January 1973 (26th year) - U.K.: 13p - North America: 50 cts - France: 1.70 F

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TREASURES

WORLD ART

Geometry of abstraction, 2000 B.C.

Masterwork of abstraction, this Persian female deity (20 cm., 8 in. high) carved in stone some4,000 years ago, was unearthed at Tepe Hissar in northwest Iran, near the Caspian Sea. Reducingthe human form to its simplest expression, with two triangles representing body and limbs,topped by a cylinder-shaped head, the sculptor has produced a geometric-shaped figure whosepure forms and lines are strikingly modern. Tepe Hissar (tepe means mound or hillock) is oneof many ancient sites where archaeologists have made rich discoveries of pottery, vases of stoneand metal, jewellery and figurines dating from the Bronze Age.

Photo © Teheran Museum, from " L'Art Iranien ", Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris. 1971

UNESCO CourierJANUARY 1973

26TH YEAR

NOW PUBLISHED IN 14 LANGUAGES

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34

A WORLD POLICY FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

By Lynton K. Caldwell

ONLY ONE EARTH

By Barbara Ward

THE LIMITS TO GROWTH

Interview with the President of the Club of Rome

LIMITS TO THE LIMITS TO GROWTH

By Gunnar Myrdal

ENVIRONMENT AND POLITICAL COMMITMENT

Young scientists' round table at Unesco

MEDITERRANEAN: DANGER! OIL POLLUTION

By Carlo Munns

THE ANIMAL WORLD OF UGO MOCHI

Photo report

POLLUTION PROBLEM No. 1UNDER-DEVELOPMENT

By Josué de Castro

THE MYTH OF ECOLOGICAL EQUILIBRIUM

By Miguel A.Ozorio de Almeida

10 MAJOR POLLUTANTS

THE BIOSPHERE IS TEN TIMES RICHERTHAN WE THINK

By Nikolai Timofeyev-Ressovsky

UNESCO NEWSROOM

FURTHER READING ON THE ENVIRONMENT

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

TREASURES OF WORLD ART

Geometry of abstraction, 2000 B.C. (Iran)

ONLY ONE EARTH

Proud of his technological masteryand eager to grasp its benefits, manhas been burning the candle at bothends and despoiling the biosphere onwhich his existence depends. Carelesstechnology has polluted the oceans,land and atmosphere to such an extentthat the quality of life Is rapidly depreci¬ating. At the United Nations Confer¬ence on the Human Environment, heldin Stockholm last summer, the nationsof the world took the first tentative

steps towards resolving the problem ofsafeguarding our planet while at thesame time ensuring an improvement inthe standard of life for the developingcountries.

No nation can as yet claim true expertise In environmental man¬agement. The so-called developed nations are only a few yearsahead of the developing states in awareness and experience. Here,a highly advanced Argentinian farmer, near the city of Rosario,steers his harvester round a clump of trees in the centre of hisbeautifully worked field.

A world policyfor the

environmentby Lynton K. Caldwell

4

HE basic concept of worldenvironmental policy and decision¬making is now the biosphere. Thisterm, and the idea it expresses, is scar¬cely more than a century old. Its devel¬opment has been truly international.Its origins have been traced to theFrench naturalist, Lamarck; the termfirst appeared (1875) in the scientificwritings of the Austrian geographer,Suess; and its full development andentry into the lexicon of modernscience was largely the work of theRussian mineralogist, V.l. Vernadsky.

Scientific recognition of the practi-

LYIMTON K. CALDWELL'S Professor of Pub¬lic and Environmental Affairs and of Poli¬

tical Science at Indiana University (U.S.A.),and Chairman of the Committee on Environ¬

mental Policy, Law and Administration of theInternational Union for Conservation of

Nature and Natural Resources in Morges(Switzerland). He has published five bookson problems of the environment, including"Environment: A Challenge to Modern So¬ciety' (Natural History Press, 1970; AnchorPaperbacks, 1971), and more than 100 arti¬cles and papers. His most recent book, 'InDefense of Earth" (Indiana University Press.1972) describes the growth of Internationalefforts to protect the biosphere. A new book,'Man and Environment: Public Policy andAdministration' will be published In 1973 byHarper and Row, New York.

cal significance of the complex unityof the biosphere preceded, by severaldecades, a comparable politicalawareness. Not until the Paris Bio¬

sphere Conference of 1968, sponsoredby Unesco (in co-operation with theUnited Nations, the World HealthOrganization, the Food and AgricultureOrganization, the International Unionfor Conservation of Nature and Nat¬

ural Resources, and the InternationalBiological Programme of the Internat¬ional Council of Scientific Unions) didthe world environment, as biosphere,appear upon the agenda of officialrepresentatives of nations and inter¬national organizations.

United Nations conferences in 1949

(Conservation and Utilization of Re¬sources) and 1963 (Application ofScience and Technology for the Bene¬fit of Less Developed Areas) may havetacitly assumed the oneness of theplanet Earth. But they did not exam¬ine the implications of this complexunity for man-environment relation¬ships. The behaviour of peoples andgovernments toward the biospherewas left largely unexplored until 1968.

As often happens in public affairs,non-governmental action preceded offi¬cial political recognition. In 1948, at

Fontainebleau (France) with the assis¬tance of Unesco, the InternationalUnion for Conservation of Nature

(IUCN) was established. The Unionhas now become the world conserva¬

tion organization, its name extendedto include Natural Resources, and its

functions enlarged to environmentalpolicy, law, and administration.

More recently (1970), the Internation¬al Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU)established its Scientific Committee on

Problems of the Environment (SCOPE).As with IUCN, SCOPE has found thatits primarily scientific mission cannotbe adequately performed without con¬sidering the human impact upon theenvironment.

This impact, however, results notonly from the activities of human indi¬viduals; it is widely organized andmediated through governments, cor¬porations, and international organiza¬tions. Even to analyze and describethe interactions of man with the envi¬

ronment requires inputs from socialand behavioural disciplines not fullyrepresented among the scientificbodies forming ICSU.

In microcosm this need to integrateall relevant sciences and professional

skills in analyzing the environmentaldecision process reflects the largerproblem of governments and inter¬national organizations in coping withcomplex environmental questions towhich no single discipline can providean adequate answer.

If the Biosphere Conference of 1968marked the arrival of international poli¬tical awareness of the world environ¬

ment, the United Nations Conference

on the Human Environment, meetingin Stockholm in June 1972, providedconfirmation of this awareness.

The Biosphere Conference wastechnically an assembly of scientificexperts, whereas the United NationsConference was a meeting of politicalrepresentatives of governments. Rep¬resentatives of more than 110 na¬

tions were present at Stockholm andadopted an Action Plan of 109 recom¬mendations to national government andinternational organizations. The Con¬ference also adopted a declaration,and proposed new U.N. machinery toassist the translation of the work of the

Conference into scientific and politicalaction.

To facilitate this task the Conference

urged establishment of a World Envi

ronment Fund, made up of the volun¬tary contributions of national govern¬ments. Support for the Fund has al¬ready been pledged by a number ofstates, including Canada, the GermanFederal Republic, Iran, Japan, Sweden,the Netherlands, and the United States.

Disposition of the Stockholm recom¬mendations rests, of course, with theGeneral Assembly of the U.N., withnational governments, and with theU.N. Specialized Agencies. Imple¬mentation of the Action Plan cannot be

accomplished overnight, but there aregood reasons for believing that mostof it will ultimately be put into effect.Even without official endorsement,many of the recommendations mayinfluence and guide the environmentaldecisions of governmental and inter¬national officials.

Support for guarded optimism maybe found in action taken by nationalgovernments to cope with their envi¬ronmental problems. As late as 1968,no country was organized politicallyor administratively to deal with "envi¬ronment" as such. Decisions affectingman-environment interactions were

made pursuant to other considera¬tions, such as public health, econo¬mic policy, tourism, national security,

or preservation of a national heritage.

The analogy of the biosphere as theplanetary life-support system achievedpopular comprehension as a conse¬quence of the voyages into outer spaceby Americans and Soviets (the Spa¬ceship Earth concept); the visionof the lonely blue planet viewed bythe astronauts and cosmonauts had a

profound psychological impact uponthe peoples of the Earth.

No event in historic time has dra¬

matized more powerfully the unity andfragility of the biosphere. The symbolof "only one earth" transcended lan¬guages and ideologies; its messagereadable even by the illiterate. Andwhile it would be difficult to demons¬

trate that the lunar voyages directlyinfluenced specific environmental deci¬sions, they clearly affected the climateof thought and opinion in which actionwas taken by governments and inter¬national organizations after 1968.

Between 1969 and 1972, nearlyevery industrialized nation took legisla¬tive or administrative action to copemore effectively with its environmentalproblems. A landmark in nationallegislation was the signing on January 1 ,1970 by the President of the United

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

5

6

WORLD POLICY (Continued)

States of the National Environmental

Policy Act of 1969. This far-reachinglaw established criteria to guide thedecisions of agencies of the UnitedStates Government that had a signi¬ficant impact upon the environment.

The Act contains a novel method of

enforcement. For any action by anyfederal agency having a significantenvironmental impact, a responsibleofficial must prepare a five-pointstatement explaining, and justifying,the action proposed. These statementshave been made subject to review bythe high-level Council on Environmen¬tal Quality (also established by theAct) and are made available to stategovernments, to other federal agencies,and to the concerned public.

In 1970, the United Kingdom provi¬ded, in a White Paper on Protectionof the Environment, a basis for govern¬mental reorganization leading to estab¬lishment of the Department of theEnvironment. In 1971, the FrenchGovernment established a Ministry forthe Protection of Nature and the Envi¬

ronment. In Sweden, Canada, Japan,and many other countries, new envi¬ronmental agencies were created, orexisting departments and ministrieswere reorganized.

The world-wide impact of environ¬mental concepts upon governmentalorganization was evident in the reportssubmitted by as many as 80 countriesto the Preparatory Committee for theUnited Nations Conference on the

Human Environment.

Prior to the U.N. Conference, andat the plenary sessions at Stockholm,representatives of national govern¬ments issued formal declarations re¬

garding the environmental policies oftheir nations. A collection of thesestatements has been assembled for

publication by the IUCN, and theyindicate a. widespread commitment byheads of state and high-ranking offi¬cials to the objectives of environ¬mental improvement and protection.

A major task in institutionalizingnational decisions on environmental

issues is to find ways to reconcileecology and economics. National dev¬elopment goals and policies, regard¬ing the applications of science andtechnology, have often been formu¬lated without adequate regard to theirecological consequences.

In the past, the political and admin¬istrative structures, through whichdecisions were taken, handicapped andoften precluded, co-ordination and re¬conciliation of environmental and

developmental policies. In pursuit ofdevelopment goals serious ecologicalerrors have been made in many coun¬tries, leading too often to disappoint¬ing failures of development and towaste of scarce resources.

There has been recently publisheda 1,060 page volume of case studiesand analyses by 70 internationally-known scientists examining develop¬ment projects that were unsuccessfulor that produced destructive side-

effects because of failure to reconcile

technology with ecological realitiesand development goals: (The CarelessTechnology: Ecology and InternationalDevelopment. Edited by M.T. Farvarand J.P. Milton, Natural History Press,1972).

In nearly all of the more than 50cases reported, the miscarriage ofdevelopment may be explained by in¬adequacies in the structuring of deci¬sion-making. At policy formulatinglevels there was seldom adequatemeans for obtaining a full input ofrelevant scientific data, for identifyingalternate means to development goals,or for testing the probable outcomesof these alternatives.

Moreover, institutional machinery forproject execution seldom was providedwith guidelines, check points, and peri¬odic reassessments of technical pro¬cedures that could enable projects tobe redirected when self-defeating orwhen dysfunctional effects appeared.

It is not always easy to discoverexactly where and how the structureof decision-making has led to un-desired results. The actual mechanisms

of decision in governmental and inter¬national agencies are seldom fullyopen to public scrutiny or to beha¬vioural research. Private corporate de¬cisions are usually even less amenableto investigation. And yet the wide¬spread current tendency of govern¬ments to reorganize for environmentalmanagement indicates that there is arecognized desire for structural im¬provement.

Many of the U.N. Specialized Agen¬cies have established environmental

offices or co-ordinative arrangementsfor environmental affairs; and theStockholm Conference (as previouslynoted) recommended the establish¬ment of an environmental office in the

United Nations Secretariat. The Eco¬

nomic and Financial Committee of

the U.N. General Assembly recently

CONTINUED PAGE 32

The bicyclesofStockholm

Last summer, Stockholm was the scene of an International meeting of vital concern to all peoples andgovernments the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment In photo left, U.N. Secretary-General,Kurt Waldheim, is dwarfed by the giant emblem symbolizing man and the biosphere, as he opens thefirst meeting. Many thousands of young people from virtually every country congregated in Stock¬holm at the time (photos above), and at the U.N. conference, as well as at independent EnvironmentForums and spontaneous gatherings, gave voice (and music) to their views and feelings about pollu¬tion, war, overpopulation and other environmental questions. Delegates scorned autos and otherpolluting transport and took to bicycles instead. Photo below, General Secretary of the U.N. meetingMaurice Strong (second from left) leads a group of delegates through the streets of Stockholm.

*

ONLY

ONE EARTH

Study of the biosphere has led us to take a newlook at the interaction of man with his planet. Right,"The False Mirror", by the Belgian surrealist artistRené Magritte (1928). "We are", says BarbaraWard, "the generation to see through the eyes ofthe astronauts the astonishing 'earthrise' of oursmall and beautiful planet above the barren hori¬zons of the moon".

by Barbara Ward

Text © Copyright- Reproduction prohibited

Icannot help wondering

whether we may not be present atone of those turning points in man'saffairs when the human race beginsto see itself and its concerns from a

new angle of vision and, as a result,finds new openings for action, forcourage and for hope.

I cannot help wondering whethertoday's debates on the human environ¬ment, in their passion, scale and ori¬ginality, do not resemble the profoundquestionings of the accepted orderwhich erupt into human history intimes of radical change.

One thinks of the intellectual ferment

which, over two millenia ago, accom¬panied the end of China's feudal warsand the establishment of the first

great centralized Han dynasty. Inmore recent history men had almostto stand on their heads to realize

that the sun did not go round theearth, but the reverse. This "Coperni-can Revolution" is the archetype offundamental change by which menlearn to rethink, totally, their place inthe scheme of things.

