TABLE 1.-WEIGHT OF BASIC MATERIALS PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES PLUS NET IMPORTS, 1963 [106 tons] Of the "active" inputs, perhaps three-quarter of the overall weight is eventually discharged to the atmosphere as carbon (combined with atmospheric oxygen in the form of CO or CO2) and hydrogen (combined with atmospheric oxygen as H2O) under current conditions. This results from combustion of fossil fuels and from animal respiration. Discharge of carbon dioxide can be considered harmless in the short run. There are large "sinks" (in the form of vegetation and large water bodies, mainly the oceans) which re-absorb this gas although there is evidence of net accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. Some experts believe that the latter is likely to show a large relative increase-as much as 50 percentby the end of the century possibly giving rise to significant-and probably, on balance, adverse weather changes. Thus continued combustion of fossil fuels at a high rate could produce externalities affecting the entire world. The effects associated with most residuals will normally be more confined-usually limited to regional air and water sheds. 3 The remaining residuals are either gases (like carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide-all potentially harmful even in the short run), or dry solids (like rubbish and scrap) and wet solids (like garbage, sewage, and industrial wastes suspended or dissolved in water). In a sense, the solids are the irreducible limiting form of waste. By the application of appropriate equipment and energy, all undesirable substances can in principle be removed from water and air streams --but what is left must obviously be solid. Looking at the matter in this way, clearly reveals a primary interdependence between the various waste streams which, as previously noted, casts into doubt the traditional classification of air, water, and land pollution as individual categories for planning and control policy. But solid residuals, or for that matter those that remain in a liquid or gaseous state, do not necessarily have to be discharged to the environment. In many instances, it is possible to recycle them back into the productive system. The materials balance view underlines the fact that the total materials throughput necessary to maintain a given level of production and consumption decreases as the technical efficiency of utilization (i.e., recycle of materials) increases. Similarly, Excluding stone, sand, gravel, and other minerals used for structural purposes, ballast, fillers, insulation, etc. We also disregard gangue and mine tailings in this tally. 3 See Implications of Rising Carbon Dioxide Content of the Atmosphere (New York: Conservation Foundation, 1963). There is strong evidence already that discharge of residuals has already affected the climate of individual cities. See William P. Lowry, "The Climate of Cities," Scientific American, August 1967. Except CO2 which may be harmful in the long run, as noted. the useful lifetime of goods is closely related to the net throughput of the system. The longer cars, buildings, machinery, and other durables last, the fewer new materials are required to compensate for depreciation or sustain a given rate of capital accumulation. Finally, the more efficient energy conversion processes can be made (in the strict energy conversion or Carnot cycle sense), the fewer waste products there will be for the environment to receive, for a given total energy production. Perfect utilization of carbonaceous fossil fuels would leave only water and carbon dioxide as residuals, while nuclear energy conversion need leave no chemical residuals at all (although thermal pollution and radiation hazards cannot be dismissed). Table 2 presents estimates of the amounts of emissions to the atmosphere by type and sources. The estimates are based on a materials balance calculation. The roles of transportation-mostly automobiles-and utilities power in the overall emissions picture are striking. TABLE 2.-SUMMARY OF RESIDUALS FROM ENERGY CONVERSION, 1965 Source: Based on calculations in Robert U. Ayres and Allen V. Kneese, "Environmental Pollution," paper prepared at the request of the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress of the United States. Another illustrative calculation is presented in Table 3. This shows estimates of materials flow in human nutrition under U.S. conditions. Chart II (p. 147) puts the residuals from food on a per capita basis and adds flows from household use of other non-durable and durable goods. This chart shows clearly some major interdependencies between liquid, solid, and gaseous residuals streams. In the household and as in other sections they can be traded off for one another to a far-reaching extent. Note: All figures prefaced by ~ are estimates based on plausible allocations of protein, carbohydrate, and fat. 1 Not including oxygen from the air; proportions based on combustion of sugar (CH100s) yielding CO, and H2O. 2 Sewage solids estimated at 0.55 lb. per capita per day; nitrogen content of sewage sludge (3 percent to 4.3 percent) taken from O. E. Albertson, "Low Cost Combustion of Sewage Sludges," Water Pollution Control Federation Meeting (1963). 3 Assuming the population increase is 3.2 percent (of the biomass) per year, and the death rate is 2 percent (of the biomass), leaving a net increase of 1.2 percent. Source: Based on calculations in Robert U. Ayres and Allen V. Kneese, "Environmental Pollution," a paper preparid for inclusion in "Federal Programs for the Development of Human Resources," a compendium assembled by the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress (forthcoming). * This stream is cut out if electricity is used. The waste stream then appears in the electric power sector. +Potential for external cost. ---- Alternative flows. Given the population, industrial production, and transport services in an economy (a regional rather than a national economy would normally be the relevant one), it is possible to visualize combinations of social policy which could lead to quite different relative burdens placed on the various residuals-receiving environmental media; or, given the possibilities for recycle and less residualgenerating production processes, the overall burden to be placed upon the environment as a whole. To take one extreme, a region which went in heavily for electric space heating and wet scrubbing of stack gases (from steam plants and industries) which ground up its garbage and delivered it to the sewers and then discharged the raw sewage to watercourses, would protect its air resources to an unusual extent. But this would come at the sacrifice of pacing a heavy residuals load upon water resources. On the other hand, a region which treated municipal and industrial waste water streams to a high level but relied heavily on the incineration of sludges and solid wastes, would protect its water and land resources but at the expense of discharging waste residuals predominantly to the air. Finally, a region which practiced high-level recovery and recycle of waste materials and fostered low-residual production processes to a far-reaching extent in each of the economic sectors might discharge very little residual waste to any of the environmental media. In the transportation sector-which is the greatest single source of gaseous residuals and also a very significant source of solid wastes-a variety of residuals and cost tradeoffs are also possible. For example, powering automobiles electrically and supplying energy for them from conventional steam plants would tend to