sponsor studies on "what would happen if" or "assuming a set of conditions, then-", extrapolating observations as if no corrective action is possible or would be taken. The mass media remove whatever limitations or caveats which may have been attached to these speculations and hypotheses so that they are published as "predictions of things to come." Officials then use the press reports to argue for new authority and to defend present programs.

3. Episodes Occur

A real disturbance in the environment may be manifested by local or short term episodes. An air pollution "attack" resulting from a rare coincidence of meteorological and pollutant emission conditions will reveal the degree of contamination in an airshed in a dramatic way. Mysterious fish kills in rivers and estuaries may have origins in upstream waste disposal inadequacies or in natural biological infections. The interpretation of these serious episodes brings scientists into the problem and gains the attention of the public. This attention can then be used to elaborate on the long term possibilities and to cultivate a desire for control of the environmental hazard.

4. Monitoring and Source Identification

The public officials and scientists who become interested in the problem want to understand cause and effect. Monitoring in the environment is usually inadequate as to number of stations, length of time covered, and accuracy of measurement. The contamination may be sporadic. Many sources, large and small, may be involved.

Contaminants may change chemically in the biosphere before they do their damage. The eye irritating property of Los Angeles smog is not found in automobile exhaust, but is formed from exhaust hydrocarbons under the influence of sunlight as the gases stagnate in the geographical basin. Long and ingenious laboratory studies were necessary to relate eye irritation to reactive hydrocarbons.

5. Human Health Effects

While the effects of environmental contamination on human health are often extremely difficult to qualify (see sec. C. 2, p. 17) it is not at all difficult to reach the conclusion that pollution "can't be good for you." Proceeding from that dogma, the obvious goal becomes one of returning to a pristine environment, free of any trace of manmade influence.

6. Public Cry for Action

Public opinion is now aroused and there is a thirst for information and explanation which often cannot be met with the facts at hand. The political potency of these issues lies in the fact that since society has created the situation which threatens environmental quality values, society can correct its actions and the leadership of the Nation is called upon to do so. There is a great pressure for immediate implementation of abatement.

Pollution affecting one local jurisdiction often originates in another which may not choose to take abatement action. Local authorities are sometimes intimidated by the fear that offending industries may move out, rather than control emissions. (Actually such threats have seldom been verified.) Within a single jurisdiction, there may be great resistance to the location of an incinerator or sewage treatment plant. These

problems escalate the call for action to higher levels of authority and finally to the Federal Government.

7. Stringent Target Abatement Goals Are Set

With relatively little information available on causes, sources, abatement technology, or benefits and costs, but with a growing pressure for correction, ambient air and water standards are set. These target numbers are, of necessity, hasty and arbitrary; and depend, for their enforcement, on nuisance laws or existing public health regulations. In a circular process, some industrial pollution goes uncorrected, leading to precipitous action by government which brings recalcitrance and controversy which obstruct progress and prevent a cooperative atmosphere from developing.

8. Reaction From Polluters

Those regulations made in an atmosphere of emotional clamor and in the absence of sufficient and pertinent facts are apt to be restrictive enough to bring immediate reaction from discharging industries and municipalities. Tough regulations mean large capital expenditures or drastic operational revisions. It is likely that any abatement practices which could pay for themselves (in waste recycle, etc.) have already been employed, or result from considerations other than abatement. Faced with investments which yield no return, the attitude becomes one of questioning the proof of an alleged health effect, and whether the indicted emission source is the only offender, and whether all other sources will be restricted also. A delaying action is fought to avoid, if possible, the unproductive investments and expenditures for abatement. Personal freedom is restricted (e.g., leaf burning, choice of fuels, auto maintenance requirements, etc.). Thus industry, local government, and individuals begin to react against control.