Our own epoch is, I believe, such anage again. We belong to the genera-

BARBARA WARD (Lady Jackson), well-knownBritish economist and writer, Is co-author(with René Dubos) of 'Only One Earth',written specially for the U.N. Conference onthe Human Environment (details page 33). Herother books Include "The Rich Nations and

the Poor Nations" (1962), "Spaceship Earth'(1966), and "An Urban Planet" (1971). Bar¬bara Ward is at present Schweitzer Profes¬sor of International Economic Developmentat Columbia University, in New York. Thefull text of the article presented here willshortly be published by W.W. Norton (NewYork) In a collection of papers of the Dis¬tinguished Lecture Series at Stockholm, 1972,sponsored by the International Institute ofEnvironmental Affairs and the PopulationInstitute.

tidn that has used radio telescopesto uncover 100,000 million othergalaxies each with 100,000 millionother suns. We belong to the genera¬tion that has brought nuclear energyto earth, made possible by computersthe simulation, acceleration and for¬ward projection of infinitely complicat¬ed human activities and provided uswith instantaneous worldwide and

interplanetary visible and audiblecommunication.

Above all, we are the generation tosee through the eyes of the astronautsthe astonishing "earthrise" of oursmall and beautiful planet above thebarren horizons of the moon. Indeed,we in this generation would be somekind of psychological monstrosity ifthis were not an age of Intense, pas¬sionate, committed debate and search.

So vast is the scale of changethrough which we live that there mustbe an equally vast range of competitorsfor first place as agents of upheaval.I wish to suggest three areas in whichthe concepts that are being virtuallyforced upon us offer a startling breakfrom past patterns of thought andaccepted wisdom.

The first is the possibility ofmaking the planet unfit for life.Hitherto, people have known that theycould do local damage. They couldfarm carelessly and lose top soil ordeforest or overgraze or mine out amineral. They also contrived to livethrough major natural disastersearthquakes, tornadoes, ice ages. Butnobody thought that the planet itselfcould be at risk.

Today our experts know somethingnew. They know that air, soil andwater form a totally interdependentworldwide system or biosphere sus¬taining all life, transmitting all energyand in spite of its rugged powers of

survival, full or inmensely delicate andvulnerable mechanisms, leaves, bac¬teria, plankton, catalysts, levels ofdissolved oxygen, thermal balanceswhich alone permit the sun's searingenergies to be transmuted and life tocarry on.

Our experts also tell us what we donot know. Given our suddenly andvastly increasing numbers, our enor¬mous rise in the use of energy,including nuclear energy, and ourfabulous mastery of molecular chem¬istry, we impinge on the fine balancesand mechanisms of the total systemin ways and with consequences thatwe too often are in no position tojudge.

Let me give one example. Ourtraditional vision of the oceans is

boundless. It is inconceivable to our

imagination that we should perma¬nently damage this infinity of water.But we have no idea of its capacityto absorb as it ultimately mustvirtually all the planet's wastes.

In the last two or three decades,

to give only one instance, a highpercentage of the long-lived chlori¬nated hydrocarbons including DDTappear to have been absorbed intonatural "sinks" in the biosphere.Recent sample-taking suggests anunexpectedly high dosage appearingin the oceans.

Does this mean that natural storagesystems are filling up? Will furthereffluents reinforce irreversible damageto marine species known to be suscep¬tible to such substances as DDT?

Is this part of a deeper risk ofdeterioration from a steadily wideningrange of chemical wastes? We donot know.

Rivers and lakes teach us that there

are limits to water's self-cleansing

Photo © The Museum of Modern Art, New York

properties. Ultimately the oceans areone vast cistern with no outlet. This

image is a safer one, perhaps, thanthat of infinite and "moving waters attheir priest-like task of pure ablutionround earth's human shores."

And it underlines the need for world¬

wide monitoring and research to ensurethat over the next forty years of stillcontinuing growth in people, indus¬trialization, consumption and inter¬continental transport we do not, unwit¬tingly, take the oceans themselvespast some still unmeasured thresholdof "no-return".

This concept of newly understoodlimits is relevant to the second

reversal of earlier concepts whoseimplications I would judge to be mostrevolutionary for the present age. Forover a century now and with Increasingenthusiasm in the last 25 years, wehave seen in economic growth, mea¬sured by the satisfaction of bothordinary and induced material needs,a prime aim of national policy anda powerful solvent of social conflict.

Inside the nation, as output andincomes rise, the flow of goods willbe great enough to reward effort andenterprise and provide on an upwardscale for the needs of the mass of

the people. In the world economy,international trade and investment will

pull the developing peoples up in thewake of the already developed nations.

This is a sort of "follow-my-leader"concept of economic satisfactionsaccording to which, over the next fiftyyears, per capita incomes all roundthe world rise to meet, say, America'spresent annual average of $4,000 or,to use a concrete measurement, amillion calories and thirteen tons of

coal equivalent in energy. At thesame time developed standards wouldrise to perhaps $10,000 or $15,000 percapita with a two-home, three-car,four-TV-set norm in the upper incomebrackets.

But this implicit assumption ofunending expansion has two self-reinforcing flaws. Even within thewealthiest states, even with all thetransfers of resources from richer to

poorer citizens secured by tax andwelfare and social insurance, "trickledown" economics do not ensure the

ending of poverty at the base ofsociety. The lowest twenty per centcan have as little as five per cent ofnational income, the top twenty percent as much as forty.

In the world at large, where nosystematic social transfers occur, thericher states are pulling away fromthe less developed ones. Even if$10,000 a year per capita is a rea

sonable likelihood for developedsocieties by the year 2000, for twothirds of mankind, $400 a year lookslike being the utmost reach ofoptimism. For perhaps a third, mal¬nutrition, illiteracy, shanty-town dwel¬ling and unemployment In otherwords, the worst of all human environ¬ments could be the most likely fate.

But now we must add another

constraint. Even if we assume unlimit¬

ed resources with which to develop,development is, as we have seen,grossly uneven. But suppose thereare indeed strict physical "limits togrowth"? Suppose that these delicatemechanisms and balances in the

biosphere that make life possiblecannot sustain 10,000 million peopleall aiming to produce and consume anddiscard and pollute according to pre¬sent developed standards?

Here, admittedly, the range of debateis very wide. Some experts believethat 20,000 million people can live atAmerica's present standards simply onthe products of atomic energy, waterand the minerals in common rock.

Others postulate irretrievable damagein terms of exhausted resources, ther- rtmal pollution, and environmental dis- Hruption if even half that number securethe current standards of the rich. We

are at the beginning of this debate.

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

ONLY ONE EARTH (Continued)

10

But one point is surely clear. Thereare limits. The biosphere is not infin¬ite. Populations must become stable.So must the demands they make.

But in that case, whose upwardaspirations must first be checked?Given finite resources, we cannotevade this basic social issue. Where

are the restraints to be put? Whatis to be reduced, the luxuries of therich or the necessities of the poor?What are the priorities a decent hu¬man environment for the whole human

species or riches for some and squalorfor the majority?

We can slide over this fundamental

issue of environmental quality only if"trickle down" economics work withina context of unlimited resources.

Neither assumption is correct. So, asnations, as a planet, we are compel¬led to confront the fundamental Issues

of choice and justice.

But at this point we encountera third basic challenge to our habitsof thinking. Our effective instruments ofjudgment, decision and action areseparate governments. The nationsgive our planet its colour, its variety,its richness of life and experience.For those to whom full nationhood hascome only in the last quarter of a cen¬tury, it expresses the essence of theirbeing and their hopes.

None of this can be doubted. Yetit is also true that the cumulative effect

of the separate actions of separatesovereign governments can, over time,injure the basic national needs of allof them.

If our airs and oceans can standonly so much strain before they losetheir capacity for self-purification, itwill help no government to say thatothers were responsible. The mostflagrant case is clearly the risk ofnuclear conflict and planetary nuclearpollution. We may rejoice that a num¬ber of intergovernmental agreementsnow limit atomic testing in the air, keepnuclear weapons from the seabed,Outer Space and Antarctica.

But we could collectively pollute theplanet not "with a bang but a whim¬per" by the small, steady accumu¬lation of long-lasting poisons and pes¬ticides, of chemicals and tailings, oferoded soil and detritus and reach,almost inadvertently, a creeping plan¬etary disaster to which all have separ¬ately made their cumulative contri¬bution. No single nation can avertthis risk as numbers and activities rise.Its control will be achieved by nationsacting together or not at all.

And this raises by another routethe issue of planetary justice whichequally cannot be solved by nationsacting alone. How do we ensure thatthe need to check pollution does notbecome an inhibition on the desperateneed of two thirds of humanity fordevelopment? This is an area aboutwhich we do not know too much.

It is certainly not clear that all non-pollutive technologies are more expen¬sive. It is also possible that in optingstraight away for pollution control,

developing states could take fulladvantage of the greatest asset of latecomers to learn from other people'smistakes. Equally it is possible thatto control wastes and effluents at an

early stage of modernization wouldgreatly add to costs and strains.

Should poorer countries then acceptadded costs for development or eventheir own modernization because dev¬

eloped nations have already, as itwere, pre-empted so much of thebiosphere's costless capacities forself-cleansing?

We do not know the answers. But

we do know that nations, acting indi¬vidually, will not necessarily producea workable planetary answer. Therelentless pursuit of separate nationalinterest by rich and poor alike can, ina totally interdependent biosphere,produce global disasters of irreversibleenvironmental damage.

HERE are then, I suggest,three vital ways in which the realitywe are beginning to perceive divergesfrom our habitual thinking.

We normally consider Nature as awhole, the entire biosphere, to be safefrom man, even if we can chip away atlittle bits of it. We have been taughtto believe, with increasing intensity inrecent decades, that we can moder¬nize all our economies and settle most

issues of distribution by our unlimitedcommand of rising energy, technologyand resources. And by our millenialhistory we have been taught to expectfinal decisions to be taken by separ¬ate sovereign states.

It requires a desperate wrench fromaccepted thinking, a profound leap, aCopernican leap of the imagination,to begin to see that in stark physicaland scientific reality none of thesepre-suppositions are any longer true.We can damage the entire biosphere.Resources are not unlimited. States

acting separately can produce plan¬etary disaster.

We all know enough of history torealize how uncertain it is whether this

change in the direction of our thinkingwill be made in time. Custom and

habit hold us to the traditional themes.

The sheer momentum of our presentactivities could well be enough to driveus on for another four or five decades

on our present path.

We could increase the damagingimpact upon our biosphere, accentuatethe deepening gulf between wealthand opportunity for an elite of dev¬eloped states and a squalid and det¬eriorating human environment foreveryone else. We could arrive atno intergovernmental agreements orstrategies to check either kind ofprofound environmental degradation.

This is a possible "scenario".Realists might even call it the mostlikely one. But I would like to giveyou three reasons why I feel it is

legitimate to entertain shall we say,a modest hope?

The first is that the StockholmConference was held at all. Once the

environmental concern moves nearer

to the centre of the nations' attention,I do not doubt that its fuller implica¬tions will inevitably unfold. For itswhole essence is interconnexion and

interdependence. Its whole messageis that separate drives, ambitions andpolicies have to be made compatiblewith the continuing common life of oursingle, shared planetary system.

My second reason is precisely thisscientific imperative. We can cheaton morals. We can cheat on politics.We can deceive ourselves with dreams

and myths. But there is no mon¬keying about with DNA or photosyn¬thesis or eutrophication or nuclear fu¬sion or the impact on all living thingsof excessive radiation from the sun

or the hydrogen bomb.

And what our incredible scientific

breakthroughs of the last centuryhave taught us is that the ultimateenergy of the universe both sustainsor destroys life and that the mecha¬nisms and balances by which it be¬comes life-enhancing are fragile andprecious beyond our belief.

To act without rapacity, to useknowledge with wisdom, to respectinterdependence, to operate withouthubris and greed are not simplymoral imperatives. They are anaccurate scientific description of themeans of survival. It is this compel¬ling force of fact that may, I think,control our separatist ambitions beforethey overturn our planetary life.

But man does not live by fact alone.

Our human environment has within

it our perpetual striving to make ithumane as well. In the past, histor¬ians tell us, there have been profoundrevulsions against the aggression,pride and rapacity of human systems.

The great ethical systems of man¬kind in India, in China, in the, MiddleEast, from the benign wisdom ofConfucius to the passionate socialprotest of the Hebrew prophets allsought to express an underlying moralreality, that we live by moderation, bycompassion, by justice, that we die byaggression, by pride, by rapacity andgreed.

Now in these latter days, the planetitself in its underlying physical realityrepeats the witness of the sages andthe prophets. Our collective greedscan degrade and destroy our basicsources of life in air and soil and

water. Our collective injustice cancontinue to create an intolerable imbal¬

ance between rich and poor. Envyand fear can unleash the nuclear holo¬

caust. At last, in this age of ultimatescientific discovery, our facts and ourmorals have come together to tell ushow we must live. I for one believe

profoundly that they have done so justin time.

In April 1968, some 30 personalities from the worlds ofindustry, science, economics, sociology, government, etc.gathered in Rome at the Accademia dei Lincei, one of theworld's oldest academies of science, for an Informal dis¬cussion on the present and future predicament of man. Itwas from this meeting, instigated by Italian economist andindustrialist Aurelio Peccei and the Organization for Eco¬nomic Co-operation and Development's Scottish Director-General for Scientific Affairs, Dr. Alexander King, that theClub of Rome was born.

Peccei has described the Club as an " invisible college ";it has some seventy members from widely varied back¬grounds who share a common conviction that it is urgentto redress the world situation. The Club aims to acquireand spread real understanding of the critical state of hu¬man affairs and the uncertain prospects for the future and

to propose new policy guidelines for the intelligentmanagement of human affairs.

As a first step the Club commissioned a team of scien¬

tists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under

THE LIMITS

TO GROWTH

Interview with

the President

of the Club of Rome

Aurelio Peccei

the direction of Professor Dennis Meadows, to study theprobable dynamics of the world situation with particularattention to the problems of making a deliberate transitionfrom world-wide growth to global dynamic equilibrium.

Adopting the " systems dynamics " techniques originatedby Professor Jay Forrester, Professor Meadows and histeam produced a computer model of the complex, interlink¬ed forces that affect man and his environment into which

they introduced a number of variables that affect growth.They then proceeded to make projections of man's chancesof survival in the future. Their ultimate conclusion was

that all projections based on growth end in collapse.

