Research to Protect, Restore, and Manage the Environment (1993) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Strengths and Weaknesses of Current Federal Environmental Research Programs
3 Strengths and Weaknesses of Current Federal Environmental Research Programs
Pages 35-66
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From page 35... ...
Appendix A describes the environmental research programs of federal agencies. On the basis of the assessment presented here, Chapter 4 describes the desirable characteristics of a federal environmental program.
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From page 36... ...
During the last two decades, the atmospheric, oceanic, and geophysical communities have developed coordinated global research programs that use the new insights and technology that are now available. Examples of such programs are the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958)
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From page 37... ...
Why Are We Not Doing Better? Global environmental research programs are costly, because they require expensive technology such as satellites, weather stations, ships, and supercomputer~and dedicated personnel.
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From page 38... ...
The unsatisfactory state of current ecological science reflects both the complexity of the processes it studies and the relatively low level of funding that has been allocated to ecology. Shortage of funds has resulted in intense competition between the still-needed small-scale, investigator-initiated research and large-scale, and often multi-investigator, long-term research.
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From page 39... ...
Biodiversity research requires a long-term perspective and sustained funding because the tasks of description and inventory are complex and because monitoring of trends must continue for many years to reveal useful patterns. The infrastructure elements required by research on biodiversity include museums, specimen-based databases, and data synthesis.
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From page 40... ...
and the report of the National Commission on the Environment (NCE, 1993) , there is a need for centralized research planning, for assembling and synthesizing existing information, and for making information more accessible to policy-makers.
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From page 41... ...
Many universities have found it difficult to continue supporting museums and herbariums during times of fiscal stringency. Therefore, although there is now increasing recognition of the importance of biodiversity research, the United States lacks a sufficient cadre of trained taxonomists, has inadequate and insufficiently curated collections, and is confronted with huge backlogs of specimens waiting to be identified or described as new species.
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From page 42... ...
Secondary pollution effects can be reduced in some industries by creating more efficient manufacturing or pollution-control technologies, which might, for example, require much less energy. If industry can capture the economic benefits of those technologies, no government incentives are needed to encourage them.
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From page 43... ...
Because the United States has relied almost exclusively on a regulatory command and control approach to environmental pollution, the private sector perceives little incentive to invest in development of cleanup technologies from which a direct economic benefit appears unlikely. Therefore, the task of carrying out most pollution-prevention research has been thrust on federal agencies whose primary responsibilities are to promulgate and enforce regulations.
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From page 44... ...
Two decision sciences, operations research and risk analysis, are particularly pertinent for the environmental sciences. Operations research is a formal approach for analyzing information.
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From page 45... ...
The study of humans from an ecological perspective provides an important conceptual link between social and natural sciences by dealing with how humans take part in the cycles and changes of the natural world. Although anthropological theory has not yet had a large direct influence on environmental policy, anthropological and historical analyses of societies that declined because their economies were not sustainable over the long term have shaped contemporary thinking about the purpose of having environmental policies.
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From page 46... ...
Therefore, the instances in which social science has produced effective social engineering remain few, and that situation is likely to persist. Even in the absence of social engineering, however, social science provides essential substantive information on the magnitudes and historical dynamics of population growth and migration, economic development, political behavior, and technological chang~forces that shape the human imprint on the natural world in fundamental, large-scale ways.
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From page 47... ...
More recently, as such issues as changes in the constitution of the atmosphere or loss of biodiversity in tropical nations have arisen, it has become clear that global environmental problems, like the "nonpoint" problems that have defied technological cures in the United States, raise unavoidable questions about how changes in human behavior can be attained In ways that are fair and efficient. The contributions to understanding that can be realized by simply bringing together what we already know-and those who already know it-have begun to gain attention in government.
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From page 48... ...
Moreover, the utility of social-science research depends on informed communication between physical scientists and social scientist~an interchange that is all too rare on university campuses, let alone in federal agencies. Many aspects of environmental social-science research pertain broadly to the missions of various agencies.
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From page 49... ...
An effective and cost-effective environmental monitoring program is important, because billions of dollars are spent each year in the United States alone on environmental research and on setting and implementing environmental policies and regulations. Compliance with the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)
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From page 50... ...
Those few long-term data sets have already played key roles in alerting humanity to impending serious problems. The National Environmental Policy Act requires that env~ronmentalimpact statements (EISs)
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From page 51... ...
First, the institutions with responsibilities for baseline and trend monitoring lack sufficient scientific credentials and are not well buffered against environmental and political crises. Some of them have the conflicting missions to assess environmental changes and to establish and enforce environmental regulations.
