The Proper Use Of Science Is Not

What The New Fertilizer Technology Has Accomplished For The Farmer Is Clear: More Crop Can Be Produced On Less Acreage Than Before. Since The Cost Of Fertilizer, Relative To The Resultant Gain In Crop Sales, Is Lower Than That Of Any Other Economic Input, And Since The Land Bank Pays The Farmer For Acreage Not In Crops, The New Technology Pays Him Well. The Cost-in Environmental Degradation-is Borne By His Neighbors In Town Who Find Their Water Polluted. The New Technology Is An Economic Success-but Only Because It Is An Ecological Failure.

The Favorite Statistic Is That The U.s. Contains 6 To 7% Of The World Population But Consumes More Than Half The World's Resources And Is Responsible For That Fraction Of The Total Environmental Pollution. But This Statistic Hides Another Vital Fact: That Not Everyone In The U.s. Is So Affluent.

Perhaps One Of The Most Meaningful Ways To Sense The Impact Of The Environmental Crisis Is To Confront The Question Which Is Always Asked About Lake Erie: How Can We Restore It? I Believe The Only Valid Answer Is That No One Knows. For It Should Be Clear That Even If Overnight All Of The Pollutants Now Pouring Into Lake Erie Were Stopped, There Would Still Remain The Problem Of The Accumulated Mass Of Pollutants In The Lake Bottom.

All Of The Clean Technologies Are Known, It's A Question Of Simply Applying Them.

The Age Of Innocent Faith In Science And Technology May Be Over.