This study, the first of a series commissioned by theClub of Rome, was published last year in the form of thenow world famous book " The Limits to Growth". The

book has aroused enormous controversy (see for instancepages 12, 14). In the interview accorded to Unesco recently,extracts of which we publish below, Mr. Aurelio Peccei,President of the Club of Rome, comments on some of thecriticisms with which it has been greeted.

QUESTION : What method did theClub of Rome use for

such a complex, globalstudy ?

Aurelio PECCEI : We based our studyon five crucial trends of world concern

which, as a starting point, can be saidto represent the dynamics, complexi¬ties and dangers inherent in the pre¬sent world system. The first trend ispopulation growth. The second andthird are the parallel economic factorsof industrial and agricultural growth,in other words, the ability to meet theneeds of the growing world population.The fourth factor is pollution, the con

tamination of the environment with

unwanted by-products of industry andagriculture. The fifth is the use wemake of our natural resources, theinherited world resources we deplete,all too heedless of the fact that we are

living on the capital, not the income.

Q. : Your model comprisesfive highly complex varia¬bles. Did you take intoaccount the variables

within these variables ?

A. P. : The five variables we chose are

interlinked and interact on each other.

After trying to take into account all the

data that could have a bearing on theinteractions, we drew up over ahundred equations whose various cur¬

ves represent these interrelationships.We fed them into a computer modeldesigned to accept as many worldvariables as our knowledge or res¬earch could identify.

Q. : What global conclusionshas the model helped youto reach ?

A. P. : The model is largely indicativein character. Within two to five yearswe hope to arrive at much firmerconclusions. But the conclusions we

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

11

12

THE LIMITS TO GROWTH (Continued)

can draw already are alarming enough.If present trends continue, exponentialgrowth of production, consumption,pollution and depletion of raw mater¬ials will lead to a completely imposs¬ible situation: overpopulation of theplanet, impoverishment of our environ¬ment with our atmosphere and water

supplies polluted.

Q. : An optimistic viewpointsuggests that this alarm¬ist attitude is exagge¬rated.

A. P. : Our model is purely descriptive

of a situation as it exists today and of

the possible outcome if present trendscontinue; the project was not intendedas a piece of futurology. The opti¬mists say that the road ahead mayseem dangerous but that human in¬genuity, science and tecnology will becapable of solving many of the prob¬lems we now face. To my mind, the

optimists fail to consider two funda¬mental factors. The first is the accel¬

erating pace of history; our institu¬tions and our ability to react to prob¬lems are not fast enough for us tomaster these problems in time.Events move more rapidly than we do.

But the second factor is even more

fundamental; critical world problemsexist for which there are no technical

solutions. These are problems of

reaction, adaptation and values. Solu¬tions for these problems will haveto be sought in the context of socialand cultural development. Thus, ra¬ther than increase the rôle of techno¬

logy in the world, we should, perhaps,attempt to humanize it. This meansthat we must seek quite different solu¬tions.

Q. : It is claimed that yourmodel corresponds to thesituation in industrially

developed countries butnot to that of the Third

World, since it does notinclude social or politicalfactors.

A. P. : Such criticisms come closer tothe truth. The real need is for a fun¬

damental change in our political andsocial standpoints. If present trendscontinue we shall be heading for dis¬aster. Yet we have no new modelsof the world. We want people to

realize, now, that something must bechanged in the world. I must stressthat the model merely describes thepresent world situation with all its pos¬sibilities and problems. We wantedto learn from our model what this old

earth of ours can provide globally andthen consider how to make better use

of it to eliminate inequalities and ten¬sions.

I do not think it is possible todayto have both a global and a detailedview of the world; we do not have the

necessary techniques to do this. Soour model must be improved in theyears ahead from only five para¬meters today to ten tomorrow aswell as in other ways such as a re¬appraisal of our institutions, etc. sincethese represent the needs of an evol¬

ving society.

In a society that will be both fragileand complex, when world population isdouble what it is now, I fear that com¬

puters and other tools that expand thecapacity of the human mind will be anecessary aid to life. But if man couldregain some essentially human qual¬ities, if injustice were diminished, ifwiser generations should succeed us,then perhaps we should have less needof computers to guide us. In short,the choice is between a raising of ourethical standards or an ant-heap exis¬tence. As men, I trust, our destinyis not to be mere ants with no higheraspirations than feeding ourselves andachieving material well-being.

Cartoon by a young Turkish artist,film cartoonist and book illustrator,Ferruh Dogan (see also page 15)whose work has won many interna¬tional awards, including the "GrandPrix" at the 1972 World Festival of

Humour in Knokke-Heist (Belgium).

Text c Copyright

HE recently published Re¬

port for the Club of Rome, The Limits

to Growth, will probably have the use¬

ful effect of popularizing the ecolo-

gists' broad warnings of the necessityof giving up our expectations of conti¬

nuing on the road of unrestrainedgrowth. But to the serious student

the report has grave defects in its

very approach to the problems of bothpresent trends and the possibilities

and means of altering these trends.

To begin with, the report uncriticallyaccepts the concept Gross NationalProduct without any queries. Also for

the rest, it builds upon, and aggregates

in the most careless way, data that

are extremely uncertain both in regard

to economic growth itself and itsvarious components.

The data concerning threatening pol¬

lution and depletion are equally un¬reliable. Even a popular presentation

should contain a reminder of this, par¬

ticularly as it is of importance for theuse of these data in a system analysis.

Photo © fromCuadernos del

Consejo National de laUniversidad Peruana,

Dec. 1971, Lima, Peru

GUNNAR MYRDAL/s a world renowned

figure in sociology and economics. Amember of the Royal Academy ofSciences in Sweden and former execu¬

tive secretary of the U.N. Economic

Commission for Europe, he is at present

professor of international economy at

Stockholm University. He is the author

of many authoritative studies and books

on social and economic questions, with

special reference to the developingcountries (see bibliography page 33).

The article published here is an excerpt

from a major address delivered as partof the Distinguished Lecture Series in

Stockholm last year. The full text will

shortly be published by W. W. Norton(New York) in a collection of these

addresses. 0

J <i '

Reproduction prohibited

The authors are, in other words, over¬

selling their product in regard to the

validity of the basic data.

Much more fundamental is the ques¬

tion of the realism of the report's

global "world system analysis". This

analysis implies, to begin with, a non-consideration of the enormous and

increasing differences and inequalitieswithin countries and still more between

countries.

To explain this, the report states

that "inequalities of distribution are

defined as social problems" and then

placed outside "the world simulation

model", which only "calculates the

maximum possible behaviour of our

world system" provided that there is

"intelligent action on world problems,

from a world-wide perspective".

An economist working on these veryproblems will be hard put to give anyintelligible meaning to this assump¬tion of perfect harmony in the world.Still less will he be able to outline

how it could be brought about. Par

ticularly in a pretended system analy¬

sis it is simply not possible to get

away from "the social problems" mere¬

ly by stating that they are not taken

into account. The ecosystem has to

be studied as part of the social systemI have mentioned.

More specifically the report placesoutside the "interactions" within the

"world model" attitudes and institu¬

tions, indeed even the process of price

formation, while politics is only repre¬

sented by stating a number of the

results of abstract policy alternatives.

Their system is, therefore, far from

inclusive enough to have meaning.

The birth rate, for exemple, is quite

rightly a factor, and a very importantone, within their model. But it is cer¬

tainly not a function only of the otherfactors within that model and the inter¬

relations between them all. As we

who have studied the demographicdevelopment in the several regions ofthe world know, the movements of

these other factors are not even

among the most important determinants

of the birth rate. And the importance

of them is not through the simpleinterrelations of the model. Indeed,those interrelations are fictitious.

Under these circumstances the use

of mathematical equations and a hugecomputer, which registers the alterna¬

tives of abstractly conceived policies

by a "world simulation model", may

impress the innocent general public

but has little, if any, scientific validity.

That this "sort of model is actually anew tool for mankind" is unfortunatelynot true. It represents quasi-learned-

ness of a type that we have, for a longtime, had too much of, not least in eco¬

nomics, when we try to deal with

problems simply in "economic terms".

In the end, those conclusions from

the report's analysis which are sen¬sible at all, are not different and defi¬

nitely not more certain than could

have been reached without that elab¬

orate apparatus by what Alfred Mar¬

shall called "hard simple thinkingaware of the limitations of what we

know."

13

Young scientists' round table at Unesco

ENVIRONMENT

AND POLITICAL

COMMITMENT

i,

14

IN the midst of the currentdebate on the environmental crisis,

young scientists have made theirvoices heard on a number of impor¬tant issues.

Over the past 18 months, Unescohas participated in several internatio¬nal meetings with young natural andsocial scientists: at Enschede (Nether¬

lands) in July 1971, at a meetingorganized by the World Federation ofScientific Workers on the theme

"Young Scientists and ContemporarySociety", and at Hamilton (Canada) inAugust 1971, at the International YouthConference on the Human Environ¬

ment.

More recently, on the eve of the1972 United Nations Conference on

the Human Environment in Stockholm,

Unesco brought together a smallgroup of young scientists from indus

trialized and developing countries, todiscuss two recent models of the

global future and the solutions whichthey suggest.

The two models were the Massa¬

chusetts Institute of Technology-Clubof Rome study, "The Limits toGrowth", and the United NationsWorld Plan of Action for the Appli¬

cation of Science and Technology toDevelopment. In the event, the youngscientists, meeting at Unesco's h.Q.in Paris, focused most attention onthe first of these studies.

The Club of Rome initiative in mak¬

ing the study was generally welcomed.Doubts were expressed, however, ontwo quite separate issues: the meth¬ods used to construct the computer

model; and the model's political impli¬cations, particularly in view of the"a-political" stance claimed by thosewho produced it.

The young scientists questioned thevalidity of the model on severalcounts, but directed most of their cri¬

ticisms at its political aspects. Formost participants, the selection of fivebasic parameters, of a purely techni¬cal nature, meant that the model was

not one which applied to the realworld situation.

Why, they asked, were war, thearms trade, colonialism and imperia¬lism rejected as specific factors thatmight, and indeed already were,causing breakdowns? Why was theunequal distribution of resources, bet¬ween nations and within them, not

included in the analysis?

There. was considerable agreementthat all the model's assumptions wereconditional on an unaltered status

quo in world affairs; that it was a"conflict-free" model of a world which,

in reality, is torn by conflict.

GNP (Gross National Pollution), a satir¬ical comment on one unwanted productof the consumer society drawn special¬ly for the "Unesco Courier" by a youngFrench cartoonist, Maurice Mas. Otherdrawings by Mas on pages 16 and 23.

Drawing 0 Mas, Paris

The model was also considered

to have some dangerous effects.One participant described it as a"recipe for stagnation" which woulddo, and had already done, far moreto obscure ideas than the piecemealapproach of the world's politicianswhich the Club of Rome had soughtto avoid.

As the young scientists saw it, onebasic assumption behind the Club ofRome model is that world populationgrowth is the essential cause of thefuture breakdowns in society that themodel predicts. All the participantsagreed that population growth is nei¬ther the only nor the main cause ofthe environmental crisis. Other fac¬

tors involved are economic growth,the type of technology used, particu¬larly in developed countries, thenature of existing political and eco¬nomic systems, the high level ofconsumption in the developed world,etc., etc.

They saw high rates of populationgrowth as a symptom, and not acause, of underdevelopment whichresults from political exploitation ofthe developing countries by the dev¬eloped.

Nearly all participants agreed thatthe problems of development, offamily planning, of the relationshipbetween rich and the poor countriesand the problems of the environment,cannot be analysed as separateissues. The interdependence of thesefactors means that the "environmental

crisis", as the industrialized countries

term it, is in reality a multiple crisisor a series of convergent crises.

Young scientists from Third Worldcountries, in particular, pointed outthat a planetary disequilibrium hadalways existed to the detriment of the

poor countries, broadly those in thesouthern hemisphere.

Problems of the environment and

development were debated primarily

in their political context and onlysecondarily, or not at all, in theirscientific context. This reflects the

increasingly prevalent view amongyoung scientists today that scienceshould be politically and morallycommitted; that the value of science

is measured by the extent of its ethicalcommitment; and that the rôle of

science should be seen as part of thepolitical context.

They also stressed the importanceof restoring public confidence inscience. The man in the street should

have a clearer understanding of theideas underlying science.

But they warned against the dan¬gers of technological domination. Inmany cases it would be better to

improve traditional practices ratherthan introduce totally new forms oftechnology. The right attitude wouldbe neither an unquestioning venera¬tion of technological progress nor ablind subservience to tradition.

The young scientists outlined amajor research programme whichwould for the first time investigatetraditional labour technologies on adecentralized basis. The aim should

be to put local resources and skillsto maximum use and to make scien¬

tists out of laymen rather than huma¬nitarians out of scientists. A greatdemand exists in developing andindustrially developed countries fornew technologies which are not harm¬ful to the environment.

Finally, general agreement wasreached on a number of basic prin¬ciples: that science can never be a

substitute for political debate, thatmen must once again be counted asmen and not as statistics, that an

obsession with quantity must giveway to considerations of quality, andthat global analyses must be replac¬ed by regional and local solutionswhich will reintegrate man fully withnature and with the technologies hehas created.

©

Drawing by the Turkish caricaturistFerruh Dogan.

15

by Carlo Munns

Mediterranean:

DANGER!

OIL POLLUTION

LS a result of their proxi¬

mity to some of the world's richestoilfields, the waters of the Mediterra¬

nean are used by a vast fleet of oiltankers.

Forecasts point to a staggeringgrowth in these oil shipments duringthe next few years. In 1975, 360 mil¬lion tons out of a world total of 1,650

million tons of crude oil carried by sea

will be discharged at Mediterraneanports.

When the Suez canal is re-opened

and the existing pipelines in the canalzone conveying crude oil from the RedSea to the Mediterranean are broughtback into use, some of the traffic now

going round the Cape of Good Hopecould well return to the Mediterranean

routes.

But how is it that oil loaded on

tankers for delivery to refineriesfinishes up in the sea?

Oil pollution in the sea is generallyassociated with an accident of some

kind, one which arouses public opinionand draws attention to the high costof cleaning up vast areas of water afteran accident at sea.