9. Response to the Need for Abatement

As more and better cause-and-effect data are accumulated, a new phase of response from polluters is entered. Where the case for abatement is made, ambient quality standards are set, the available technology is installed and the costs are passed on to the consumer in higher prices, or the stockholder in lower dividends or to the taxpayer. Accompanying this acceptance of abatement is an intense effort to find out more about what actually occurs in the local airshed or river basin and to reexamine manufacturing processes for waste eliminating changes. Industry is forced into research in order to know as much about their pollution problem as does the abatement agency. 10. Reviews and Second Thoughts

As research on cause-and-effect relationships proceeds and as the monitoring of the actual environment is improved, the quality issue gains a deeper perspective. It is probable that noticeable improvements will have been made in the gross and obvious contaminants. New abatement techniques and devices which are less costly to install and to operate will change the economic feasibility situation. Older plants and obsolete equipment will be replaced by new machinery which is intrinsically less polluting or damaging to the environment, or the operations close down. Goals will be reexpressed in a more realistic way, taking into account the assimilative capacity of air and water, and the local variations of terrain and weather.

11. Negotiation for Long-Term Management

As the climate for discussion becomes less emotional, less polarized, and based on greater knowledge, society begins to accept commonsense tradeoffs. Environmental quality values are compared with benefits of resource use in the standard of living. The data and mechanisms for cost effectiveness are improved to the point where complex ecosystems can be managed for optimum yield to civilization.

An ethic for the environment-a notion of the right thing to dois accepted as fundamental policy for the Nation. Increased public understanding of human ecology changes personal and collective habits to favor a perpetuation of high environmental quality.

12. The Status Today

Each particular environmental quality issue may be at a different stage in the above sequence as of today. A pessimist would say that each new problem will necessarily travel the same path. An optimist hopes that a general increase in scientific research and technological development can short circuit the early stages of apathy, emotion, demagoguery, overreaction and gross neglect.

B. THE RELATIONSHIP OF MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT

Objectivity and a balance of viewpoints in discussing environmental quality are goals of the subcommittee. These have proved extremely difficult to obtain. Human ecology is, after all, a personal as well as a collective affair. Each witness or member could draw upon subjective experiences which often assumed a greater importance than secondhand observations and statistical compilations, when these were available. Further, in many cases, hard facts, and completed studies do not exist. Anecdotes and visceral feelings make amateur ecologists of us all. This explains both why the issue of environmental quality commands so much attention and why it is so difficult to obtain agreement on what is to be done.

A major lesson is being taught today on the relationship of man and his environment. It is the lesson of systematic ecology or the "web of life." The interdependency of all living things and the environment is so complex that the "cut and try" or reactive practical approach to nature has been the only possible method for centuries. The time tested practices of farmers, fishermen, hunters, explorers, and naturalists have a great ecological base whether or not it is recognized. To paraphrase: environments manage men even as men manage environments. Without becoming unduly philosophical, it can be stated that man is the dominant species and that mankind's intentions of using nature to further his own wellbeing are correct. Even the best of intentions may bring environmental degradation if they are clumsily executed with insufficient information. Past mistakes have impaired environmental quality, but nature was resilient and possessed an enormous momentum in comparison with man's capabilities to change it.

The lesson today is that man's powers rival those of the biosphere. In certain ways, the environment may have Achilles' heels which can lead to unwanted changes very rapidly. There is very little room for mistakes in an overpopulated and underfed world. The more that is learned about ecology today, the clearer it becomes that the manage

ment of the environment is a crucial task, rivaling the search for peace in the world.

1. Historical Attitudes in America

The realization of environmental management requirements for the United States is made more difficult because of our heritage. From the landing of the Pilgrims and the beginning of the independent nation through the first half of the 19th century, the attitude toward nature was one of fight for survival, subsistence agriculture, and the conquering of the West. Although the settlers appreciated the beauty and wilderness around them, their every effort was necessary in contesting with the landscape.

As agriculture became a technology and markets developed over a growing transportation system, the latter 1800's were characterized by an attitude of exploitation and harvest. Timber, minerals, and produce were fed into the industrial revolution. There was always another frontier, a new field, river, mine, meadow, or forest.

