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EDITORIAL Positioning environmental chemistry It is an unfortunate fact that most departments of chemistry, particularly in major universities, do not recognize the value of environmental chemistry. Although most individual faculty members would probably concede that environmental protection is necessary and that chemists must play a role in this process, many feel that environmental chemistry is not sufficiently fundamental to be granted a permanent place in a chemistry department’s structure. Few departments offer more than one course in environmental chemistry, and even fewer offer a graduate degree in the field. Some faculty even seem to be hostile toward the field, possibly because they equate in some way political environmentalism with environmental science. There are exceptions, of course. At a few graduate-level universities, cadres of faculty have put together programs that amount to a major, and many chemistry faculty work together on important research efforts in the environmental field. Is the conventional wisdom of our colleagues in other fields of chemistry correct? Is environmental chemistry still too elementary, too applied, too descriptive? My guess is the answer is yes, by the standards of most chemistry departments. This is not to say that environmental chemistry is trivial, that it has not become more sophisticated over the years, or that it is intellectually stifling. It is merely an admission that by the standards of fundamental scientists there is little in environmental chemistry that represents a new area of knowledge not covered by the traditional fields of chemistry. Much the same can be said for environmental geology, environmental biology, and environmental physics. All of this is somewhat reminiscent of the situation 30 to 40 years ago when many chemistry departments resisted the development of a biochemistry major. Watson and Crick managed to set in motion events that superseded that concern, and now biochemistry is one of the most important majors in many chemistry departments. Significantly, many biochemists preferred to develop their own department when their power base was sufficient. 0013-936X/89/0923-1173$01.50/0 o 1989 American Chemical Society
However, I doubt that any breakthrough analogous to the discovery of the structure of DNA will change environmental chemists’ position among our peers. Rather, environmental chemists-and environmental scientists in general-must seek acceptability and selfrespect on entirely different terms. We must accept that environmental chemistry (geology, biology) is one unique methodology in an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the planet Earth and its species. The more we try to make it acceptable to a disciplinary view, except in terms of the quality of our approach, the more we lose sight of the holistic nature of the problem and its solutions. This is what has driven environmental scientists, and systematists in general, out of departments of basic sciences. We form institutes or centers or in some cases find a new home in another school or college. This is not all bad, but in many institutions it is symbolic of second-class status. What is needed now is for universities and society as a whole to recognize that environmental science is one of the distinctive, essential features of the search for knowledge; that holistic, integrated approaches are necessary for research in this area to flourish; and that irregular, patchwork, crossdepartmental programs are not enough. In short, environmental sciences must be “canonized” into the structure of universities. The next step will be to establish the place of holistic, environmental planning in government and business.
LEnviron. Sci. Technol., Vol. 23,No. IO, 1989 1173