In reality, the major problem of oilpollution in the sea is only partly dueto accidents; operational pollution,bound up with the normal sea trans¬

port of oil and with loading and dis¬charging operations at the terminals,is far more important. This is a moregeneral source of pollution, less in thelimelight than tanker accidents but farmore insidious.

The fact is that less than 99 per centof the oil taken on board a tanker is

discharged at the port of destination.Part of the remaining one per cent islost by evaporation of the most volatile

16

CARLO MUNNS, Italian expert on legal andtechnical matters concerning protection ofthe environment, is working with the Parlia¬mentary Committee on the study of waterproblems in Italy and Is collaborating In thedrawing up of the first "Report on the Stateof the Environment In Italy" at presentunder preparation by the Italian Ministry ofScientific and Technological Research. Hehas also undertaken research projects onenvironmental questions for the Food andAgriculture Organization and the United Na¬tions In Rome.

elements in the oil and the rest settles

on the walls and bottom of the tanks

in the ship in the form of sediment.

These far from negligible quantitiesof oily substances represent a dangerfor the ship itself since they give offgases which may form an explosivemixture with the air in the now emptytanks. It is thus indispensable to rinseout the tanks with water.

When a tanker has discharged itscrude oil load and leaves again to pickup another shipment the washing ofthe tanks coincides with the need to

take on sea water as ballast. Emptytankers are unstable and difficult to

manoeuvre and therefore have to take

on amounts of water varying from 40to 60 per cent of their capacity.

This ballast, which forms an emul¬

sion with the oily residue, has to bepumped out before a fresh cargo ofcrude oil can be taken on, so that

large quantities of this residue findtheir way into the sea. The amount,according to the oil companies, is some0.4 to 0.5 per cent of the oil carried,

and it is one of the main causes of

pollution.

Authorities in the oil-exporting coun¬tries do not tolerate the discharge ofdirty ballast and tank-rinsing waternear their coasts or in their ports,

and place strict controls on the qualityof water discharged. So tanker cap¬tains make a practice of dischargingdirty ballast water on their way fromport to port and of replacing it withclean water.

Although less toxic for the environ¬ment than radio-active substances,

non-biodegradable detergents andplastics, crude oil creates an alarmingproblem because of the enormousvolume transported and the highconcentration in one area the Medi¬

terranean.

The natural environment in the area

is obviously threatened by other fac¬tors: the increasing concentrations ofpopulation and of industry along thecoastline, the development of the tour¬ist trade, and the growth in consump¬tion and in waste and refuse which,

Drawing © Mas, Paris.

in one way or another, eventuallyfinishes up in the sea. But in termsof urgency oil pollution is the mostcrucial issue.

According to estimates, 300,000 tonsof oil residue were discharged into theMediterranean in 1970, and this figurewill probably climb to 500,000 tons in1975 and 650,000 tons in 1980.

But the Mediterranean presents

some special problems. It is a shal¬low sea (only 3,500 metres deep at itscentral part), and its rising currentsare not strong enough to assist inwater exchange and oxygenation bycontact with the air. Water tempera¬tures at the bottom are more or less

constant because of the protectiveeffect of the Gibraltar threshold, and

there are no currents moving fasterthan 2-3 knots.

The masses of water in the Medi¬

terranean down to the first 150 metres

thus take an extremely long time tomix and regenerate, a fair estimatebeing about 80 years.

Serious harm to the marine environ¬

ment is therefore caused in a number

of ways:

The oil slick on the water pre¬vents water oxygenation and insteadconsumes oxygen itself for its owndegradation.

Oil pollution is a serious obstacleto the photosynthesis on which de¬pends the life and growth of theminute phytoplankton the food ofthe Zooplankton on which, in their turn,the larger sea creatures feed.

Absorbed by fish, the pollutantseventually reach and endanger humanlife.

Every year, according to figures ofthe FAO General Fisheries Council

for the Mediterranean, about one mil¬

lion metric tons of fish are caught inwaters of this sea, and the proteinrequirement of the Mediterranean

population increases yearly. RecentFAO reports indicate that some fish

species are already decreasing.

The various governments, concernedat the worsening pollution situation,took steps to ban the discharge oftank-rinsing water within their terri¬torial waters, with the inevitable result

that the pollution has shifted to thehigh seas. In a closed sea like theMediterranean this in turn causes pol¬lution of coastal waters. The problemtherefore called for a solution at inter¬

national level.

The 1954 London Convention for the

Prevention of the Pollution of the Sea

by Oil prohibited all tankers fromdischarging oily mixtures containingmore than 100 mg of oil per litrewithin 50 miles of land. In 1962,the 1954 Convention was amend

ed, within the framework of the Inter¬

governmental Maritime ConsultativeOrganization (IMCO). The ban nowbecame absolute for all ships of over20,000 tons and the protected areaswere extended (from 50 to 100 milesin the case of the Mediterranean).

The result was that in the Mediter¬

ranean two zones were left, one bet¬

ween Libya and Sicily and the othersouth of the island of Rhodes, in which

ships were free to discharge as muchtank rinsing water as they wished.But in the absence of any effectivemonitoring system the discharge areasare expanding unchecked.

As an alternative to the rules laid

down in the 1962 IMCO Convention,

shipping lines and oil companies sug¬gested a new way of rinsing out tanks

chiefly responsible for the pollutionof the Mediterranean Sea and coast.

Other techniques have been putforward to save oil from being dis¬charged into the sea, but technicallyand economically they are difficult toimplement in the case of the existingtanker fleet.

As long ago as 1954, IMCO affirmedthat the only effective way of solvingthe oil pollution problem in the Medi¬terranean was to install plants fortreating tanker ballast and rinsingwater at all oil loading terminals. Butbecause of the cost of building suchplants the governments of the pro¬ducer countries and the oil companiesoperating the terminals have not so far,with some rare exceptions, compliedwith the recommendation.

"Say, we must benearer civilization

than we thought.This is oill"

Drawing Carl Rose © The New Yorker Magazine Inc., New York

known as the "Load on top" system.This process consists of separatingthe sea water from the oil residue

during the return voyage. The wateris cleaner when discharged into thesea and the oil residue from all the

tanks is collected into one tank only.

This concentrated oil-water mixture

is processed on board ship after thefresh cargo of crude oil has beenpumped into the tanks, and is dis¬charged separately when the tankerarrives at the refinery port with itsnew load.

In order for the process of separa¬tion by gravity to take place betweenwater and oily substances a minimumof about 40 hours is needed, providedthat the weather is calm. Unfortu¬

nately because of the short voyagetime between crude oil embarkation

ports in North Africa and the NearEast and the user countries in south¬

ern Europe, tankers on these routescannot effectively use the "Load ontop" system. They have thus become

However, a recent study made forIMCO puts the cost of providing suchnew plants where they are needed andof improving existing ones at about80 million dollars. Running costswould be about 70 cents per ton of oilshipped.

If these plants were built and oper¬ated, oil pollution in the Mediterraneancould be reduced to negligible propor¬tions within a space of three or four

years. A solution is urgently needed,and many international research orga¬nizations now investigating the oil pol¬lution question have made specialstudies of the problem in the Medi¬terranean.

The FAO General Fisheries Council

for the Mediterranean has set up a"Working Party on Marine Pollution inRelation to the Protection of LivingResources".

Co-operating closely with Unesco's j |Intergovernmental Océanographie 'Commission and with the International

Commission for the Scientific

CONTINUED PAGE 32

Ugo Mochi at work at his glass easel. On it he lays a sheet oblack paper and then a thin sheet of white tracing paper withfaint outlines drawn on it. He cuts out the portrait with apencil-shaped knife sharp enough to split a hair.

The two-horned, white rhinoceros. Formerly common in SouthAfrica, only about 200 now survive in two reserves in Natal.

Underwater wonderland

and corals.

shellfish

THE

ANIMAL WORLD

OF UGO MOCHI

An artist who has devoted the pasteighty years of his life to portraying hislove of nature and the preservation ofwild life is Ugo Mochi (pronounced Mo-Kee),born In Florence, Italy and living inthe United States since 1928. Mochi s

medium is the shadow portrait cut outof one piece of paper which he haslifted to the realms of creative art

combined with scientific accuracy. Fas¬cinated by wild life from early child¬hood he has been making cut out por¬traits since the age of six. Some ofhis finest works (Including many animalsthreatened with extinction) appear in"Hoofed Mammals of the World "(Scrib-ners, N.Y. 1953) which he producedwith T.D. Carter of the American Museum

of Natural History. His works are to beseen in public and private collectionsin many countries including the Royalcollection at Windsor Castle, England,the Berlin Museum of Natural History,the Metropolitan Museum of Art andthe American Museum of Natural His¬

tory in New York. Ugo Mochi's worksthough chiefly devoted to animal studiesalso include collections of major impor¬tance on "The History of Transportation"and "Portraits of Musicians" .

A magnificent Australian Lyrebird, with tail feathers spread, and, below,his mate.

'It seems to me quite absurd", writes Josué de Castro,"to propose a zero economic growth rate for the ThirdWorld when the peoples of these areas consider economicdevelopment to be their last hope of emerging from theircrushing burden of poverty."

POLLUTION PROBLEM N° 1

UNDERDEVELOPMENTby Josué de Castro

W

20

HY should the so-called

"underdeveloped" countries be con¬cerned with problems of the environ¬ment? At first sight, these problemsseem much more serious and more

complex in the "highly-developed"countries, where intensive industriali¬zation and urban growth damage orupset the balance of the natural envi¬ronment. Pollution would thus seem

to be almost exclusively a problemfor the highly industrialized countriesand to be of little interest to the poorones, which supply the world's rawmaterials.

This analysis is quite wrong. Itresults from the vagueness of certainbasic concepts, particularly the currentconcepts of "environment" and "dev¬elopment".

JOSUE DE CASTRO, of Brazil, is famous forhis efforts in the world struggle againsthunger. He Is the author of "The Geographyof Hunger", 1952 (translated into 24 langua¬ges) and "Of Men and Crabs", 1970 (see alsopage 33). President of the World Associationfor the Struggle Against Hunger and formerChairman of the Council of FAO, he wasBrazilian Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva,from 1961 to 1964. Professor of Human Geo¬

graphy at the University of Brazil (Rio deJaneiro) since 1939, he is at present Asso¬ciate Professor of Geography at the Univer¬sity of Paris (Vincennes) and President ofthe International Centre for Development, inParis. He took part in the EnvironmentForum held concurrently with the 1972 U.N.Environment Conference In Stockholm, wherehe spoke on "Problems of Development andEnvironment in the Third World".

The environment is not only thesum of all the material things thatmake up the mosaic of the country¬side or landscape, and constantlyinteract with each other. It is much

more than this. It also includes the

economic structures and the outlook

and habits of peoples in differentparts of the world.

The environment as a whole there¬

fore includes not only physical ormaterial factors but economic and

cultural ones as well.

An accurate analysis of the environ¬ment must always consider the totalimpact of man and his culture on allthe surrounding elements, and alsothe impact of ecological factors onevery aspect of human life. Viewedin this perspective the environmentincludes biological, physiological, eco¬nomic and cultural aspects, all linkedin the same constantly changing eco¬logical fabric.

This concept is much wider andmore objective than that of theenvironment considered merely as asystem of mutual relations betweenliving creatures and their natural envi¬ronment.

The concept of "development" asmeasured only by statistics andincreased material wealth by econo¬mic growth is just as false. Dev¬elopment also involves far-reachingand successive social changes whichinevitably accompany the techno

logical transformation of the naturalenvironment.

The concept of development is notonly a quantitative one, measurablein dollars, but also one that includesqualitative aspects of the communitiesconcerned, in other words their qual¬ity of life.

To grow is one thing; to developanother. To grow is, generally speak¬ing, relatively easy. To develop in abalanced way is much more difficult.So difficult, that no country has yetmanaged to achieve it. From thispoint of view, the whole world ismore or less underdeveloped.

Yet it is the fashion today to speakof the harmful effects of economicgrowth on the environment and onnature in general. And people talkabove all of the effects that are notthe most threatening ones for thefuture of mankind. The most frequentcries of alarm condemn the populationexplosion, the pollution of air, riversand seas, the degradation of animaland plant resources in the most highly-developed regions of the world.

This attitude reflects a limited viewof the problem that takes into accountonly the direct effects of economicexpansion, overlooking the insidious,indirect yet much more determinantaction of development on all humansocieties.

The first serious mistake, the first

CONTINUED PAGE 22

J

i

POLLUTION PROBLEM No. 1 (Continued)

The danger of ecological disintegration

false conclusion arising from this par¬tial view of the problem, is the ideathat it is the richest areas that were

first affected by the pollution anddestruction of the natural environment

caused by economic growth.

The reality is quite different. Theearliest and gravest effects of dev¬elopment were to be found precisely inthe regions which are today economi¬cally underdeveloped and which wereyesterday under colonial rule. Under¬development in these regions was thefirst result of the unbalanced dev¬

elopment of the world as a whole.Underdevelopment itself representsa type of pollution and human degra¬dation localized in certain regionsunjustly exploited by the great indus¬trial powers.

u

22

' NDERDEVELOPMENT is

not, as is often supposed, the lack orabsence of development. It is aproduct or by-product of development,an inevitable result of the colonial

system of economic exploitation thatis still in force in several parts of theworld.

Many people are convinced that thewhole question of environmentalproblems in developing countries istotally different from that in the richindustrialized countries, and should beviewed in quite a different way. Inthe poorer countries, they say, peopledo not concern themselves with the

quality of life, but only with thechances of survival, with the struggleagainst hunger, disease and igno¬rance.

But these things are none otherthan the symptoms of a serioussocial malady underdevelopmentwhich is itself a product of develop¬ment. The underdeveloped countrieswhich are struggling to survive needto take a direct interest in world-wide

development and environmental prob¬lems so as to defend themselves

against the aggressions their ownenvironment has undergone for cen¬turies on the part of the colonialpowers.

If it is only recently that peoplehave come to talk so insistently aboutthe pollution and degradation causedby economic growth, this is becauseWestern civilization, with its scien¬tific and ethnocentric approach, hasalways refused to see what isobvious: that the hunger and povertyof certain far-off regions form partof the social price mankind pays sothat economic development may ad¬vance in a few economically andpolitically dominant regions.