greatly reduce carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions to the atmosphere but at the same time would increase SO, unless the waste gases from the power plant were treated. If treatment took the form of wet scrubbing, discharges to the water environment would be increased. If dry sulfur recovery processes were used, overall discharges to the environment would be reduced but NO, emissions less so than the others. Mass transit substitutes for individual cars would greatly reduce emissions as would the substitution of steam (external combustion) engines for conventional internal combustion engines. If electric vehicles were, as has been suggested, longer lived than conventional automobiles, another major residuals problem would be significantly reduced in intensity. Further complexities are added by the fact that sometimes it is possible to modify an environmental medium through investment in control facilities so as to improve its assimilative capacity. The clearest, but far from only, example is with respect to watercourses where reservoir storage can be used to augment low river flows which ordinarily are associated with critical pollution situations. Approach to planning and policy In light of the intricate and interdependent nature of the problem, the piecemeal and ad hoc approach we have taken to environmental protection in the past seems clearly unsuited to the present situation. A more systematic approach to the forecasting and management of residuals is needed if we are to achieve not only a better environment but achieve it at an acceptable cost. The appropriate area for such management is the "problem shed"-the region impacted by waste residual discharges and in which effective systems of controls can be exercised. Such a region will be difficult to define and clearly may differ in extent as the focus shifts from the air to the water and to the land environment. Research progress is being made on the question of the appropriate regions for analysis and control; on providing more accurate and detailed forecasts of economic development and the residuals associated with it; on mathematically modelling the meteorological and hydrological systems which, given a rate of emissions, determine the concentrations of foreign substances and their probabilities and duration; and finally, on the measurement of damages caused by these substances in the environment. All these tools must be brought together to plan more rational and effective environmental management strategies in our regions. But a reasonably careful review of the level of work in these areas suggests it is not nearly commensurate with the urgency of the problems we confront in creating a better environment. STATEMENT OF DR. DOUGLAS L. BROOKS, PRESIDENT, THE TRAVELERS RESEARCH CENTER, INC., HARTFORD, CONN. These hearings have illustrated most effectively that better management of our environment is, or ought to be, everybody's business. For most of us, however, it would involve complexities which are orders of magnitude beyond what we have come to think of as "business as usual." In fact, after listening to these most instructive proceedings, I will make a prediction about one probable consequence of establishing environmental quality control as a national objective. It is almost certain to produce a nation-wide identity crisis! Scientists are going to have to become humanists, harnessing their methods and knowledge to the yoke of human service. Humanists must become, if not scientists, at least connoisseurs and critics of systems and societies as well as of individuals, the objective "out there" as well as the subjective "in here." Politicians must transform the art of the possible-which someone has defined as "steering a course of least resistance among competing special interests"-into the art of the impossible; that is, how to bring all special interests, no matter how powerful, to jointly secure the long run collective interest, even when the latter has no ready advocate. We must all become ecologists-and ecologists must transcend their tradition of being primarily naturalists and become "hard" scientists, and so I come full circle. A tall order, but the alternative is an accelerating plunge of the human spirit into perhaps eternal shadow where the correspondingly dizzy rise of the GNP to unprecedented heights will never even be perceived. What, in less poetic terms, must be done? The last five years has produced a large body of literature on the subject, to some of which I have contributed. It, like these hearings, boils down to this. In simplest terms, we need two things: information, and people who will act on that information. This means, first, government people, and at the Federal level, most importantly Congress, since in domestic affairs, at least, even when the Executive proposes it is Congress that disposes. I leave it to those who know whether Congress is organized properly to receive, recognize, and act on information diagnostic and prognostic of our environmental ills. Is that information available? In great part, yes. The Departments of Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, HEW, Transportation, HUD, aided by programs supported under an impressive array of legislation, have produced great amounts. So has the scientific community. It needs to be properly packaged, however, and communicated in timely and appropriate fashion to a Congressional body committed to its wise and far-seeing use. The institutional means for doing so is lacking, however, as I have said elsewhere." The greatest and potentially most serious lack, however, is fundamental information concerning future consequences of present action. For this we need a genuine working theory of the environment and of man/environment interactions. To get one, we will need Not fewer physicists, chemists, biologists and economists, but more environmentalists, cross-disciplinary generalists who will pioneer the development of the new field of environmental management; Not fewer university departments built around well-established fields, but more environmental institutes or centers-not necessarily university basedconcerned with a whole new realm of phenomena, environment, and man interactions; Not less attention to theories of the cosmos or of the cell, but more effort devoted to the development of a theory which portrays how the environment reacts to pressures put upon it by man and in turn produces pressures on man and his communities. I have elsewhere' described the kind of institute or, preferably, institutes I feel are needed. A short-hand term for them might be "Environmental Management Laboratories." They will require money and imagination, and even then will be a long time in staffing, training, observing, modeling, and experimenting before acceptable holistic designs for "Spaceship Earth" begin to appear. But since we badly need today these fruits of what may be decades of work, I suggest its high time we begin. NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY, Washington, D.C., August 22, 1968. Hon. EMILIO Q. DADDARIO, Washington, D.C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN DADDARIO: I am responding to your invitation to submit additional comments in connection with the Joint House-Senate Colloquium of July 17. I would like to emphasize several points which came out in the discussion, but which I feel require special emphasis. These comments relate to the following points: (1) the setting of standards for the environment, (2) the degree 1 Reference: Social Sciences and the Environment, Garnsey and Hibbs, eds., University of Colorado Press, 1967. |