BOOK REVIEWS Winners and Losers Green Gold: Japan, Germany, the United States, and the Race for Environmental Technology. Curtis Moore and Alan Miller, Beacon Press, Boston, 1994, $25.00. John Moore, Jr. Much has been published about the wealth of opportunities awaiting those who mine the rich vein of environmental technology. Vice President Al Gore, one of the field's most outspoken advocates, encourages the development and commercialization of these technologies. Industry has not been idle in this area either. Former Department of Defense contractors, including Lockheed, Martin Marietta, and Raytheon, have retrained many of their engineers and now have very active environmental divisions. Numerous other industries are actively pursuing "green gold." And, as the authors of Green Gold clearly point out, industries in other countries—particularly Japan and Germany—are rapidly pursuing these opportunities, often with strong governmental support. The main thesis of Green Gold is that there is a race among the United States, Germany, and Japan for leadership, and ultimately the competitive advantage, in the world marketplace for environmental technologies. In this race, the authors argue, with the exception of California, the United States is losing its preeminence. Their argument is supported by the belief that "in the United States, decisions are often driven by the outmoded and false view that the environment can be protected only at the cost of the economy." In Japan and Germany, they contend, "environmental protection is seen as a strategy for enhancing economic competitiveness." The authors conclude that only through strong environmental laws such as those enacted in California, Germany, and Japan can a country maintain a competitive edge in this
marketplace. Green Gold makes a compelling argument relating technology development and economic competitiveness to environmental initiatives. At its most fundamental level, environmentalism is really about efficiency, and efficiency is economics. Therefore, those countries that lead the effort to develop more efficient, cost-effective environmental technologies will ultimately have a distinct competitive and economic advantage. According to the authors, the United States is not doing nearly enough to maintain a broad competitive advantage in environmental technologies. This analysis, however, has some flaws. The authors feel that the United States is in quite dire straits with regards to environmental technology development, especially when compared with Germany and Japan. From my own research in assessing such developments, I continue to find numerous instances where the United States is making significant contributions. For example, in one recent issue of Chemical Engineering (Sept. 1994) three new technologies developed in the United States are profiled, including a technology that uses a methane injection process to significantly reduce NO x emissions. This small sampling of current efforts by U.S. industries to mine "green gold" illustrates that the United States' position is not as compromised as the authors think. The authors believe that strong governmental support is required for the United States to maintain a competitive edge; they even recommend that government "should initially target specific technologies for commercialization." This is a dubious policy. Government has a fairly poor record of choosing technology winners. The government's proper role is to create conditions that support technology innovation, such as broad incentive programs and performance-based standards. For example, the 1990 Clean Air
0013-936X/95/0929-47A$09.00/0 © 1994 American Chemical Society
Act Amendments provide an innovative market approach to controlling S0 2 emissions through the trading of emission credits to achieve reduction goals. The broad scope of the CAAA's Title III is encouraging a wide variety of technology development for new emissions monitoring and control technologies. This approach encourages the development of new technologies without picking a specific technology. The choosing of technology winners and losers is the last thing government should be involved in. Green Gold attempts to convince the reader that the United States is quickly losing ground to other countries in a technologically sophisticated area. Unfortunately the authors rely more on hyperbole than on sound research and the presentation of well-reasoned arguments to support their thesis. Such statements as "The power of lobbies for the energy and related industries explains policy failures that have become so grave that they threaten the nation's very survival as a viable industrial democracy in a changing world" are not based on well-researched and documented claims, but are simply hype. Green Gold would also have benefited from a more rigorous discussion of the cultural, historical, and regulatory differences among the countries and how these differences contribute to environmental technology development and commercialization. There is clearly a wealth of opportunity in the development of technologies that address environmental concerns that we as a country would be foolish not to capitalize upon. Unlike the authors I firmly believe that we as a nation are actively mining "green gold." John Moore is director of marketing and business development for HNU Systems (Newton, MA), a manufacturer of environmental instrumentation.
VOL. 29, NO. 1, 1995 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY • 4 7 A