The blurring of this basic truth ledto the institution on a global scale

of a development strategy whichinevitably resulted in the failure ofthe 1960-1970 Development Decade.This will happen again and again solong as the economic structures ofthe world continue to depend on thefalse foundations of its social struc¬

ture: a war economy, a maximumprofit economy, and a policy of eco¬nomic oppression of the Third World.

To succeed in their struggle foremancipation and survival, the under¬developed countries must obtain atall costs a marked reduction of the

negative economic impact the marketeconomy has had on their systemsof economic dependence. These coun¬tries will have to fight hard againstthe indirect action of the great cen¬tres of accumulated capital, whichperpetuate the underdevelopment ofthe world's economic fringe by everyavailable means, including the refusalto stabilize the cost of raw materials.

To eliminate any doubt that in aconsumer civilization underdevelop¬ment is a product of development, itis enough to remember that beforethe capitalistic and industrial explo¬sion of our century, there were nodeveloped and underdeveloped coun¬tries separated by a wide economicgap. It was only after the secondindustrial revolution that the extreme

disparities of growth rates and econo¬mic levels between the two groupsof countries came into existence.

Let us take a concrete example:the average income per inhabitant ofcountries representative of the twogroups the U.S.A. and India. Beforethe first World War, the averageincome per head in India was 8 timesless than that of the U.S.A.; beforethe second World War it was 15 times

less; today it is 50 times less...

The economic degradation of theunderdeveloped countries must beconsidered as .a pollution of theirhuman environment by the economicabuses of the dominant areas of

the world economy. Hunger, poverty,widespread disease that would beavoidable with a minimum of hygiene,a short average life-expectancy: allthese are products of the destructiveeffect of world exploitation under asystem of economic domination.

Starvation in India, Peru, San Do¬mingo or the North-East of Brazil maylook like a local symptom of under¬development, but in reality it repre¬sents a paradoxical aspect of thediseases of civilization. Hunger isan indirect result of unbalanced eco¬

nomic growth, just as cardio-vascularand degenerative diseases are else¬where.

Ultimately, the two groups of mala¬dies the so-called diseases of civi

lization and the diseases of povertyare products of the same despoticand frenzied civilization of profit. Thefirst ones are produced directly, onthe spot; the others indirectly, at adistance.

A development strategy that envi¬saged the social reality of the ThirdWorld as something apart from therest of the world doomed from the

start any hope of improving environ¬mental conditions. In reality, the wholebiosphere is a single ecosystem com¬posed of a multitude of sub-systems.

The ecosystem of the biosphere isgiven an enormous structural elasti¬city by mechanisms which compensateand counterbalance the negativeimpact of man's actions. This elasti¬city gives an important advantageto man, since it allows him totransform the biosphere and use itselements to satisfy his own needs.But the process cannot continuebeyond certain limits fixed by thelaws of natural balances (nuisancethresholds) without causing seriousbreakdowns, which may be fatal forthe ecosystems.

HROUGH the play ofecological interactions, the seriousimbalances to which the Third World

has been condemned threaten the

whole biosphere and with it allmankind. Starvation in the Third World

could one day lead to world-widepestilences; the revolt of the hungrycould lead to war on a planetary scale.Starvation and war are themselves

symptoms of a dynamic disequilibriumin the social and economic environ¬

ment of our planet.

But it is not enough to consideronly the indirect effect of develop¬ment on the Third World's environment

an effect which is economic or

cultural rather than purely physicalor natural. We should also consider

the threat of direct action: the

thoughtless waste of non-renewablenatural resources and the biologicalunbalancing of ecological sub-sys¬tems.

The Third World lives under the

permanent threat of the on-the-spotinstallation of types of technologicaldevelopment which fail to take theecological dimension into accountand which could therefore cause the

total disintegration of ecological struc¬tures. And if we consider the relative

fragility of certain equatorial andtropical ecosystems, where most ofthe Third World is situated, thedanger appears even greater.

It is well known that the soils in

these areas are easily eroded whentheir covering layer of vegetation is

Drawings © Mas, Paris

over-exploited; and that the upsurgesof tropical rivers are curbed bybarriers composed of certain types ofplants, which to some extent regu¬late and direct their flow. The des¬

truction of this vegetation may leadto floods or to stagnation and otherserious disasters such as the loss

of flooded crops or the spread ofendemic diseases carried by insectsproliferating in stagnant water.

Does the fact that technologicalprogress and economic growth areat present destroying the ThirdWorld's environment justify the halt¬ing of growth in these areas, assome people insist? I do not believeso. It seems to me quite absurd topropose a zero growth rate for theThird World when the peoples ofthese areas consider economic dev¬

elopment to be their last hope ofemerging from the crushing burdenof poverty. I do not think those whooppose development are right to calla halt, when the urgent need is fora reconversion of development.

Technology in itself is neither goodnor bad. It is its use which givesit an ethical meaning. If technologyhas worked against the Third World,this is because it has been used with

one aim in view: maximum advantageand profit. It is neo-colonialist exploi¬tation that has led these countries to

their present state of despair, nowaggravated by the new threat of stop¬ping the little progress they have madein recent decades.

A great deal has been said aboutthe report drawn up for the Club ofRome by the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology, with the help of com¬puters. The report establishes thelimits of future growth with regard tothe harmful effects of technology and

industrialization as zero-growth forthe world economy as a whole.

While, superficially, the reportappears to be right for we are allalarmed by the pollution and des¬truction of the human environment it

cannot be accepted outright becauseits conclusions have been distorted

by methods that can hardly be calledscientific.

The report supposes that the dev¬elopment model it presents, whichpaints the portrait of the world in acentury's time, is the only valid onethat can be built with available data

on present world realities. This exclu-siveness, typical of the ethnocentricculture of the highly developed coun¬tries, reveals the unscientific natureof the report.

One cannot forecast a single modelof the future. All those who studyfuturology are well aware that onecannot envisage a unique futuredetermined by the various conditionsprevailing at the time of the study.All that can be done is to imagine aseries of probable futures accordingto the Theory of Probability, which hasreplaced the deterministic attitude thatwas the rule before the adoption ofthe Theory of Relativity. So one canvery well project several models ofthe world of tomorrow.

One can estimate, with a high riskof error, the probability of any ofthese models becoming a reality. Butit is quite impossible to limit a scien¬tific forecast to one single model. Tomake linear projections, as was donefor the report on the limits of growth,is a naive procedure which does nottake into account the structural break¬downs which are a characteristic

feature of modern times. We live in

a period of discontinuity, not one ofcontinuity.

The worst mistake of the M.I.T.

report is not to have included theproblem of economic, social and poli¬tical structures among the factorsdetermining growth. In the introduc¬tion to the report the authors onlyconsider five development factors:

population, agricultural output, naturalresources, industrial output and pollu¬tion.

There is not a word about the

problem of social and economic struc¬tures. Yet everybody knows that thelevel of production and the level- ofpollution i.e. the state of develop¬ment and the state of the environment

essentially depend on the type ofstructure dominant at a given placeand time.

By leaving out man and his culture,the project has become alienated, forit does not take into account therealities of the modern world and

therefore the realities of the future.

If the majority of Third World coun¬tries reject the conclusions of thisreport, it is because they are suspi¬cious of this proposal to stop growth,which risks affecting the poorer re¬gions of the world alone, since therich ones will obviously not obey it.So the gap between the two worldswill increase.

If this is true, all the charitablepaternalism of the Club of Rometowards the countries of the Third

World will turn out to be a trap. Farfrom being helped by this kind ofrecipe, they will be enchained forever in underdevelopment and pov¬erty.

The reaction of these countries

should be to try to find a type ofdevelopment that would be indepen¬dent of neo-colonialism, applying tech¬niques created on the spot the onlyones that would be valid and rational.

The present type of development, asI see it, is obviously a failure; butthe world could be developed if itwere given social and economic struc¬tures and means of productiondifferent to those which exist today.

But before this can be done, thewar economy in which we live mustbe reconverted into a peace economy,and the enormous savings resultingfrom partial disarmament must beused to obtain a type of pacific dev¬elopment that would be not only moreequitable but also non-polluting.

23

A tree grows in Chuqulcamata (Chile) but only because it is protect¬ed and cared for like a fragile plant in the Atacama desert where thiscity with world's most productive copper mine is situated. Coaxingtrees to grow in an industrial atmosphere and arid climate is no easy task.

t- -i

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- m*K44-U:r

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THE MYTH

OF ECOLOGICAL

EQUILIBRIUMby Miguel A. Ozorio de Almeida

ERHAPS the best way to

put the environment issue in properperspective is to ask straight away thebasic question: according to whosecriteria is the environment to be con¬

sidered healthy, adequate, pleasant,desirable?

If the subject were an anaconda,and if the anaconda had a mind capa¬

ble of value judgments, it would prob¬ably suggest that the world should bea swampy forest; a dromedary wouldwish it to be a desert. . But what

should it be for the human race? Cert¬

ainly not all desert or all swamp.

A certain misunderstanding haspermeated the whole debate on envi¬ronmental protection and restoration,

even in relatively sophisticated cir¬cles namely that we have to keepor protect environment or ecological"equilibrium".

The problem to be solved in factis not achieving an "ecologicalbalance" but, on the contrary obtain¬ing the most efficient forms of "long-term ecological imbalance". The prob¬lem is not to exterminate mankind

now, in the name of ecological equi¬librium, but to prolong our ability touse natural resources for as long aspossible.

A basic misunderstanding of thisreality and the consequent strivingfor ecological balance has led tomany ill-founded conclusions, bothexplicit and implicit. Some suggest

MIGUEL A. OZORIO DE ALMEIDA, spec/a/adviser to the Foreign Minister of Brazil,headed the Brazilian delegation to the UnitedNations Conference on the Human Environ¬ment at Stockholm in 1972. Ambassador

Almeida has been closely associated withthe U.N. since 1948, in particular with theEconomic and Social Council, and was Braz¬ilian delegate to the 1952 Unesco GeneralConference.

that mankind reduce its numbers, or

be content with consuming less, orboth. The most interesting aspect ofthese conclusions is that the "conclu-

ders" generally tend to shift the bur¬den of reducing numbers or of consum¬ing less to some community other thantheir own.

But with only marginal exceptionsthe great polluters are the highlyindustrialized countries. Starting fromradionuclides (practically 100 per centof whose production and dissemin¬ation is imputable to a few highlydeveloped countries) and going righton down the list of all the other majorpollutants, the overwhelming dischargeof effluents is the consequence of thedeveloped countries recent technolo¬gies and of their high levels of indus¬trial as well as primary production(particularly in over-fertilized, over-herbicided, and synthetically control¬led agriculture). The contribution tothis type of pollution by underdevel¬oped countries is, in absolute terms,

extremely small and in relative termspractically nil.

It could be said that if all pollution

generated by the developed countriescould be withdrawn from the earth,

there would be no pollution of world¬wide significance; conversely if allpollution directly Imputable to activitiesin underdeveloped countries could bewithdrawn from the world today, alldangers linked to pollution would con¬tinue to exist in practically the samedensities.

The possible exception is the pol¬lution that originates in the existenceof humans at low levels of income:

to be many and to be poor is offen¬sive to the sight and feelings of somepeople. So far most proposals inthis area do not concern co-operat¬ion to reduce population. It is even

neatly construed that by reducingnumbers per capita income willincrease.

It is forgotten that there is a func¬tional relationship between popula¬tion and the ability to grow economic¬ally and that, if in certain areas, most¬ly in Asia, human numbers havebecome excessive (probably onaccount of colonial policies of the

last century), in most of Africa andLatin America human densities are

still below ideal levels for efficient

economic development.

The threat of pollution is an areain which there has been a lot of

pseudo-scientific extrapolation of thedoomsday variety.

We are threatened with the melt¬

ing of the polar ice-caps, the conse¬quent rise in sea levels, and the whole¬

sale drowning of some of the largestcities and capitals in the world.

We are threatened with the exhaus¬

tion of the oxygen reserve on earthbecause of North American and Euro¬

pean over-consumption of this usefulgas, while certain effluents dumpedinto the sea are jeopardizing its algaeoxygen-producing ability. We are alsotold that the Brazilian occupation andutilization of the Amazon forest will

eliminate its ability to compensate for

American oxygen voracity.

We are threatened with cancer;

everything that may be an irritant tohuman tissues from love-making toall sorts of organic and inorganiccompounds may produce cancer.

We are threatened with hunger.We are threatened with emphysema.We are threatened with poisons. Weare threatened with numbers that may 9nbe expected to eliminate all elbow- **room on our little, already half-scuttled "spaceship" earth.

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

ECOLOGICAL EQUILIBRIUM (Continued)

26

The sensible question to ask aboutthese dire predictions of course is:how probable are these threats andhow long before they become real¬ities?

One of the answers to this ques¬tion has been provided by the secre¬tariat of the 1972 Stockholm Confer¬

ence. In a balance sheet listing ofwhat are believed to be the twenty-one most important pollutants, thestate of knowledge about effects otherthan acute toxicity to experimentalmammals has been indicated as un¬

certain in all cases but one.

Another answer to the same ques¬tion may be induced from the verynature of most of the dramatic predict¬ions made. Let us take, for instance,

the consequences of the accumulationof carbon dioxide and the melting ofthe polar ice-cap. The first observa¬tion this evokes is that no index of

probability is attached to this predict¬ion, which reduces its scientific value.

Our planet had already passedthrough great variations in temperaturelong before modern industry and tech¬nology started tampering with its ecol¬ogy. Each "warming up" period hasgenerated an opposite "cooling off"tendency. Moreover, it should be not¬ed that carbon dioxide accumulates

simultaneously with other effluents,mostly particles, which reduce solarradiation reaching the earth and thustend to cool its surface. *

As for the time span that thesepredictions assume, if they apply tothe next ten years, we had better actright away. If, however, it is a questionof a hundred years, we may have thetime to improve our knowledge andthus risk fewer mistakes in dealingwith the problem. If it is one thousandyears, the threat must be discounted,since it is not realistic to predict theburning of fossil fuels for such a longtime. If it is one hundred thousand

or one million years, let us forgetabout it.

The truth is that we do not yet knowenough to pass judgment and takeaction in quite a few of the moreimportant fields. Ecology, through itsnecessarily very broad, general equili¬brium approach to the ecosystem, isstill very far from a complete science,either as a methodology or as a bodyof accepted facts.