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From page 52... ...
In addition to assembling data already collected, the monitoring of important social indicators, such as the extent and condition of land under cultivation in countries susceptible to famine, appears likely to yield useful results for both policy and basic research in the near term. As discussed above, it is important to define monitoring carefully and skeptically, because information-collection costs can mount swiftly without timely administrative review of the utility of what is being collected.
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From page 53... ...
Indeed, the task of funding synthetic work in environmental science has fallen primarily to private foundations that have moved in to full this serious gap. Graduate students rarely can get a degree based on synthetic research.
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From page 54... ...
Vital components of the support infrastructure for modern environmental science are research facilities and hardware, including laboratories, instrumentation, satellites, ships, pilot facilities, field stations, collections, computers, and computer networks; computer models; databases, information systems, and readily accessible expert systems; and training and education facilities. How Well Are We Doing?
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From page 55... ...
Today, researchers often investigate isolated components of key problems and waste scarce financial and intellectual resources by needless duplication of efforts. Although it is easy to identify the major benefits of setting a national environmental research plan, some potentially serious pitfalls must be avoided in establishing such an agenda and the mechanisms for implementing it.
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From page 56... ...
Lack of attention to a national environmental research plan appears to be the result of an absence of clear incentives for individual agencies to engage in such activities and a lack of authority to implement or enforce any plans that might be developed. In addition, the disparate mandates of the various agencies generate different priorities for environmental research goals and the means to support them.
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From page 57... ...
, a 1987 international treaty on limitation of CFC release, was a successful blending of scientific research and policy formulation in the environmental field. There was an international network of informed scientists among whom scientific consensus existed, there were monitoring mechanisms for continuing assessment of the problem, scientists worked with policy-makers in formulating policy options, and scientists participated in the negotiations that led to the treaty.
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From page 58... ...
Although a federal Environmental Education Act was passed in 1970, the funds appropriated were never adequate to achieve even a fraction of its ambitious aims. As a result, the growing popularity of environmental topics in elementary- and secondary-school curricula has been confined largely to raising awareness of environmental quality as an important question of social values and public policy.
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From page 59... ...
Instead, the strong disciplinary traditions for organizing the natural and social sciences in universities actively inhibit the kinds of interdisciplinary training and experience that are required. The core of the needed interdisciplinary education includes thorough grounding in one discipline; extensive exposure to environmental physics and chemistry, evolutionary biology, and ecology; training in modes of integrative inquiry from mathematical modeling to historical analysis; and active experience with interdisciplinary projects.
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From page 60... ...
Environmental biologists were dispersed among such fields as "biological science," "agricultural science, and so forth, whereas in some data sets all of geology is considered "environmental science." ESTABLISHING AND NURTURING STRONG LINKS VVITH BUSINESS New partnerships between government and industry must be established and promoted for setting R&D priorities for the development of new environmentally benign technologies, new methods for controlling process byproducts, new environmental control technologies, and training and education for corporate offices on environmental processes and problems. These should be developed not only to improve our country's environment, but, through their export, to enhance the developing world's environment and to create jobs in our country as a result of the export.
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From page 61... ...
The United States lacks the tradition, common in other developed countries, of extensive cooperation between the two sectors. There is no strong record of cooperation and coordination of effort for the environment like the linkage of government support to industry (R&D funding, procurement, and formation of research consortia)
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From page 62... ...
62 Environmental Research in decision-making and policy-setting. Informed citizens are better able to understand and accept policy decisions, some of which might demand sacrifices of them, and to assume responsibility for putting environmental values into practice.
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From page 63... ...
SYNC HESIS OF HOW WELL VVE ARE DOING AND WHY WE ARE NOT DOING BEl-lER The preceding analysis demonstrates the existence of substantial strengths and weaknesses in the current structure and functioning of environmental research in the United States. Among the strengths, the United States is blessed with an impressive array of scientific, managerial, and political talent.
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From page 64... ...
· There is no comprehensive national environmental research plan to coordinate the efforts of the more than 20 agencies involved in environmental programs. Moreover, no agency has the mission to develop such a plan, nor is any existing agency able to coordinate and oversee a national environmental research plan if one were developed.
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From page 65... ...
· With respect to environmental affairs, government operates in a strongly adversarial relationship with both industry and the general public, to the detriment of integrated planning and maintenance of an atmosphere of mutual trust that is essential for effective government functioning. · With important exceptions in the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S.
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