to destroy 98% of its chemical weapons stockpile within the first eight years of a global treaty's entering into force. The remaining 2%, or about 500 agent tons, would be destroyed "once all nations capable of building chemical weapons sign that total ban treaty." This 2% proposal has soured the Geneva negotiations, Meselson says. No other nation has supported it. Under the bilateral agreement, the two countries would commit to reducing their stocks to 500 agent tons by the end of the eighth year. At that time a special conference of countries that have signed the treaty would meet to decide whether a sufficient number of the "right" countries have signed the global treaty to permit destruction of the remaining 500 agent tons. * The Administration argues that this will act as an incentive to some countries to declare the possession of chemical weapons early, and to adhere to the global treaty quickly. Harris argues that the flip side is that it could "legitimate a country like Iraq's possessing a security stockpile." Despite her qualms about the bilateral agreement, Harris believes "it sends the most powerful political signal that can be sent to the multilateral talks about the seriousness of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in those [global] negotiations." Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D.-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, calls it "an unprecedented and unique arms control agreement. Unprecedented because it provides for U.S.-U.S.S.R. cooperation in destroying their declared chemical weapons stocks. Unique because both agree to stop production, thereby providing the best hope for negotiating a global ban." Nabil Fahmy, Egypt's disarmament delegate to the UN, says that "any accord reached between the U.S. and the Soviet Union will be useful [in the multilateral negotiations] as long as it doesn't include any discriminatory measures. The point that Egypt will insist on is that a treaty on chemical weapons be nondiscriminatory and universal in nature, that it contain equal rights and obligations for all parties." Lois Ember
Shakhashiri removed in NSF program shakeup Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, the chemist who has become a popular and effective champion of science education on the national scene, is being removed from his post of assistant director for science and engineering education at the National Science Foundation by NSF's lame duck director Erich Bloch. Bloch—who will be leaving NSF when his six-year term expires at the end of August—is reorganizing the agency's education efforts, according to Raymond E. Bye, director of NSF's office of legislative and public affairs. "The director deemed it time to make a change and get new leadership," Bye says. A new NSF unit, to be called the directorate for education and human resources, will combine NSF's programs on women, minorities, and the handicapped with its existing education programs. It will be headed by Luther S. Williams, formerly president of Atlanta University, who for the past year has been a senior science associate in Bloch's office. "Bloch told me he has no role for me in the new organization. He told me I'd been here too long," Shakhashiri tells C&EN. Bloch suggested that the chemist might either return to the University of Wisconsin, where he taught before coming to NSF, or accept a new assignment within the office of the director, according to Shakhashiri. Shakhashiri says he wants to continue to work on science education at NSF. "I want to try to accomplish the President's goal of making the U.S. number one in science and engineering in the year 2000," he says. "I feel strongly that NSF is the vehicle to accomplish that." He arrived at NSF shortly after Congress reinstated the agency's science and engineering education directorate, which the Reagan Administration had scrapped in 1982. He has consistently pushed for more attention and funds for education. Under his leadership the directorate's budget has been growing faster than NSF's as a whole. Shakhashiri's popularity with and high visibility in Congress has been
one of several sources of tension between him and Bloch, according to sources at NSF. The two men also have clashed over the allocation of the agency's resources between research and education. "I t h i n k this is an atrocious move," says American Chemical Society president Paul G. Gassman. "It's obvious from Congress' increased support that Dr. Shakhashiri has done a tremendous job of presenting the case for supporting science education in light of the crisis facing us in the supply of scientists." While calling Bloch's decision to remove Shakhashiri an "internal matter within NSF," Presidential Science Adviser D. Allan Bromley says, "We will miss him. He has done an excellent job of forwarding our efforts to improve science and engineering education within the U.S." Pamela Zurer
India pushes to overturn Bhopal settlement The Indian government under its new Prime Minister, V. P. Singh, is seeking to restore criminal charges against Union Carbide for the December 1984 methyl isocyanate gas disaster at Bhopal that killed about 3700 persons. It has made pleas before India's Supreme Court, which has been hearing petitions that are seeking to overturn the $470 million settlement the court ordered in February 1989. The court is now in recess but is scheduled to reconvene on July 17 to hear oral arguments. Carbide, meanwhile, has been asserting that the efforts to overturn the settlement are unfair, have no basis in law, and that last year's agreement is final. Throughout the review efforts, Carbide has been declining to comment in much detail on the proceedings and has instructed its legal firm not to talk to the press on the continuing activity in New Delhi. However, Carbide's Indian attorney, Fali Nariman, has been, in fact, actively arguing before the court and submitted an affidavit in February outlining why the court should reject efforts to alter the settlement June 4, 1990 C&EN