The old scientific approach is inade¬quate and the new ecological approachis not yet sufficiently ripe. This leavesus with a probabilistic outlook; quite

a few of the threats now being madeare illegitimate and another few prob¬ably true, but it is hard to tell onegroup from the other. What should bedone In these circumstances?

The DDT battle

continues

An international group of expertson pesticides, who met in Romein November 1972, supports thecontinued use of DDT in agricul¬ture. "The benefits to man aris¬

ing from the proper controlleduse of DDT will outweigh thepossible risk from exposure",declared the experts, advisersto the Food and AgricultureOrganization and the WorldHealth Organization. The bene¬fits of DDT, said their report, layin the prevention of food lossesto pests which would be disas¬

trous in the developing countries(see also the "Unesco Courier",June 1971, July 1971, February1972, May 1972). The expertsalso defended the use of mer¬

cury-based fungicides, whoserisks they considered negligible.But they recommended furtherresearch to discover completelyharmless yet equally effectivereplacement fungicides.

The first step should be to identifythose cases of pollution that haveinternational significance and then,within the limits of available know¬

ledge, to determine the degree ofprobable urgency for the necessaryaction. It is quite clear that theexisting situation of incomplete know¬ledge precludes drastic action in mostfields.

Action might worsen the situationrather than improve it as was truein the case of smog clearance inLos Angeles, where efforts to reducecarbon monoxide in the exhaust

of motor vehicles led to measures

provoking the equally harmful pro¬duction by high-powered engines ofnitrogen oxides and the highly poison¬ous nitrogen dioxide. In the sameway the abolition of the use of DDTand other persistent organochlorineinsecticides could drastically increasemalaria and reduce agricultural pro¬duction in tropical areas.

The second step should thus aimat sensible improvement of the situa¬tion, as much as possible by reductionof emission of the major sources ofpollution and in areas where the carry¬ing capacity of the environment hasbeen clearly overtaxed.

This brings up a happy coincidence,namely, that the largest sources ofpollution are to be found in highlydeveloped areas, where the largesteconomic and technological resources

that are a necessary condition for theability to act on environmental prob¬lems are also concentrated.

The third step should be the ini¬tiation of adequate research for allareas where danger seems to lurk, thuscreating the appropriate basis forfuture action.

The legitimacy of yet another rangeof problems relating to the pollutionof poverty or underdevelopment mustbe carefully scrutinized. In ruralareas, pollution mostly consists ofpoor sanitation and of food and watercontamination, and the major pollutants

are micro-organisms disseminatedbecause of the lack of appropriate

sewage. In urban areas the sameproblems exist together with quitea few others linked to excessive urban

densities at very low income levels.The squalor of poverty itself is oneof the ugliest faces environment mayacquire.

A third characteristic is that, contrary

to the prevailing conditions in devel¬oped countries, such pollution tendsto diminish with economic develop¬ment itself. In fact it is impossibleto correct this particular pollutionprocess, mainly because the resourcesnecessary to cope with it are notavailable at low levels of income.

It is thus highly inappropriate todiscuss these problems, both ruraland urban, outside the framework of

economic development.

Nor is pollution the only problemof environmental degradation linkedto poverty. Problems of agriculturalsoil conservation and of different

types of urban deterioration are alsoessentially the result of the economicinability to act. The prevailing condi¬tions In the rural areas of developingcountries are based upon a fundamen¬tal lack of capital resources, whetherin terms of equipment or in terms ofinputs for the improvement (or evenmaintenance) of soil conditions.

In urban areas, most problems ofenvironmental degradation are linkedto the inadequacy of productiveemployment in industry. This is theconsequence of the inappropriatenessof imported technologies to the factorendowment of underdeveloped coun¬

tries, where labour tends to be

plentiful and cheap but is not beingfully utilized within the framework ofthe internationally available techno¬logies.

All proposals so far made for thesolution of urban degradation in under¬developed countries do not touch uponthe core of the problem, which istechnical and economic. By concen¬

trating upon consequences and ignor¬ing causes, this approach represents

CONTINUED PAGE 28

Ten major pollutants

CARBON

DIOXIDE

Normally the result of energy consumed in power stations, in industry and homes.

It is thought that accumulation of this gas could significantly increase the earth'ssurface temperature, with the possibility of geochemical and ecological disasters.

2

4

CARBON

MONOXIDE

SULPHUR

DIOXIDE

NITROGEN

OXIDES

Results from incomplete fuel combustion, mostly in the steel industry, in solidwaste disposal, in oil refineries and in motor vehicles. Some scientists believe thishighly poisonous gas may adversely affect the stratosphere.

Smoke from power generating plants, industrial factories, automobiles and fuel usedin the home often produces sulphuric acid. The polluted air aggravates respiratorydiseases, corrodes trees and limestone buildings, as well as certain synthetic

textiles and vegetation.

Produced by combustion engines, aircraft, furnaces, incinerators, excessive use offertilizers, forest fires, industrial plants. Causes smog, may lead to respiratoryinfections and bronchitis in new-born children. Causes excessive growth ofaquatic plants, depletion of oxygen, loss of fish and degradation of water quality.

PHOSPHATESFound in sewage, especially in detergents, in over-fertilized land and the consequentrunoff into water, and as wastes from intensive animal farming. A major factor

in the degradation of lake and river water.

6 MERCURY

Resulting from combustion of fossil fuels, the chlor-alkali industry, electrical andpaint manufacture, mining and refining processes, the pulp and paper industry.Mercury is a serious food contaminant, especially of seafood, and is a cumulativepoison that affects the nervous system.

Principle source the anti-knock additive in petrol, but lead smelting, the chemical

industry and pesticides also contribute. It is a cumulative poison that affects enzymes

and impairs cell metabolism. Accumulates in marine deposits and in drinking water.

Contamination due to the operation of oil, tankers, shipping accidents, refinery op¬eration, offshore oil production and transport wastes. Has disastrous ecological

effects including damage to plankton, marine life and sea birds as well as pollutionof beaches and estuaries.

DDT AND

OTHER

PESTICIDES

Very toxic to crustaceans at extremely low concentrations. Used mostly in agriculture.The runoff of these products into the water kills off fish and their food and conta¬

minates man's food. May have a cancer-producing effect, and may reduce population

of beneficial insects, thus helping in the creation of new pests.

10 RADIATIONMostly produced in nuclear fuel processing, and also in weapon production and testingand nuclear-powered ships. Has important medical and research uses, but above acertain dose can cause malignant growths and genetic changes.

The symbols used above are taken from "Symbol Sourcebook ; an Authoritative Guide to International Graphic Symbols" by Henry Dreyfuss,McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1972, $28.50. The Table of Contents is published in 18 languages and the book is divided intopractical, easy to use sections dealing with : Basic Symbols, Disciplines, Colour. Graphic Forms. A comprehensive index makes reference simple.

ECOLOGICAL EQUILIBRIUM (Continued)

Three roads to world sanity

28

a serious diversion of resources from

development and constitutes an inef¬ficient attack upon the problem.

An implicit assumption has beenthat, given the present demographicmagnitudes and distribution in theworld and given the present patternsof consumption of natural resourcesand of emission of pollutants by thedeveloped countries, the world cannotafford the economic development ofthe underdeveloped countries alongthe lines followed by the presentlydeveloped ones.

If the three-fourths of mankind

represented by underdeveloped coun¬tries were to squander naturalresources at the same rate (in per

capita terms) as, for example, theUnited States or the Western European

countries, there would not be enoughoxygen to go around and there wouldnot be enough metals for industry,while, on the other hand, there would

be so much carbon, sulphur, and

nitrogen dioxide that mankind would bepushed toward extinction.

As a result of this line of reasoning,three basic measures are being pro¬posed:

explicitly, the control of popula¬tion growth in underdeveloped coun¬tries;

implicitly, a ceiling on the devel¬opment of underdeveloped countries;and

explicitly, a reduction of theemission of major pollutants bydeveloped countries.

What this scheme obviously lacksin logical symmetry if not accepta¬bility is a fourth measure: thatoverpopulated countries reduce theirown demographic numbers and, ifnecessary, their industrial "prédation"upon nature so as to reduce their

claim upon the natural resources ofunderdeveloped countries.

It is of course impossible for under¬developed countries to accept inter¬nationally agreed ceilings for theirpopulation and for their economicdevelopment. These ceilings aremade all the more unacceptable by theunderlying assumption that the popu¬lations and development levels of

developed countries are taken for

granted and not liable to discussion,change, and correction. Lack ofknowledge about the earth's capacityto sustain human life would make such

ceilings anything but a scientificnecessity.

Plans for the Stockholm Conference

were marked by the attitude that the

developed countries have demonstrat¬ed, by their development, a special

right to salvation and perpetuation,thus passing on to the more numerousunderdeveloped peoples the respon¬sibility for creating the necessaryspace on earth. This attitude is all

the more dangerous for being implicitand not normally discussed in public.

Emphasis upon population growth,as such, unlinked to the relationshipof the population to the nationalresource base including geographicalspace is inadequate and unac¬

ceptable.

Countries with more than 100, 200,

or even 300 persons per squarekilometre are thus left outside this

approach, while countries with fewerthan 20 inhabitants per square kilo¬metre are being condemned for demo¬graphic policies that would bring aboutincreased economic efficiency andconstitute a necessary condition fortheir national integration and fulfill¬ment as a human community.

IfcSSENTIAL to the Stock¬

holm approach to environment is theassumption of the universal right of allpeoples to share in the earth's naturalresources. These resources are not

the so-called common goods, like thehigh seas or the bottom of the oceans,but the mineral, animal, soil, and otherresources within national boundaries.

This is, of course, a very beautifulassumption, but it would fit better inthe institutional framework of a world

government and we should not forgetthat we are still very far from this idea.

United Nations action takes placewithin the framework of a world divid¬

ed into national states having a highdegree of sovereignty over the resour¬ces within their borders. This is a fact

of life that, until changed, must bekept in mind.

If this were not so, the still untappednatural resources of underdevelopedcountries very often their only assetsand basis for development wouldquite likely be placed by the StockholmConference within a World Trust and

thus at the disposal of the voracious

industry and consumption of highlydeveloped countries.

Simultaneously the developed world,closely sheltered by its nationalboundaries, would keep basicallyunchanged its economic power, itsindustrial productivity, and its finan¬cial control of the international com¬

munity.

It should be understood that what

is necessary is either one universalframework for all sectors, or a nation¬al framework for all sectors. If

resources are shared in trust by allpeoples, then economic power,industrial productivity, and financialcontrol should also be shared. Since

the latter is considered unthinkable bydeveloped countries, the former

should also be unthinkable by under¬developed countries.

A sensible approach at this stageshould be to:

Establish conditions for more

research in critical areas of the envi¬

ronment field;

Muster countries to initiate nation¬

al and international efforts to preventthe unneccessary loss of unrecover¬able resources;

Provide for a better dissemination

of knowledge in the broad area ofenvironment.

In more specific areas, there should

be a commitment by the great pollutersof world-wide significance to takemeasures to reduce pollution at the

source, or to compensate or neutral¬ize its effects wherever they are felt.And measures should be formulated

to accelerate development of under¬

developed countries so as to reduce

the environmental degradation conse¬quent to poverty and help in thecreation of additional resources for

environmental restoration alongside thedevelopment process.

Furthermore, an effort should be

made to prevent the transfer of partof the costs of environmental im¬

provement in developed countries tothe underdeveloped peoples, throughtrade or financial or technologicalmanipulations.

This is the moment of history inwhich modern science and technology,making full application of both accu¬mulated knowledge and potentialities,is, perhaps for the first time, on theverge of carrying out its promises toprovide abundance for all mankind.

And the most important point I canmake is that now, more than ever, wemust not allow ourselves to be cheat¬

ed of our opportunities, to be sweptinto a period of unnecessary panic,impelled by a lamentably short-sightedinterpretation of trends.

We must not meet unjustifiablefears with dreary solutions: scarcityfor all, reduction of population, andmasochistic castigation of present andfuture generations through economiz¬ing on resources that are far fromexhausted.

Photo Georg Gerster© Rapho, Paris

by Nikolai

Timofeyev-Ressovsky

POWER FROM THE SUN. The French Pyrenees have become a major centre for research into the in¬dustrial uses of solar energy. At the Mont-Louis solar laboratory, a sun-powered furnace has been usedfor specialized metallurgical research during the past 20 years (see "Unesco Courier", Sept. 1958).Today, the first solar "factory" is operating at Odeillo, six miles away. Here, some of the 63 mobilemirrors of its solar furnace capture the sun's rays which another concave mirror as high as a 9 -storeybuilding (not shown here) concentrates on to the furnace itself. "Increasing the world's green plantcover (which absorbs and uses solar energy)," says Nikolai Timofeyev-Ressovsky, "would trapenough energy to raise the productivity of the biosphere 2 to 3 times."

The biosphereis 10 times richer

than we think

NIKOLAI TIMOFEYEV-RESSOVSKY is a dis¬

tinguished Soviet biologist and geneticistwho has published ten major studies andover 300 papers on zoology, biophysics,radiobiology, genetics and ornithology. Thewinner of many scientific awards he Is inter¬nationally famous as a member of manyscientific associations outside and In theU.S.S.R.

'URING the past twentyyears the problem of the populationexplosion has moved to the centre ofworld-wide attention and concern.

Some economists believe that even

with good infrastructural organizationour planet is not capable of feeding(on the basis of current scientific andtechnical possibilities) more than 8 to12,000 million people.

Consequently within the nexthundred years or so nearly half theEarth's population would lack not onlyfood but also the biochemical sub¬

stances so important to modern life.

Over fifty years ago the great

Russian naturalist Vladimir Vernadsky yOdeclared that the industry and **technology of modern man make sucha powerful impact on the earth's

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

THE BIOSPHERE (Continued)

An optimistic view based on hard facts

30

surface that they may be regarded asa "new geological factor". Rapidpopulation growth is accompanied byan equally rapid increase in the scale,volume and intensity of man's technicaland industrial activities.

At this pace it is not inconceivablethat life on our planet and the equili¬brium of the biosphere will ultimatelybe disrupted, with disastrous con¬sequences that might even jeopardizeman's very existence.

At first sight, therefore, the possi¬bility of achieving a balance betweena teeming population and the limitedproductive forces of nature does not

seem very encouraging. It Is predict¬ed that in a hundred years or so agood 50 per cent of the populationwill be "surplus", with no food to eatand perhaps not enough air to breatheand that water will be lacking for bothdomestic use and industry.

