Ecological Imperative

...An obvious solution would be to return to pre-World War II lifestyles fewer electrical appliances, silk and wool instead of synthetic fabrics, glass bottles instead of plastic, less-powerful cars, organic fertilizers, etc But the economic consequences of such a move clearly would be disastrous If we attempt it, unemployment will rise, food prices will soar, farms will fail, many industries will cease to grow, relations between labor and management will reach new heights of hostility...

...Meningoencephalitis, which already has claimed a number of lives, may be merely the beginning Barry Commoner sees it as the first of an untold number of new diseases we can anticipate if destruction of the environment is permitted to continue Nonetheless his new book, The Closing Circle, like his earlier Science and Survival, is written with a cool clarity that makes it evident he is no alarmist As a result, his conclusions seem doubly alarming...

...Meningoencephalitis, as it is called, is caused by an amoeba commonly found in soil in an inactive form, a cyst When a high concentration of bacteria develops in its neighboihood (as in polluted water along a riverbank), bacterial secretions stimulate the cyst so that an active amoeba emerges, the amoeba then lives on the bacteria and multiplies One day an unlucky vacationer went for a swim He got water in his nose, the amoebae invaded his brain, and a new plague was born...

...Ecological Imperative The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology By Barry Commoner Knopf 326 pp $6 95 Reviewed by James Palmer Contiibutor, "Satwday Review," New York "Times Book Review" When the history of our age is written, 1965 may well be considered a turning point For that year, in Florida, a new disease appeared??the first one known to have been created by pollution...

...Though the origin of the problem may be technological, its solution inevitably will be political Now that scientists like Commoner have alerted us to the mounting dangers, it remains for our politicians to come forward with practical solutions A constructive program??one that faces up not only to the ecological perils but to the economic ones as well??is long overdue Indeed, time is running out and our choices grow narrower every day If we do not act soon, we may find that we have no alternatives left...

...The population explosion, he feels, has been unfairly blamed for the environmental problem By far the largest part of it, he argues, derives from technological changes of the past 25 years such as The increase in the average automobile's horsepower (150 per cent since 1946) Farmers' reliance on pesticides, herbicides and nitrate fertilizers Widespread use of nonbiodegradable plastics Builders' growing abandonment of lumber and steel in favor of materials like concrete, plastics and aluminum whose manufacture adds substantially to pollution Expanding use of trucks, instead of railroads, to haul freight Skyrocketing demands for electrical power All of these changes have raised pollution levels, yet each of them was welcomed by an uninformed public Nitrates, for example, were known to boost crop yields Nobody heeded the risk that they might get into the local drinking water Plastics were cheaper than glass, and unbreakable too No one considered that burning them (a necessary measure because they do not rot) would fill the air with noxious acids Thanks to the productivity gains the new technologies brought, management was able to enjoy greater profits and give labor better wages at one and the same time An ideal situation, except for the fact that productivity was being raised largely by substitution of high-pollution methods and products for the former low-pollution ones Unfortunately for us, nature's ecosystem is finite and the amount of violation it can tolerate is limited Today we are all aware that poisons collecting in air, water and earth are becoming a senous menace to human life...

...Can we afford to clean up the environment at such a price7 Commoner points out that we really have no choice, it is a simple matter of survival Infant mortality already has risen in southern Illinois because of fertilizer nitrates in the drinking water Last month 23 factories were shut down to head off an impending air pollution crisis in Birmingham, Alabama Asiatic cholera germs were found last year in a New Jersey stream The list goes on and on...