merely locally but regionally and in some cases globally. This already unprecedented absolute impact may be doubling as rapidly as every fifteen to twenty years, justifying cause for concern: corrective action may come too slowly to avert much graver environmental degradation than has already occurred. At least three factors are operating to make it possible, even likely. | that some environmental disruption will be experienced as sudden catastrophe rather than as a slowly moving and predictably growing shadow. One is the long time lag that often intervenes between an environmental insult and the appearance of harm-e.g., carcinogens and mutagens. The second factor is the irreversibility of some kinds of damage-e.g., the loss of genetic veriability. The third is the apparent existence of environmental thresholds in some processes, wherein a small increment of some input to the environment generates a disproportionate response-e.g., triggering of climatic change by natural processes. Many foreseeable problems cannot now be solved by available technology. Even if we control 99.5% of some pollutants, the remaining one-half of one percent, because of large absolute amounts projected by the year 2000, can create environmental problems for which a workable remedy has not yet emerged from the laboratory. Another example is the difficulty of removing very small particles from flue gas. Most people are not aware of the dangers to local, national and world well-being created by environmental stresses. Most people, moreover, are unaware of the kinds of choices available to them in conducting their affairs so that environmental stress is minimized. Unless the perception of environmental action is sharpened and acceptance of remedial action is increased, we may suffer unwanted irreversible environmental damage. A materials policy that gives due regard to the environment will manifest itself in a number of ways: Explicit attention will be given to environmental management at every stage of the materials throughput, thus changing many decisions and actions from what they have been in the absence of such attention. A growing portion of materials and other resources will be dedicated to improving the environment. The assignment of resources to protect and improve the nation's great natural and cultural inheritance will measurably improve the quality of life for its citizens. The careful restoration of the countryside or urban areas, the provision of adequate housing, of educational and recreational facilities, and different modes of transportation could alter the nation's bill of goods in a most constructive way. Some environmental problems, especially those dispersed over wide areas, can be solved only by curtailing or eliminating the use of certain materials. For some materials or commodities an evaluation of net benefits yielded by their use is sufficiently inconclusive to suggest the need for further investigation. We know enough about other materials. however, to recognize that we should reduce or eliminate their use as quickly as possible. When environmental effects are taken fully into account, practices now taken for granted are likely to be reexamined. There is clear evidence that certain practices related to product novelty, obsolescence and packaging, impose environmental burdens excessive relative to the marginal benefits they yield. The use of energy in housing, production and transportation must be assessed against environmental and other costs. The automobile with all of its contributions to American society must be examined from an environmental perspective and its advan tages weighed against those of modern economical mass transit systems. All resources of private as well as public sectors will be mobilized to accomplish the education required to effect the changed view of materials use that is needed. To hold that every decision, public, or private, regarding materials usage must be made in light of its environmental impact implies, first, a common sensitivity to the quality of the environment; second, general recognition that the quality of the environment is closely related to man's well-being; and, third, common acceptance of the ethical rule that protection of the environment must constrain materials usage, As valuation of environmental quality sharpens and spreads, the desired mix of goods and services will change. Those who themselves put a high value on environmental quality believe that the taste for clean air, a sparkling stream, and an undisturbed hillside sharpens rather than dulls with exposure. Since the supply of natural amenities has been diminishing, the pressure of demand on remaining supply presumably will increase, not only because of population growth but also because of increased perception, justifying intensified policies today to protect natural assets of the future. 2. National Commission on Materials Policy, "Towards a National Materials Policy: An Interim Report" (1972) pp. 34: The factual or data base for the discussions and deliberations: which will lead to the formulation of a materials policy, are contained in the appendices to this report... The projections are carried out to the year 2000, Admittedly, in out rapidly changing world it is difficult to see ahead accurately even one or two years. Nevertheless, for planning purposes, it is neiESSHTY to postulate future conditions in order to formulate policies. Howevet, when reviewing or using the summaries and data, it should be re membered that they do not represent a probable forecast of the fu ture, but strictly a set of projections suitable as bench marks against which the effects of possible changes in policies and economic condi tions can be considered. They provide a means of defining the peddy lems and identifying the areas in which corrective actions may ha needed. It is clearly evident from the commodity summaries and the prer jections that in the case of a majority of our base materiale, the gap between our requirements and the remaining mazily aéémervilla world supplies is widening. The data farther indicates that our palanda óm foreign supplies is steadily increasing. Except for a client pruted far ing World War I, we were, on balanes, a net mepoallag of munereie until shortly before World War II. Stinea then a, ii asmda széápkótyar we have imported far more minerale than wa za nual deficit has increased dead... y duty du¢ ¦pet %% paper med 1970 our imports of all minerig para rond ar robna 31 20 exports were about $5 billion a net defe of toont 3⁄4 adpon t trends of the past 20 years continue to the year 2000, this deficit could grow to over $60 billion a year. In 1970 we imported all of our primary requirements for chromite, columbian, mica, rutile, tantalum, and tin; more than 90 percent of our aluminum, antimony, cobalt, manganese, and platinum; more than half of our asbestos, beryl, cadmium, fluorspar, nickel, and zinc: and more than a third of our iron ore, lead, and mercury. World production of 31 minerals (the principal minerals entering into world import-export trade) increased from $37.1 billion 1968 U.S. dollars in 1950 to $77.4 billion in 1968 (later figures not yet available), while production of these same minerals in the United States increased only from $14.2 billion to $18.5 billion. However, during the same period U.S. consumption of these minerals increased from $15.5 billion to $21.6 billion. Thus, while U.S. consumption increased nearly 40 percent in absolute terms, our consumption of total world production declined from 42 percent in 1950 to 28 percent in 1968. The unmistakable conclusion reflected in the data and commodity summaries is that as the Nation's needs continue to grow and as per capita consumption of materials in other countries increases at an even faster rate than ours, it becomes increasingly difficult for the United States to fill its ever-growing deficit by imports, even at increasing prices. 