It follows that of the major scientificand technical problems before us, thebalance between man and the bio¬

sphere must be regarded as the mosturgent, arid its global solution willneed the participation of all branchesof science, including mathematics.

But let us look at the same questionfrom a more optimistic angle, usingarguments that are not in the leastUtopian but are based on forecaststhat can be made here and now in

the light of current knowledge andachievements.

iI^bARTH is a planet on whichmany varied forms of life have dev¬

eloped. All cosmogonie theories re¬cognize the existence in the Universeof "dead planets", devoid of life. Thegreat peculiarity which makes earth a"living" planet is its characteristicenvelope known as the biosphere.

A rough outline of the working ofthe biosphere shows, first, an intakeof energy from the sun. Within thebiomass vast metabolic reactions take

place as a result of which certainorganisms are born, others die, somefeed on others, make use of their

products, and so on.

It is an immense continuous biolo¬

gical cycle with countless materials andenergy forms changing from onebiological state to another. The cyclealso has an outlet at the point at

which a certain amount of living

matter and energy is lost in theformation of sedimentary rock.

What new resources can this vast

biological cycle offer to man? Let usconsider this question on three levels:the energy intake; the biological cycle;the end of the biological cycle andthe beginning of the geological cycle.

First, the earth receives a certain

amount of solar energy. Of this onlythe fraction absorbed by plantscapable of photosynthesis is of biolo¬gical interest. Of the total energyreceived only 1 to 10 per cent, varyingaccording to geographical region, isabsorbed by plants and not all of itis used for photosynthesis.

We can speak of an "efficiencycoefficient" in Nature just as we canin technology. This coefficient is diffi¬cult to compute exactly but it can besaid to vary between 2 and 8 per cent,depending on the species of plants.

Thus we see that even at the

"intake" point man can do somethingto make plants absorb a greateramount of energy by simply increas¬ing the density of the earth's greencover.

We have to admit that so far he

has done the contrary. In hiseconomic and industrial activities man

reduces this density by over-exploitingforests, pastures and fields. Greencover density is also lower than itneed be because very little is done toreafforestate deserts and reclaim arid

lands.

But it is quite certain that in thepresent state of technology andindustry it is perfectly possible intheory to reverse this process and toraise the density of the green coveron land and in suitable stretches of

water, especially fresh water lakes.

It has been calculated that if this

were done, the rate of absorptionof solar energy would be increased atleast 1è to 2 times. Biologicalproductivity would be substantiallyincreased, probably 2 to 3 times.This is precisely the productionincrease required in the forecasts forthe next hundred years.

Let us now consider the major biolo¬gical cycle itself. Man cannot reallybe regarded as a thrifty manager of hisnatural resources, for he destroys orseriously jeopardizes the balance ofplant life and wildlife. A study of thereproduction of land and water animalsand plants should make it possible toincrease the effective productivity of

the vast biological cycle considerably,simply because a vaster area of the

earth's green cover can sustain agreater number of animals.

In the last ten years genetics thescience of heredity has discoveredmore and more about the structure

and functioning of the genotype, thecode of genetic information trans¬mitted from generation to generation.Soon man will probably be able toinfluence these various phenomena inorder to increase yields and accelerateselective breeding of crops andlivestock, and this too can enormouslyraise the feedback of the biologicalcycle.

We may therefore say that at thelevel of the biological cycle man canobtain eventually two, three or evenmore times as many useful productsas he does today. In Japan, forinstance, over 20 species of algae(seaweeds) are already used in themanufacture of foods for human

consumption and for animal fodder.

us see what increased

potential all this gives us. At thepoint of energy intake the increase inthe rate of absorption of solar energyand plant efficiency gives us a produc¬tivity increase of from 1 to 2, and at the

level of the major biological cycle wehave a further increase of 3 to 4,

which gives a total increase of about6 to 8 times. And this is possiblesolely on the basis of establishedknowledge and current techniques.

Let us now look at another equallyimportant biological problem. Weknow that all over the earth there are

more or less complex biologicalcommunities consisting of numerous

species or organisms living together.So far we do not know by whatmechanisms such communities persistthrough time provided that man does

not disrupt their equilibrium or modifythe species coexisting in them.

When man has found the key tothe balance of nature, he will be able

to obtain infinitely more from thebiological cycle than he does now.He will be able to alter and improvethe earth's biological communities atwill, deliberately, scientifically and tohis advantage. And if this enableshim to raise the biological productivityof the earth a further 1i times, that

will bring the total increase up to tentimes.

Now let us look at our last pointthe "outlet" of the biosphere. Weknow that in some parts of the earth,at the bottom of some lakes, the mud,

due to a mineralization process by

living organisms, turns into solublesalts and is ultimately transformedinto "sapropel", an extremely interest¬ing organic substance mainly compos¬ed of carbohydrates, proteins andfats.

There are already many uses for thissubstance. The Japanese employ thebest quality in foodstuffs, the mediumqualities in animal feed and the lowestas organic fertilizer. In other countriesit is used in sweet-making as a sub¬stitute for gelatine and agar. But byand large it Is still used only in verysmall proportions.

This brings us to a far wider Issue.It is certain that in future it will be the

special task of biotechnical engineersto study the products of the biologicalcycle with a view to preventing thegradual degradation of valuable sub¬stances Into a conglomerate of lowermolecules of little utility, inorganicsalts and limestone.

These specialists will try to harnessthe products of the biosphere at thepoint where they are present in theirmost valuable forms organic macro-molecules of carbohydrates, proteinsand fats, which mankind needs somuch. This is the third level at which

man can increase the natural produc¬tivity of the planet.

I began with a rather pessimisticaccount of the rapidly widening gapbetween population growth and thenatural biological reserves of ourplanet. But after examining theprocesses going on in the biosphereand what we have learned from the

research of leading scientists we canmake a far more optimistic forecast:Man can increase the earth's pro¬ductivity not twice but ten times andmore without damaging the potentialcapacity of the biosphere.

The conclusion is obvious. The

most important and most urgentproblem is that man should learn touse the products of the biosphererationally and with moderation.Scientists must start now to find a

solution.

A first step would be to make anexhaustive inventory of the environ¬ment. Action must be taken im¬

mediately to safeguard nature and todevelop the new technology whichwill eliminate from every branch ofindustry all sources of pollution andcontamination of the biosphere.

Methods used in forestry andfishing, etc. need to be rationalized

at once; greater use should be madeof new species of living organisms;the density of plant cover must berapidly increased; biological produc¬tivity of the various sectors of thebiosphere must be raised.

All these inter-related tasks can be

carried out only if we co-ordinate theefforts of many fields of science anddraw widely on the most modernmaterials and the most varied in¬

dustries. And we should never forgetthat the No.1 problem facing mankindtoday has got to be solved. Formankind it is a matter of life or death.

'VER the past 15 to 20years, the Soviet Government hasshown that the protection of natureis one of its main preoccupations.Among other legal and practical mea¬sures, it has launched vast reaffores¬

tation schemes, made studies of the

hydrological balance of northern water¬ways, of the Caspian and Aral Seas,taken steps to preserve Lake Baikalfrom pollution and introduced laws

concerning soil use and pollution ofair and water, to quote but a fewexamples.

Such action was reinforced and

extended by the adoption, in Sep¬tember 1972, by the U.S.S.R. SupremeSoviet, of a new series of far-reachingmeasures concerning protection of theenvironment and the rational use of

natural resources.

In spite of the effectiveness of

these measures and of those adoptedin other countries, they are not inthemselves enough to resolve many ofthe problems of the pollution of theatmosphere and the oceans. Inter¬

national co-operation is essential sincepollution entails world-wide conse¬quences which can onk be controlled

by the concerted efforts of allcountries.

S.O.S. FOR PLANET EARTH

Classroom studies and children's books are bringinghome the problems of the environment to young peoplein many countries. In Italy the International Book Centreand the Giunti-Bemporad Marzocco publishing house,in Florence, recently brought out an imaginative chil¬dren's book, "S.O.S. for Planet Earth" by A. Pacini andG. Masini. Subtitled "An Ecological Message to all theWorld's Children", it features attractive pull-out and3-dimensional illustrations. Left, Planet Earth imprisonedin a bottle marked poison. Above, pull-out showing,from bottom to top, part of Nature's food chainthreatened by Man's abuses and negligence.

Photos © International Book Centre-Giunti-Bemporad Marzocco.Florence, 1971.

31

MEDITERRANEAN: DANGER! OIL POLLUTION

Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea

(ICSEM, in Monaco), the FAO WorkingParty has commissioned an updatedstudy on the state of pollution in theMediterranean.

A draft agreement between all Medi¬terranean countries has been ham¬

mered out during a series of meetingsin Malta, promoted by a non-govern¬mental organization called "Pacem inMaribus", the members of which are

scientists, lawyers and politicians fromall over the world interested in marine

problems.

There have also been important bi¬lateral and multilateral discussions.

Parliamentary groups from the coun¬tries of the northern Mediterranean

basin, including Italy, France, Yugo

slavia and Monaco, have frequently dis¬cussed the serious problems of theAdriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas.

These direct contacts between coun¬

tries on the shores of the Mediterra¬

nean are in line with the proposalsof the United Nations Conference on

the Human Environment in Stockholm,which has recommended, in an effortto eliminate all voluntary sources ofoil pollution by 1975, that regionalagreements should be concluded for

the protection of specific sea areas.But an agreement between all Medi¬

terranean countries would be of onlyrelative value unless it were also hon¬

oured by all countries (including thoseoutside the Mediterranean) whosetankers use its waters.

For this reason the problem needs

(Continued from page 17)

to be tackled in the amendments to be

made to the 1969 London Convention

and which are to be signed in 1973by IMCO's member countries.

Italy and France have proposed theinclusion in the 1973 Convention of a

section concerning the Mediterraneanand other "special areas". This wouldspecify what anti-pollution measuresshould be taken and would make com¬

pulsory the installation and use of

plants for treating tanker ballast.The building of such plants at all

terminals where crude oil is loaded

would be an immediate and practicalsolution, since the Mediterranean can

no longer wait for long-term solutionsand the theoretical prospects of newtechnologies to mature.

Carlo Munns

A WORLD POLICY FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

32

recommended that the environment

secretariat should be located in Nai¬

robi (Kenya).

Innovations now undertaken at na¬

tional and international levels should,within a few years, give us some prac¬tical evidence of how best to struc¬

turally organize and integrate develop¬mental and environmental goals andoperational programme. To obtain aninput of information, properly balancedin relation to programme needs, pre¬sents an additional challenge.

Availability of information in a usableform is a necessary, but insufficient,step toward better environmental deci¬sions. There is also need to insure

that a broad spectrum of decision¬makers are aware of the availabilityof the data, and that they correctlyappraise its significance for their work.

Both the Biosphere Conference andthe U.N. Stockholm Conference re¬

commended education and trainingprogrammes for technical, professional,and administrative personnel to enablethem more effectively to integrate eco¬logical concepts into their work. And,because many environmental decisionsrequire a scientific input, it has beennecessary to improve the ability ofscientists to advise and to assist publicofficials in arriving at ecologicallyvalid environmental and developmentaldecisions.

Prior to the Stockholm Conference,the International Council of ScientificUnions' Scientific Committee on Prob¬

lems of the Environment brought to¬gether, at Canberra (Australia), a groupof scientists from developing countriesfor the purpose of clarifying environ¬mental issues, especially in relationto development objectives.

Regional seminars for officials,chiefly from developing countries, weresponsored by the United NationsEconomic Commissions and the

Regional Office in Beirut; and theSecretary-General of the UnitedNations Conference on the HumanEnvironment convened a panel ofexperts in June 1971 at Founex

(Switzerland) to consider the inter¬relationships of development andenvironment, with emphasis on policyformulation and action.

These efforts are among the moreimportant of a much larger number ofofficial and unofficial conferences,seminars, and workshops intendedultimately to improve the quality ofenvironmental decision-making. Pre-Stockholm efforts in this direction werenecessarily experimental; post-Stock¬holm training for environmental deci¬sion-making will almost certainly be¬come a regular and continuing func¬tion of many public agencies and scien¬tific and commercial organizations.

The purpose of decision-making isto arrive at a judgment regardingproposed action: whether, how, orwhen to act. A decision against actionmay be as significant as one for action,and the way in which a decision ismade may be as important as thesubstance of what is decided.

ÍT international levels, thediversities among nations require abroad base of deliberation for deci¬

sions that affect all or large groups ofnational states. At national levels (butincreasingly at international levelsalso) there is need to benefit from thecontributions of the non-governmentalorganizations to the decision process.Non-governmental organizations werestrongly represented at the StockholmConference and made major direct andindirect contributions to official action.

A structure for environmental deci¬

sion-making is thus emerging, slowly

(Continued from page 6)

perhaps in relation to need butrapidly by historical precedent. Thisstructure may in time provide acoherent system for environmentaldecision-making that links all politicallevels local, national, regional, andinternational, and that provides regularchannels for continuous communica¬

tion among scientists, planners, anddecision-makers, as well as betweenofficial and non-governmental agencies.But meanwhile, who makes the deci¬sions on environmental affairs?

A superficial answer would be:almost everybody or in some in¬stances, nobody. The present disordersof our global environment reflect theinadequacy of our decision process atall jurisdictional levels. No nation asyet can claim true expertise in envi¬ronmental management. The so-calleddeveloped nations are only a fewyears ahead of the developing statesin awareness and experience.

Environmental protection technolo¬gies may be rapidly transferred wherereceptive conditions exist. Awarenessof the need for wise environmental

management is rapidly becoming evi¬dent among the leadership in manydeveloping countries. Ecologicallysound policies are increasingly under¬stood to go hand in hand with effect¬ive development. There is indeedground for optimism that, at least,some developing countries may bringtheir environmental problems undercontrol more rapidly than will the olderindustrialized states.

The task of international environ¬

mental and developmental policy todayis to develop the concepts, criteria,and institutional arrangements whichwill give the best chances for publicaction addressed to the broad rangeof human needs experienced by allmankind.

Lynton K. Caldwell

\iï pib G3

Unesco General Conference

Unesco has now embarked on the world

programme for 1973-74 in science, edu¬cation and culture adopted by its GeneralConference in Paris on November 21.

