The Aec Had At Its

Because The Global Ecosystem Is A Connected Whole, In Which Nothing Can Be Gained Or Lost And Which Is Not Subject To Over-all Improvement, Anything Extracted From It By Human Effort Must Be Replaced. Payment Of This Price Cannot Be Avoided; It Can Only Be Delayed. The Present Environmental Crisis Is A Warning That We Have Delayed Nearly Too Long.

The Most Meaningful Engine Of Change, Powerful Enough To Confront Corporate Power, May Be Not So Much Environmental Quality, As The Economic Development And Growth Associated With The Effort To Improve It.

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

For That Reason The Simple Test Of The Slogan 'consume Less' As A Basis For Social Action On The Environment Would Be To Tell It To The Blacks In The Ghetto. The Message Will Not Be Very Well Received For There Are Many People In This Country Who Consume Less Than Is Needed To Sustain A Decent Life.

What The New Fertilizer Technology Has Accomplished For The Farmer Is Clear: More Crop Can Be Produced On Less Acreage Than Before. Since The Cost Of Fertilizer, Relative To The Resultant Gain In Crop Sales, Is Lower Than That Of Any Other Economic Input, And Since The Land Bank Pays The Farmer For Acreage Not In Crops, The New Technology Pays Him Well. The Cost-in Environmental Degradation-is Borne By His Neighbors In Town Who Find Their Water Polluted. The New Technology Is An Economic Success-but Only Because It Is An Ecological Failure.