3. "Raw Materials: U.S. Grows More Vulnerable to Third World Cartels," Science, January 18, 1974, pp. 185-186: By putting the rest of the world over a barrel the Arab oil sheiks have managed in a very brief time to force a fourfold increase in the posted price of oil. Will the success of their concerted action encourage other producers of scarce raw materials to try their hand at the same game? Pessimists argue that America's growing dependence on imports for a number of key industrial minerals is making the threat of producer cartels more and more likely. Others believe that as far as nonfuel minerals are concerned, there is at present no commodity whose producers have the right combination of economic strength and political hostility to form a cartel against the United States. Whichever view is correct, the nation's position on non fuel minerals is an intricate amalgam of diplomacy, economics, and technology, whose importance has gone largely unrecognized until the present oil crisis. The basic facts of the case are, on the one hand, that the United States is more autonomous in nonfuel minerals than any other country except the Soviet Union and would probably be less affected than any other by an embargo. But, although rich in minerals, America began in the 1920's to be a net importer. According to the Department of the Interior, U.S. imports of all nonfuel minerals cost $6 billion in 1971 and are estimated to rise to $20 billion by 1985 and $52 billion by the turn of the century. For 20 nonfuel minerals, including such key metals as chromium, aluminum, nickel, and zinc, the United States already derives more than half of its supply from abroad (see Table 1), and the extent of this dependence seems certain to increase. Because of the uneven dis tribution of minerals in the earth's crust, a handful of countries have dominating positions in several metals. Four countries control more than four-fifths of the world's exportable supply of copper, Malaysia, Thailand, and Bolivia together provide 98 percent of U.S. imports of tin. Even before the oil crisis broke, people were expressing concern about America's vulnerability to group action by producing countries. Collective bargaining by raw materials producers is a "real possibility" in the case of copper, tin, and lead, wrote Lester R. Brown of the Overseas Development Council in an article in 1972. More recently, C. Fred Bergsten, a former assistant to Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council and now with Brookings Institution, has argued that the United States' neglect of the third world is dangerously myopic in view of the nation's growing dependence on the raw materials controlled by third world countries. "A wide range of Third World countries. . . have sizeable potential for strategic market power," Bergsten noted in an article last summer in Foreign Policy. Third world leverage might be exercised against all industrialized countries, or discriminatorily against the United States, thus benefiting Europe and Japan. "The spectre of 'cannibalistic competition' among the rich for natural resources is unfortunately a real possibility which suggests that the owners of those resources have tremendous clout," Bergsten presciently opined. Mineral TABLE 1.—PERCENTAGE OF U.S. MINERAL REQUIREMENTS IMPORTED DURING 1972 1 1 Data derived from "Mining and Minerals Policy 1973," a report by the Secretary of the Interior to the Congress. Whether other countries have the same clout as the oil producers is a matter of some debate. Contrary to the opinions of Bergsten and Brown, the National Commission on Materials Policy, a heavy weight group that included as members the secretaries of Commerce and the Interior, concluded in a report last June: "As to the possibility that countries might form effective cartels to deny supplies to major importers or to raise prices, with the exception of petroleum the Commission has not isolated any commodities for which the economic and political basis for such action exists." What the commission is saying in so many words is that only the Arab oil producers have enough reserves to withhold production; most third world countries need to sell as much as they can produce. Second, the political hues of most potential members of a cartel make such an arrangement unlikely. Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, Turkey, and the Soviet Union have a fairly complete corner on the world supply of exportable chromium, but a coalition of such nations against the United States is not particularly likely. This is not to say that there have been no attempts at collective bargaining, but none has achieved anything like the success of the oil producers' cartel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States (OPEC). The International Tin Council, which includes both producers and the major consumers, has so far had little effect on prices. Chile, Peru, Zambia, and Zaire are the members of the Intergovernmental Council of Copper Exporting Countries (CIPEC), but the United States, which is a major producer as well as a consumer of copper, does not belong. Copper prices have risen recently, but because of production problems in Chile, not through any action by CIPEC. If producers lack clout now, that does not mean they will always do so. Third world countries expect a rise in their standards of living but, while their per capita gross national product has increased somewhat, so has the gap between rich countries and poor. Growth in both affluence and population cannot but intensify the competition between industrial nations for a finite quantity of natural resources. In 1970 the United States possessed 5 percent of the world's population but consumed 27 percent of its raw materials, a share that will be difficult to maintain in an increasingly competitive world. "As countries become increasingly interdependent, we face the prospect of a single global society in which the glaring inequalities of world income distribution may not be sustainable," notes the generally unradical report of the National Commission on Materials Policy. But American dependence on imports is not in all cases as heavy as it may appear. The United States imported a third of its requirements of iron ore in 1971, but only because imports were cheaper. There are sufficient iron ore reserves to last at least a century at current rates of consumption. According to the Department of the Interior, the nation will consume 370 million short tons of aluminum between 1971 and 2000. Reserves were only 13 million tons-but on the assumption of 1971 prices. There are "very large" identified resources of aluminum that could be mined if the world price goes higher. According to Vincent E. McKelvey, chief of the U.S. Geological Survey, the country is in fair shape to supply its needs of most key metals |