The conference, at which the People'sRepublic of China was represented forthe first time, approved a budget of$119,954,000 for the Unesco programme.Admission of Bangladesh and the GermanDemocratic Republic during the confer¬ence brings Unesco's membership to 131.

Nature conservation projectA project to distribute to schoolchildren

booklets on nature conservation written

and illustrated by educators and artists inKenya, India and Venezuela is beinglaunched by the International Union forConservation of Nature and Natural

Resources in collaboration with Unesco.

A Unesco Gift Coupon Project* will payfor the design and printing of the booklets.* Protect No. 528. For further information onUnesco Gift Coupons a form of Internationalmoney order which beneficiaries in developingcountries can use to buy school supplies andothers materials write to: Unesco Gift CouponProgramme, Place de Fontenoy, Parls-7°.

International science prizesTwo international science prizes were

presented by Mr. René Maheu, Unesco's

c '

rnLÍLDirector-General, at Unesco H.Q. in Parison November 22. The Unesco Science

Prize for achievements of special value tothe developing countries was awardedjointly to Dr. Viktor Kovda, the distinguishedSoviet soil scientist and to a group ofnine Austrian scientists who developed anew and cheaper way to make steel. TheKalinga Prize for the Popularization ofScience was awarded to the internationally-known French physicist, Prof. Pierre Auger.Prof. Auger has written and broadcast regu¬larly for the public, and helped to bringscience into the programmes of the FrenchRadio and Television Service.

Jawaharlal Nehru fellowshipfor Indian graphic artist

The young Indian graphic artist Narendra(Narendra Nath Srivastava) has beenawarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial

Foundation Fellowship for his work in thedevelopment of Devanagari script used forwriting Hindi and Sanskrit. In ourDecember 1972 issue on the Art of the

Book, we published a work by Narendra(not Navendra, as misprinted in the captionon page 35) entirely composed of his newly-designed Devanagari characters. An exhi¬bition of paintings by Narendra was heldin Pans last month.

To save Venice

A series of four gold and silver medallionshave been issued by the "Venezia Nostra"Foundation (Italy), as part of Unesco'sinternational campaign to save Venice.Funds from their sale, which closed onDecember 31, 1972, will be used to restorethe famous Rialto bridge. The reverseside of the medallions are an exact replicaof a 16th century Venetian sequin, anancient gold coin.

Dr. Hans Rieben

The "Unesco Courier" regrets toannounce the death, in Berne onNovember 23, 1972, of Dr. HansRieben, managing editor of ourGerman language edition since itbegan publication In 1960.

FURTHER READING ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Planet in Peril

by R.F. Dasmann. Co-edition Unesco-World Publishing, New York,1972, $8.95; Unesco-Penguin Books Ltd., London, 1972, paperback30p, 4 F, $1.25 (Canada) (see inside back cover).

The Problems of the Arid Zone

Proceedings of the Paris symposium, Unesco, 1962, £3.85.

Use and Conservation of the BiosphereViews and findings of scientists at the first world conference onMan and the Biosphere, at Unesco, Paris, 1968. Unesco, 1970,£1.80, $6.

In Partnership with Natureby Daniel Behrman. Unesco, Paris, 1972.

Development and EnvironmentReport and working papers of a panel of experts convened by theSecretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the HumanEnvironment, Founex, Switzerland. Mouton, Paris, The Hague, 1972.

The Limits to Growth

A report for the Club of Rome's project on the predicament ofmankind, by Dennis and Donella Meadows, Jörgen Randers andWilliam Behrens. Universe Books, New York, 1972. $2.75.

Only One Earthby Barbara Ward and René Dubos. André Deutsch, London,£2.95; Penguin Books Ltd., 1972, paperback 45p.

1972,

The Geography of Hungerby Josué de Castro. Little Brown, Boston (U.S.A.) Gollancz,London, 1952.

Of Men and Crabs

by Josué de Castro. Vanguard Press, New York, 1970.

The Challenge of World Povertyby Gunnar Myrdal. Pantheon Books, New York, 1970.

Asian Drama

An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, by Gunnar Myrdal.Abridgement by Seth S. King. Pantheon Books, New York, 1972.

The Careless TechnologyEcology and International Development, edited by M. Taghi

Farvar and lohn P. Milton. The Natural History Press New York1972, $25.

The Community of Living Things: In the Desert (A. and E. Klots),In Field and Meadow (E. Schneider Ress, ed.), In Forest andWoodland (S. Collins), In Fresh and Salt Water (B.B. Cadbury),In Parks and Gardens (RS. Lemmon). All volumes publishedin co-operation with the National Audubon Society, N.Y. by Crea¬tive Educational Society, Inc., Mankato, Minn. '(U.S A ) 1967$5.95 each.

Resources and Man

A study and recommendations by the Committee on Resourcesand Man, National Academy of Sciences. W.H. Freeman andCompany, San Francisco, 1969, clothbound $5.95, paper, $2.95.

Population, Resources, Environmentby Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. W.H. Freeman and Com¬pany, San Francisco, 2nd ed. 1972.

World Eco-Crisis: International Organizations in Responseby David A. Kay and Eugene B. Skolnikoff. University of Wis¬consin Press, U.S.A., 1972.

Biosphere: A Study of Lifeby N.M. Jessop. Prentice-Hall Inc., New Jersey, U.S.A., 1970.

Teaching for Survival

A Handbook for Environmental Education, by Mark Terry. Ballan-tine Books Inc., New York, 1971.

Man in the Living EnvironmentA Report on Global Ecological Problems. Published for theInstitute of Ecology by The University of Wisconsin Press, 1972.

Basic Issues in Environment

by Ira J. Winn. Charles E.Ohio, 1972.

Merrill Publishing Co., Columbus,

Political Economy of EnvironmentProblems of Method. Co-edltlon Ecole Pratique des HautesEtudes, Paris, and Mouton, Paris and The Hague, 1972, 34 F.

The Closing Circleby Barry Commoner. Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, 1972.

33

Letters to the Editor

THE EMERGENCE OF MAN

Sir,

This letter is sent to you by a groupof school mothers with children in a

private school at Berne (Switzerland).We meet every Monday afternoon forcultural group work. Several membersof our group are subscribers to yourmagazine and we have used many ofyour interesting and well compiledissues in our discussions.

Our discussions roam into manyfields, e.g. education, religion, philo¬sophy, etc., but our main theme mightbe summed up as "Man, as a physical,soulful and spiritual Being, his origin,development and future within the pres¬ent, highly materialistic and technicalworld."

Our letter is brought up by yourAugust-September 1972 issue, "TheEmergence of Man". This question is ofparamount importance to us and a replyis a human necessity, not only of passingscientific interest. We were deeplydisappointed by the contents of thisissue. Such a criticism does not applyto the make-up of the magazine.

The problem of the origin of Manconcerns every individual on earth. Thereply shapes his attitude towards lifeand fellow-beings. It therefore hardlyseems proper to base a reply quitenarrow-mindedly on only one scientifichypothesis. The question of origin anddescent of Man has been raised ever

since he appeared on earth and a widerange of answers were given. In yourissue, the reply is based on one theory,formulated only a short time ago andtransformed several times since its

conception.

Evolution is a factor not to be neglect¬ed in a reply to the question about theorigin of Man. One version followsDarwin and Haeckel through a long lineof anthropomorphous apes to Man.Another version, as taught by onebranch of modern evolutionary research,remains within the field of materialistic

matter and reduces everything: life,perception, spiritual activity to variablechemical processes. The differencebetween these versions is only one ofdegree, but at least both should havebeen covered.

Since the first unquestionable andestablished traces of Man, which yourissue shows in his artistic endeavour

(tools, ornaments, rock carvings andpaintings, etc.), he has asked himselfthis question during thousands of years.His questions resulted in many differentreplies, but this basic experience ofmankind is not even mentioned in yourissue.

Since remote antiquity, Man felthimself to be a creation, if not even

a part of higher powers. Of importanceto him were those influences which

turned him into a feeling, aspiring, res¬ponsible being. He over-emphasizedthis part of his entity, to the exclusionof other parts, so that in time thenecessity arose for him to becomeconscious as well of the origin of hisphysical body.

Your magazine is published in manylanguages and it reaches almost all

countries of the world. In the hand of

a teacher it turns into a tool for shapingfuture generations. The danger isgreatest in the underdeveloped coun¬tries, with the almost complete absenceof sufficient teaching aids and books,that such pictures are accepted at facevalue and without any doubts. Thisalso applies to the text, insofar as thiscan be easily read or translated. Gener¬ations, striving towards a new andoverall view of the world, get this one¬sided Darwinian version of the "strugglefor survival" and "natural selection"

drummed into their brains as proof oftheir descent from the apesl

We feel that you are fully aware ofthe tremendous responsibility involvedin your work. Unfortunately, it seemsto have escaped your awareness howdestructive such a biased reply mustbecome in the minds of people, whereuntold preceding generations knewthemselves to be in contact with a spi¬ritual reality, or where such a relationwas being sought for. Your reply tearsthem away from such relations. Man isthrown back exclusively to his purelyphysical organism, and is linked intoa evolutionary chain created by chanceand uncontrolled mutations.

Any thinking person can accept"Creation and Evolution", or "Creationwith Evolution", if both are being di¬rected towards a pre-planned goal underthe guidance of some higher wisdom.The chance product of unplanned biolo¬gical and chemical reactions and muta¬tions cannot be held responsible forany results of his actions, even if hedestroys himself and others in theclutches of drugs, drinks or passions.Not one problem of human society orof mankind can be solved by ignoringthe human-spiritual components of Man.Unesco, a champion for the dignity andthe rights of mankind, cannot be allow¬ed to feel content with the concept ofMan as a purely physical being aloneand with the belief, that the humanrace is exclusively the product of freakmutations within biological and chemicalprocesses.

A materialistic belief, as it was still

proclaimed by Kautsky, may not beconsidered as up-to-date and bindingin our days. The overcoming of mater¬ialism should have progressed beyondthe stage requested by Driesch andothers. The "Unesco Courier" owes

it to its readers to inform them of the

latest developments in research and theresults obtained thereby.

In a question as important as theone about the origin of Man, theviewpoint of modern scientists, to men¬tion only Einstein, Oppenheimer andHeisenberg is a decisive factor in arenewed humanism.

From many of your former issues wehave formed the opinion that yourorganization, more than others, looksupon Man as a free and morally respon¬sible being. If this is correct, thebiased theory of the origin of Man,applying to the human body only,cannot suffice in itself. In the records

of great religions and nations, as wellas in modern spiritual research, maybe found a host of references to and

proofs for the physical-soulful-spiritualorigin of mankind.

Therefore, we hope that a futureissue might try to probe a bit deeperfor a reply to the question: "Whereare the origins of Man as an entity?"

Dr. J. Hildesheimer

Spiegel bei Bern, Switzerland

This letter was signed by 31 membersof the Bernese Monday Group of schoolmothers and by about 280 other per¬sons who support the views in the letter

THE GREAT HERITAGE OF IRAN

Sir,

I have read with great interest yourarticle in the July 1972 issue of the"Unesco Courier" entitled "Renaissance

of Arab Thought and Literature".

It is indeed, fascinating to note theimportant scientific and cultural impactof Islamic civilization on the history ofmankind.

There is, however, a point of histor¬ical clarification, well known to pro¬fessionals In the field, which may notbe evident to all of your readers. Atthe height of its glory, the broad Islamicempire, was the melting pot of manydifferent races, languages and cultures.During this golden age, the rich andpowerful arabic language became themajor source of universal scientific andliterary communication. The treasuresof this intellectual and philosophicalheritage had emanated from manydifferent nations and races, which

eventually coalesced into the greatfamily of Islam. It may, therefore, beappropriate to pay due tribute to thegreat scientists, philosophers andwriters of Islam, not only as the torch-bearers of Islam, but also as the heirsof those nations which composed theIslamic empire.

Many of the great writers mentionedin your article, such as Ibn al-Muqaffa,Ibn-Sina (Avicenna), Al-Khwarazmi, Al-Biruni, Ar-Razi and Al-Farabi, were ofIranian origin. They wrote in theirmother tongue (Persian), and madenumerous long-lasting scientific contri¬butions in Arabic, that rich language ofIslam.

In our day, many scientists of allnations, choose to write for instance,in English. Evidently, the choice of acommon means of communication does

not reflect on one's national origin.

The above note is brought tothe attention of your readers in theinterest of historical accuracy. Looking,however, from a higher plateau, beyondall national boundaries, great menbelong to all mankind.

Prof. F. Reza

Ambassador, Permanent Delegateof Iran at Unesco

The article in our July 1972 Issue dealtwith Arab and Islamic thought as aworld phenomenon irrespective of thenational origins of the various scientistsand scholars mentioned. Only a fewmonths earlier a special issue wasentirely devoted to "Iran, Cultural Cross¬roads for 2,500 Years" (Oct. 1971)where the contributions of all the

scientists mentioned by AmbassadorReza were described In detail Editor.

A Unesco guide

to man

and the biosphere

A basic guide for the ordinaryreader to the problems of theenvironmental crisis, written for

Unesco by Raymond F. Das-mann, Senior Ecologist at theInternational Union for theConservation of Nature and

Natural Resources.

Explains the complexities ofthe biosphere the thin layer ofair, water and land on our planetwhere life exists and man's in¬

creasing impact on it in termsthat everyone will grasp.

Essential reading for everyonewho wants to understand the

global problems of safeguardingand improving the quality of life.

PLANET IN PERIL?'.'AN AND THL BIOSPHtkt TODAY

U.K. EDITION. Paperback

Co-edition Penguin Books-Unesco. Exclu¬sive distributor in U.K.:Penguin BooksLtd., 1972. 135 pages, illustrated. 30 pence,4F, $1.25 (Canada). Not for sale in U.S.or Philippines.

U.S. EDITION. Clothbound

Co-edition World Publishing-Unesco.Distributor in U.S. and Philippines:World Publishing, New York, 1972.242 pages, ill. $8.95 (U.S.).Not for sale In U.K.

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Animal shadowland

The ancient and almost forgotten art of the outline, commonlyand erroneously called the "silhouette" has been brought

to a flowering which it has perhaps rarely known beforeby an American artist born in Florence, Italy, Ugo Mochi.His designs are not only works of supreme beauty but alsodetailed and scientifically accurate studies of wildlife, birds,animals and nature. Two examples are shown above. SeealSO Centre pageS. Photos C The American Museum of Natural History, New York