Government
Environmental outlook grim for year 2000 House to sponsor a summit meeting early next year on an international Quality report calls for action plan. The message, taken from the immediate remedial action three-year study—directed by Gerald O. Barney—distills to this: and prompts establishment "The capacity of the environment to provide goods and services can no of interagency task force longer be taken for granted," it says. "There are two reasons. First, the demand for environmental goods and The Limits To Growth school of pol- services is outstripping the capacity icy analysis, so reviled and ridiculed of the environment to provide them, by the scientific, technological, and as both population and per capita economic establishment during the consumption expand. past decade, has come to bat once "Second, in many areas the ecomore wielding an even bigger stick. logical systems that provide the goods Last week the Council on Envi- and services are being undermined, ronmental Quality issued its report on extinguished, and poisoned. While the global environment in the year informed and careful management of 2000 and announced that facts are the environment might still increase fast replacing fancy about what man's the goods and services it provides in unecological technology has been doing to the world. Unless policies begin to change almost immediately, Highlights from Global it concludes, the world will be in se- 2000 study rious trouble by the middle of the next century. • World population will grow from the The response by the "technological current 4 billion to 6.35 billion in fix" community to "The Global 2000 2000. Report to the President" should be • 9 0 % of the growth will occur in the interesting to watch because within poorest countries. the past decade the world has been • Food production will increase most witness to such documented events as only in the more-developed countries. Love Canal, the Kepone disaster, the • Arable land will increase only 4 % , continuing degradation of Chesaamounting to a decline per capita. peake Bay, the debate over the ge• World oil production will have netic impact of dioxin, the quantitapeaked. tive evidence that carbon dioxide • World fish catch will have long eventually could change the Earth's since peaked. climate, the alarming rate in which • Firewood needs will have exforests are being cut down, the growceeded available supplies 25 % . ing depletion of arable soil per capita, • Water requirements will have acid rain, peaking of the world's fish doubled in nearly half the world. catch, and, of course, the knowledge • Commercial timber supplies will that oil is running out and that coal have declined 50 % . could add a whole new set of prob• 4 0 % of the world forest cover will lems. have disappeared. The study says quite plainly that • Serious deterioration of agricultural President Carter has not been given soils will occur worldwide, due to erothe real picture of how dire the outsion, loss of organic matter, desertifilook is. But last week the President cation, salinization, alkalization, and said he finally has an impressionistic waterlogging. view of the picture and wants it • Atmospheric concentrations of brought better into focus. Accordcarbon dioxide and ozone-depleting ingly, he established a Task Force on chemicals are expected to threaten the Global Resources & Environment global climate. with the assignment to report back in • As much as 20 % of existing plant six months. Meanwhile, the State and animal species will have disapDepartment, cosponsor of the study, peared. has begun making plans for the White
Council on Environmental
some areas, in other areas the demands placed on the environment are approaching, and in some areas have exceeded, its sustainable carrying capacity." Nothing new about the message. What is new is the response. The task force will be headed by CEQ chairman Gus Speth and will be composed of the State Department, Office of Management & Budget, White House domestic policy staff, and the Office of Science & Technology Policy. Planners are well aware that 1980 is an election year and that followthrough is dependent on the re-election of Jimmy Carter. Much will depend on whether the Administration can convert the problems into bipartisan attempts at solution. "I would think that this is the kind of thing that transcends politics," declares Joint Economic Committee staffer Douglas Roth, an adviser to the study. But so far there are no plans to schedule hearings before the committee. Members, Roth points out, are eager to wind up the current session and go home to campaign. Over the longer span, plans will have to be made to involve the Soviet Union in a global effort to alter the institutions for directing technology toward goals more benign to the environment. Over the past few years, the U.S.S.R. has been trying to paint itself as the predominant preserver and protector of the global environment. Détente is in a state of suspended animation but that isn't expected to matter much, since competition between East and West over care of the environment and resources could only benefit the world. Another question is the extent to which those in charge of implementing the study will involve the international banking community, whose investment patterns often inadvertently result in damage to the environment. Attempts eventually will be made to convince the financial community that they, too, have a stake in environmental quality. As project director Barney puts it to C&ENi "We're not living off our interest anymore. It's worse. We're eating into our capital." Coming in for heaviest criticism in the report are the various models the federal agencies use to project trends July 28, 1980 C&EN
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in agricultural output, climate, gross national product, energy, population, water, and mineral resources. With out saying it directly, the study calls the situation a disgrace. "What is wrong with these models is so fundamental that there is no way they can be straightened out without a strong mandate from the White House," declares one source close to the study. "The lack of contact be tween the modelers is unbelievable. Everyone says he's too busy with short-term assignments." The description may be an exag geration, since the study was done with the help of federal analysts. Those at the lower level are said to understand the problems and are eager to begin. But they say their su periors are wed to their feifdoms. What is needed is a blending of the models. Such interaction would end the oversimplistic, misleading pro jections of past and current trends in gross national product, food produc tion, and climate. Each model also would become more up to date and efficient. For example, the Depart ment of Energy needs population figures to make reasonably accurate energy projections. The computer age and its purpose of efficiency would lead one to believe that DOE would use population data tapes directly from Census Bureau computers. Not so; DOE has no access to these tapes. Instead, it develops its own data from published material and wastes time doing its own programing. Similarly, projections for fertilizer use currently lack data on how con tinued use could contribute to the ultimate depletion of the organic content of the soil, or how continued irrigation will increase the salt con tent and lessen the arability of farm land. Too, no one at all is measuring how the patterns of financial invest ment have led to the destruction of tropical forests, water resources, and stability of global climate. The result, the study says, is that the President isn't getting the infor mation he needs as a world leader. The report's importance is in its policy implications, since it really says little that is new about global trends. The Administration is vowing insti tutional followup, but internal squabbling is sure to erupt over who will carry the banner. Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie could play a key role in seeing that the follow-through is effective. He was the Senate's leading envi ronmentalist for more than a decade and is more than familiar with the warnings. He has also been briefed on the study's findings and his aides say he will be staying close to the task force's work. D
