Environmental protection: Form or substance? It was recently pointed out in Chemical and Engineering News (Oct. 2 1 , 1991) that 1991 was the first year since 1948 that no U.S. scientist won a Nobel prize. In the same issue, it was noted that Dow Chemical has appointed a panel of environmental advisors which included one academic from the United States. The issue contained two other reports, In one, cooperation among Japan and the state of Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory on high-tech developments was analyzed in terms of the benefits and potential encumbrances to U.S. institutions. The other report critically reviewed the new efforts by the World Bank to shed its environmentally checkered past. At first reading, these reports seem to be unrelated, but the overall impression I get is that none of them bodes well for this country or for the world in general. Some people might say that the shutout in Nobel prizes is a statistical fluke, reflecting only the emergence of western European science after World War 11, not the demise of our own. What does it matter if the basic science of complex chemical systems is first elucidated in France rather than the United States, or if fundamental advancements in NMR spectroscopy are first made in Switzerland? The results of the research are readily assimilated by the world community, and all benefit. Besides, many would say, much of this research is done in parallel fashion in the United States, which by any measure continues to be a world leader in essentially every major field of scientific inquiry. Moreover, it is increasingly clear that we are approaching a new economic order where science, business, and industry transcend national governments. What does it matter then if Japan funds projects in Tennessee, or if Hewlett-Packard decides, as it has, to fund a chair in environmental chemistry at a university in Germany rather than i n its home country? Indeed, the concept of “home” is challenged continually, even for individuals, as our means of communication and travel make the distances between us and our world neighbors shorter and shorter. Those who travel to Europe regularly, however, know that support there for fundamental science is yielding important results, and that in some fields we are simply not keeping up. Many people 0013-936X/91/092!5-1949$02.50/0 C 1991 American Chemical Society
in this country feel that the cause is a lack of will in government and the private sector to devote major resources to new science. Why else, these cynics say, would scientists from Tennessee be so eager to “relate, exchange people, start programs” with the Japanese, if not to “receive research funds?” (CbEN, Oct. 21,1991, p. 18). Dow’s group of environmental advisors symbolizes a rather recent commitment of major industries to bring environmental stewardship into the board room, rather than the back lot. Other large companies are responding similarly, as the pages of CbEN and this journal regularly report. The World Bank’s environmental efforts signify a similar realization by the world financial community that the environment and economics are now inextricably intertwined. Both institutions’ moves are healthy signs. However, the nagging doubt remains: Are we addressing environmental protection with glitz or substance? How well do the managers of the financial and business institutions of this world appreciate the need for new research in environmental science a n d technology? Are they being advised at the highest level by scientists and engineers who are devoted to the research process? Given how much we do not know about how natural systems work, and how humans affect them, are we responding to the cry for environmental protection with public relations gimmicks, or programs of real merit? Will the Dow group, when finally constituted, contain more representatives from the scientific and engineering community; and will the World Bank and USAID [United States Aid for International Development] define environmental research in terms that are compatible with their own internal objectives and preferences, or in terms of the real needs in the developing world? Will the nation with the largest GNP of all contribute its fair share to unraveling the secrets of the natural world and to solving the problems caused by humanity’s impact on nature?
Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 25, No. 12, 1991 1949
