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MANAGING TECHNOLOGICAL HAZARDS: SUCCESS, STRAIN, AND SURPRISE 218 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. the same time the potential for closed-cycle production, inherently clean or safe processes, and robotics will provide new opportunities for hazard reduction. The new institutions and activities developed over the last 15 years to cope with hazards in our own country have proved inadequate so far to cope with the newer regional-and global-scale problems exemplified by the biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfurâthe basic elements of life. Research over the last 15 years has led to quantitative estimates of the degree of human modification of these natural cycles (Holdgate et al., 1982, p. 623). The annual release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from the consumption of fossil fuels equals about 10 percent of that being used by plants for photosynthesis. The formation of nitrogen oxides and nitrate in the course of fuel combustion and fertilizer manufacture equals about half of what the biosphere produces naturally. The amount of sulfur oxides released to the atmosphere, primarily from fossil fuel burning, exceeds the natural flux from decaying organic matter. These seem to be large alterations in natural cycles, but their long-term implications and synergistic interaction are uncertain. Over the next 15 years we will surely learn more about these fundamental processes, but our science is likely to exceed our social and political capacity to act upon such understanding. Finally, there will be surprisesâsurprises that in turn will generate new concerns and activities. There will also be other concerns and surprises unrelated to technological hazards: international tensions, social change, and resource needs. As in the past, these will replace technological hazards on center stage, but the work in the wings will continue. The fundamental attitudinal and institutional changes of recent years have acquired a momentum of their own. The effort to compensate the past, make safe the present, and protect the future will continue. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In preparing this paper, I have drawn extensively on the collective research and insight of the Clark University Center for Technology, Environment, and Development Hazard Assessment Group and particularly Christoph Hohenemser, Kirsten Johnson, Jeanne X. Kasperson, Roger E. Kasperson, and Mary Melville. In addition, I have had the benefit of thoughtful comments from Jesse Ausubel, Meredith Golden, and Howard Kunreuther. A slightly different version of this paper appeared in Issues in Science and Technology vol. 2, no. 1 (Fall 1985):46â58.
