No Action Is Without Its Side Effects.

The Environmental Crisis Is Somber Evidence Of An Insidious Fraud Hidden In The Vaunted Productivity And Wealth Of Modern, Technology-based Society. This Wealth Has Been Gained By Rapid Short-term Exploitation Of The Environmental System, But It Has Blindly Accumulated A Debt To Nature-a Debt So Large And So Pervasive That In The Next Generation It May, If Unpaid, Wipe Out Most Of The Wealth It Has Gained Us.

As The Earth Spins Through Space, A View From Above The North Pole Would Encompass Most Of The Wealth Of The World - Most Of Its Food, Productive Machines, Doctors, Engineers And Teachers. A View From The Opposite Pole Would Encompass Most Of The World's Poor.

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.

Seen That Way, The Wholesale Transformation Of Production Technologies That Is Mandated By Pollution Prevention Creates A New Surge Of Economic Development.

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