About 1900, the conservation movement began to exert its logic on American politics. The concept was crystallized that the present generation had an obligation to posterity to hand down the natural environment with adequate resources for the future. The movement was heavily science oriented. There was a striving for efficiency in managing commercial resources and for a balance between government and industry. The stewardship attitude has been dominant in public policy until the past few years when a new element has been added.

Today, conservation includes the recycling of basic materials, in fact, the recognition that no resource except for solar energy is infinite on this planet. In particular, the renewable resources of air and water are seen to require continuous, frequent recycle so that their renewal cannot be left to time-consuming natural processes. The restoration of past degradation and the perpetual maintenance of high environmental quality are precepts of the new conservation. Wise usage means constant management of natural resources throughout their extraction or harvest, manufacture into products or employment in processing, and their return to the environment or waste disposal site. The new focus on beauty and quality continues to emphasize science and technology.

2. Criteria for Dealing With Wastes

Historically the technological development of industries and cities in the United States has proceeded under a competitive economy which dictated that an investment must show a tangible short-term profit. This meant that waste management was accomplished at minimum cost and the "free" disposal sinks of air or water were used as much as possible. In retrospect it is not easy to say whether this was right or wrong. America is a large country. The environment does have some assimilative capacity and a limited means of self-regeneration. The foresight to avoid the deterioration now visible and the willingness to forego immediate profits might have slowed the industrialization and the growth of the United States and imperiled its emergence as a world power.

What can be stated with confidence is that waste management costs can no longer be exchanged for environmental degradation. The landscape is now under heavy use and exploitation. Renewal of air and

water resources cannot be left to natural processes because streams and air masses must be recycled before these have time or space to work. To the extent that environmental quality must be restored, we are paying bills incurred long ago. The expenditures for maintaining a satisfactory quality are a mandatory cost of doing business in today's world.

The use of the environment is a necessary and acceptable concept. The difference is that future use must be in the recycle context of perpetual renewal and reuse, not the old pattern of use and discard. A sort of stable state between civilization and the environment is called for-not a balance of nature (for nature is always changing in its own right) but a harmony of society and the environment within natural laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. The principle of ecological balance holds that natural changes are very slow and that natural catastrophes are local and are healed rapidly. Manmade changes are apart from this balance and are a function of his intellect and conscience.

The manager of a forest products company has the options of cutting all the trees and then going out of business, or balancing a limited harvest with replanting. He chooses the latter system to assure what is called a "perpetual cut." Similarly we must manage the total environment to assure its use long into the future.

3. Human Ecology

Environmental quality management is a political issue today in the Western World because of our affluence. The standard of living is high and the plethora of things which money can buy serves to accentuate the values in the landscape which cannot be purchased but must be planned for.

In the world as a whole, including the emerging nations with their great expectations and populations, environmental management is essential to food supply and rapid economic development. A tailoring of management practice to each situation will be required. In fact. control of environmental quality which is too rigid or too elaborate may set back the emerging countries.

It is apparent to the subcommittee that the population explosion is fundamental to the requirement for environmental management. Population must come under control and be stabilized at some number which civilization can agree upon. Otherwise, the best use of natural resources will be inadequate and the apocalyptic forces of disease and famine will dominate the earth. In an epilog to his recent book "Ecology and Resource Management" (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1968) Kenneth E. F. Watt states:

It would be tragic if readers of this book conclude that the problem of expanding human populations versus finite resources can be solved merely by increasing the efficiency of utilization of the resources. Ultimately, such a one-sided approach would reduce men everywhere to the role of pitiful scavengers, constantly combing the litter of a ravaged biosphere in search of scraps overlooked in prior searches by vast hordes of fellow scavengers. Increased efficiency of resource management, unaccompanied by internationally practiced birth control, can only lead our species rapidly down a one-way street to oblivion. Unless a massive worldwide program of birth control is begun now, no amount of efficiency in resource management will suffice for the needs of humanity.

Finally, environmental quality is an issue because of our richness in technology. Despair might be warranted in facing these complex