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News of the Week decision. Because public protests against the settlement were so severe, the court said it would hear any facts or arguments that it may have overlooked. Last December it declared that victims should have been consulted when the government agreed to the settlement. Last week, India's attorney general, Soli Sorabji, was in the U.S. for appointments with attorneys and toxicologists in an effort to reinforce his government's case. While in Washington, D.C., Sorabji outlined his g o v e r n m e n t ' s a r g u m e n t s to C&EN before he left for Minneapolis for a visit with the firm that represented the Indian government during the U.S. phase of the Bhopal litigation. Also on Sorabji's itinerary was a visit with University of Pittsburgh toxicologist Yves Alarie, who has published research on the metabolic effects of MIC. Sorabji says the Indian government's case before the Supreme Court is based on three major principles. First, the opinions of the victims should have been heard before any s e t t l e m e n t a g r e e m e n t was reached. Second, the court was legally wrong in throwing out the criminal charges against Carbide. Third, the government is merely helping the court fulfill its desires to do the right thing. "I was shocked when the court gave total immunity to Carbide from criminal proceedings of whatever nature," says Sorabji, who was in private legal practice at the time. "Such immunity is simply opposed to public policy. There are certain crimes that cannot be subject to compromise under the law. Union Carbide claims that the cause of the disaster was employee sabotage. Suppose, now, that one of the victims wants to pursue the sabotage issue. Under this order they cannot bring criminal proceedings against the person." Sorabji says the $470 million settlement is far from sufficient. "I am not opposed to the settlement itself," he said, "provided it is just, honorable, and in keeping with the law. We want to help the court do its work. We are supporting the victims. If you take into account damages to businesses, the public sector, environment, the amount the gov6
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ernment has already spent on rehabilitation, and possible long-term effects of MIC, the amount would come to substantially more than $470 million." Wil Lepkowski
UN panel points to global warming danger In an eagerly awaited report, a United Nations-sponsored international panel of scientists has concluded that Earth will warm significantly in the next century unless action is taken to curb the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That u n s e t t l i n g conclusion has prompted U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to pledge to curb Britain's growth in carbon dioxide emissions. But in the U.S., Presidential Science Adviser D. Allan Bromley says uncertainties in both the science and economics of global warming remain too large for the U.S. to commit, at this time, to specific reductions. As part of the work of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 170 scientists worldwide assessed the effects of increased emissions of the so-called greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide—on Earth's climate in the years ahead. Their assessment was reviewed, debated, and all but unanimously approved by 90 of their peers from 39 countries in late May at a three-day meeting in England. The panel concluded that before the end of the next century, the global mean temperature could be 3 °C higher than it is now. It might even be as much as 5 °C greater unless radical measures are taken to cut the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. Moreover, the global mean sea level could rise as much as 100 cm (3.3 feet) above the present level by the year 2100, with serious consequences to many regions. While the meeting was u n d e r way, Thatcher was unveiling a climate prediction and research center at the nearby Meteorological Office. She used the occasion to declare that
"Provided others are ready to take their full share, Britain is prepared to set itself the very demanding target of a reduction of up to 30% in presently projected levels of carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2005. This would mean returning emissions to their 1990 levels by that date." Her pronouncement, however, was widely criticized by environmentalists as being "too little, too late," and less than the stringent measures necessary by the U.K. and other countries to reverse the global warming trend. The IPCC climatologists calculate that "the long-lived gases—carbon dioxide, the CFCs, and nitrous oxide—would require immediate reductions in emissions from human activities of over 60% to stabilize their concentrations at today's levels. Methane would require, a 15 to 20% reduction." Bromley, however, tells C&EN that it is not yet time to set such specific goals. " A l t h o u g h we have agreed that if you put e n o u g h greenhouse gases in the atmosphere you will eventually get some warming, what we do not understand is what the amelioratory actions would cost." Until the regional effects of climate warming are better understood, Bromley says, he sees no need to try to stabilize the atmosphere "if it costs us some enormous amount that really distorts our economy and significantly reduces the quality of life for our citizens. Since we know that nothing is going to happen in the immediate future, before we engage in major projects it's very important that we know what they are" going to do." The just-concluded assessment review was carried out by one of IPCC's four working groups. The other three groups are looking into other aspects of the problem. When the reports of these four groups are finalized, they will be formally presented at an IPCC meeting in Sundsvall, Sweden, in August. They also will be discussed at the 2nd World Climate Conference in Geneva next October, where formal negotiations leading to an international treaty on global climate change are expected to begin. Dermot O'Sullivan, Pamela Zurer
