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chemical composition, composition of the growing atmosphere, and either photosynthesis rate or plant chemicals. Lest you think that this line of thought is irrelevant, consider the following. Fossil energy resources could easily triple in price within a generation. Fission and fusion energy will cost a t least twice as much as fossil energy, provided they are available a t all. Population growth will strain the world’s food-growing ability in the nottoo-distant future unless yield per acre can be dramatically improved. Any improvement in photosynthesis in response to food needs will also benefit the economics of natural raw materials for chemical products. In the absence of a technological breakthrough of some sort, the expansion wave of the past 50 years, fueled as it has been by substitution.of synthetic products for natural products, will crest and recede. Economists call this the Kondratiev wave and say that fifty years of economic sluggishness has historically followed fifty years of growth and has been overcome only by technological breakthroughs. Where shall we turn for such breakthroughs? Fifty years ago, they came from chemical substitutes for natural products. Is it unreasonable to hope that the next wave might come from natural substitutes for synthetic products, designed from a far more fundamental and multidisciplinary understanding of chemical and biological behavior? Well, it may seem unreasonable, but it seems far more unreasonable to rely on “more of the same” to save us, when all the signs point to ever-increasing raw material and energy costs along that path, in contrast to the ever-decreasing raw material and energy costs which have characterized the past 50 years.
Washington, D.C. April 1978
DAVID E. GUSHEE
