7.0 8.0 7.5 3.75 2.75 3.75 56.75
National Wildlife Federation JAN. 10, 1972 C&EN
33
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Advances in Long Chain Carbon Chemistry
Pesticides and metals top priori ties in environmental stress . . . Pollutant
Index
Pesticides
140
Heavy metals
90
Carbon dioxide
75
Sulfur dioxide ( + oxidation products)
72
Suspended particulate matter
72
Oil spills
48
Waterborne industrial wastes
48
Solid waste
35
Chemical fertilizer
30
Organic sewage
24
Oxides of nitrogen
24
Radioactive waste (for storage)
20
Litter
16
Tritium, krypton-85 (nuclear power)
16
Photochemical oxidants
12
Hydrocarbons in air
10
Carbon monoxide
9
Waste heat
5
Community noise ( + sonic boom)
4
. . . but metals predominate in projections of priorities Pollutant
Index
Heavy metals
135
Solid waste
120
Tritium, krypton-85 (nuclear power)
120
Suspended particulate matter Waterborne industrial wastes Carbon dioxide Oil spills Sulfur dioxide ( + oxidation products) Waste heat Chemical fertilizer Organic sewage Oxides of nitrogen Litter Radioactive waste (for storage) Pesticides Hydrocarbons in air Photochemical oxidants Community noise ( + sonic boom) Carbon monoxide Source: Institute
Dr. Howard Reiquam, Battelle
90 84 75 72 72 72 63 48 42 40 40 30 18 18 15 12
Memorial
eration's index although pointing to extensive documentation for the num bers in it. The overall index, running from 100, is composed of seven weighted factors representing the quality of seven natural resource cate gories: (in order of importance) soil, air, water, living space, minerals, wild life, and timber. The federation finds greatly varying quality in these areas, ranging from 78 for soil in 1971 to 34 for air. The composite index fell to 55.5 last year from 56.75 in 1970. Trends. Calling trends the impor tant indications from the index, Mr. Kimball observes that only water and timber have made gains in the past year. Soil quality slipped two points with haphazard land development; timber went up a point as growth exceeded cut; living space fell two points as crowding worsened; wildlife lost two points as habitats faced in creased hazard; minerals dropped two points as depletion outran dis covery; water held steady at an intol erable level as legislation stiffened but capital spending only kept matters from getting any worse; and air sank to a "shockingly low level" of 34 under the weight of further pollution. Producing a more specific scheme, Dr. Lyndon R. Babcock, Jr., and Niren L. Nagda of the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle's college of engineer ing outlined a weighted index to show the real significance of the major air pollutants. They call the widely used figures on individual emissions "a to tally unsatisfactory assessment of the national air pollution problem be cause some air pollutants are simply more important than others. That is, at a given concentration, some pol lutants are more toxic or more un pleasant. To complicate the problem further, pollutants have different ef fects . . . another difficulty is the var ied, uneven response of individuals to various pollutants." To adjust the raw emission figures for relative importance, the two in vestigators weighed them against the most stringent government standards for ambient air concentrations. With a few further adjustments, they came up with a revised version of Dr. Babcock's earlier "pindex" rating of air pollutants. Surprise. The results are a surprise. In fact, they completely reorder the air pollution problem in the U.S. Car bon monoxide, by far number one pol lutant by weight, sinks to the lowest rating (4%) in significance. Particu-
ι lates, low in weight, soar to half the air pollution problem on a weighted basis. Sulfur oxides climb to 27% on the weighted scale; nitrogen oxides rise a bit to 12%; and hydrocarbons sink to 7%. The team's study of air pollution sources shows just as great a reshuffle. Transportation, easily the worst pol lution source by weight with about half of all emissions, sinks to fourth place in the next index at only 16% of weighted output. Fuel combustion from stationary sources, by contrast, rises from 16% of raw emissions to 35% on the new scale. Industrial process emissions also j u m p up, from 14% to 27%. Solid waste disposal emissions stay low at 4% and 3% as do miscellaneous sources at 14% and 19%. Index. In the area of water pollu tion the National Sanitation Founda tion, Ann Arbor, Mich., is in the middle of a program to erect a water quality index. President Robert M. Brown and program director N. I. McClel land were joined in a AAAS paper on the index by associate professor R. A. Deininger of the University of Michi gan and research associate M. F. O'Connor of the University of South ern California. To make up the index, the authors, in cooperation with a panel of 74 persons in water quality manage ment, assigned values for variation in water quality produced by dif ferent strengths of each of nine se lected parameters. These parameters are dissolved oxygen, fecal coliforms, pH, five-day biological oxygen demand, nitrate, phosphate, temperature, tur bidity, and total solids. Field evalua tion of the resulting water quality index is currently being performed in a sampling program with a num ber of agencies all across the United States. Although objections to a general water quality index have arisen, mainly based on a desired variation of standards for specific water uses, the research group believes a general index still preserves feasibility and objectivity. Indeed, the scientists re gard the barriers to an overall index of water quality as psychological, not technical. Other index makers too will now have to crash the acceptance barrier as they strive for a new focus and commitment. JAN. 10, 1972 C&EN
35
