Linking Science and Technology to Society's Environmental Goals (1996) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 3-14
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From page 3... ...
Following the recommendations of the Carnegie Commission report Enabling the Future: Linking Science and Technology to Societal Goals, the National Research Council convened the first National Forum on Science and Technology Goals, which addressed goals related to the environment. The central question was, "How can science and technology contribute most effectively to meeting societal environmental goals?
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From page 4... ...
Furthermore, the costs incurred to reduce risks often do not bear a consistent relation to the magnitude of the risks and the number of people potentially affected. The nation's existing environmental goals could be met less expensively or faster by substituting incentive-based approaches to environmental
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Disproportionate attention is paid today to collecting information on cancer risks compared with, for example, risks of neurological and reproductive disorders. Future research on quantitative risk assessment should be directed toward correcting this imbalance of emphasis.
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From page 6... ...
can be helpful at all levels of government to help to establish regulatory and legislative priorities. Comparative risk-assessment activities should involve elected and appointed officials; members of business, environmental, and civic organizations; and lay persons.
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The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy should review and evaluate the quality of existing measurement and monitoring systems for relevance to and usefulness in meeting environmental goals. That would include establishing a system-design process to complete and maintain the monitoring system.
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From page 8... ...
However, on the basis of experience and buttressed by significant testing, use of surrogate species seems to have been most helpful in reducing exposure to many suspect carcinogens. However, there is a need for better tests to assess ecological damage potentially caused by single compound chemicals, the byproducts of various wastetreatment processes, and the degradation products of intentional products or unintentional process emissions that find their way into the environment.
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From page 9... ...
Another contingency would arise from new knowledge that indicated severe environmental impacts of CO2, radionuclides, or other emissions from conventional energy sources than now expected. If either of these contingencies arises, alternative energy sources and end-use technologies will be critical.
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There has been enormous progress (including improvements in fuel efficiency) in the reduction of automobile emissions implicated in urban air pollution; but the automobile is still the major source of such pollution in part because growth in automobile ownership and in driving per vehicle has nearly offset this progress.
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From page 11... ...
Furthermore, industrial ecology requires substantial recycling, including the use of one plant's waste stream as feed for another plant, and therefore requires coordination, planning, and perhaps proximity, all of which could make it more difficult for it to achieve widespread use. One key challenge is to formulate effective economic incentives for developing a market-driven industrial ecology.
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From page 12... ...
Although the extent to which threats to environmental quality and ecological resources will be intensified by future population growth is debated, there is agreement that continued population growth has the effect of narrowing the options available for meeting these threats. The predicted addition of billions of people to the global population in the next few decades could overwhelm programs aimed at enhancing energy efficiency, global monitoring, and industrial ecology.
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From page 13... ...
As noted in The Sustainable Biosphere Initiative (Ecological Society of America 1991) The issues associated with population growth are broad, involving such factors as changes in per capita income and resource distribution; increasing pollution and environmental degradation; problems of health and poverty; the effects of urban, industrial, and agricultural expansion; and especially the integration of ecologic and socioeconomic considerations.
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From page 14... ...
Rather than stopping at the selected specific end points being discussed in the federal government and elsewhere, environmental goals should be formulated in terms of an adjustable strategy for continuous evolutionary improvement in environmental performance, including intermediate milestones. CONCLUSION The committee has had some difficulty in getting its hands around such a large, amorphous issue as the environment, but it hopes that it has made a credible effort to advance the discussion of the role of science and technology in defining and addressing society's environmental objectives.
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