The once and future threat of the petrochemical industry to the world of life.

In the last 50 years, the petrochemical industry has massively introduced thousands of synthetic organic chemicals into the environment, only recently acknowledging that most of them are hazardous to living things. The industry has unwittingly appropriated from the living world its once-exclusive capability to produce organic chemicals, but has created substances, such as DDT, dioxin, and PCBs, that do not occur in living things and are therefore untested by the long course of evolution. Now, transmuted into biotechnology, the industry is making the same mistake. This time, again unencumbered by precautionary testing, it is creating transgenic organisms that are incompatible with the natural systems of inheritance. Once again, an informed public is needed to prevent an ill-conceived industrial venture far more threatening than the one that we are still struggling to remedy.

Population, development, and the environment: trends and key issues in the developed countries.

The quantitative relationship between environmental degradation (pollution) and the factors that influence it can be expressed by the identity: Pollution = population x (good/population) x (pollution/good), where "affluence" is expressed as good/population and the technology of production as pollution/good. Annual data for the emission of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides from mobile sources and for the use of pesticides and inorganic nitrogen fertilizer from agriculture, for the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United States, were analyzed to determine the relative change in the three factors over the period 1970-1987. In each case the considerable variation in pollutant emissions among the different countries is most closely related to the concomitant change in the technology factor (pollution/good). In contrast, there is much less variation among the countries in the population and "affluence" factors, which are consequently uncorrelated with the variation in pollutant emissions. The data show that the change in production technology is by far the most important of the several factors responsible for changes in pollution emission.

PIP: The notion of "pollution per capita" has obscured the role of technology in production, which governs the impact of population and economic development on the environment. The common view has been that population growth affects economic development which, in turn, affects the environment. A more accurate representation would be that population affects production technology which affects both economic development and the environment. Various technologies affect economic development and the environment differently. Photochemical smog, toxic chemicals, rapid eutrophication, hazardous waste and trash disposal have all been transformed by production technologies since World War II. Environmental improvement in developed countries must entail changes in decisions made about the design of systems of production. Ecologically sound economic development requires transforming the means of production. Data on carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxide (NO) emissions from automobiles for 1970-87 were obtained from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and analyzed. The magnitude of change in vehicles per km, in CO emissions, in population, in vehicle-km per population, and in CO emissions per vehicle-km showed that changes varied over time by country. The technology impact on CO emissions improved in every country. When the PAT equation was converted to logarithm form, the result indicated that population change had little impact on CO emissions in developed countries. Although the changes in the "affluence factor" were great, the impact on CO emissions was limited and the major impact was from technology. In only four countries was the impact of annual CO emissions too small to affect the impact of population growth and the increase in traffic: Norway, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. However, NO emissions, which result from high compression engines of passenger cars and which cannot be controlled with exhaust control devices, have increased in every country. Changes in population had a smaller effect on NO emissions than affluence or technology. Technology had the strongest impact on NO emissions; the impact of technology varied by country. Similar analysis of inorganic nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides showed the strong impact of technology.

Rapid population growth and environmental stress.

It is often suggested that rapid population growth, especially in developing countries, correspondingly intensifies environmental degradation, which must therefore be mitigated by reducing the rate of population growth. The validity of this assumption can be tested by means of an algebraic identity that relates the amount of a pollutant introduced into the environment to the product of three factors: population, "affluence" (the amount of goods produced per capita), and "technology" (the ratio of pollution generated to goods produced). For several forms of pollution that have a known origin in a specific production process (electricity production, use of motor vehicles, and consumption of inorganic nitrogen fertilizer), it is possible to compare the inferred rate of increase in pollution levels with the rate of population growth in developing countries. The results show that the rate of increase in pollution is largely determined by the technology factor, which governs the amount of pollution generated per unit of goods produced or consumed. This observation extends earlier evidence that both the increasing levels of pollution observed in developed countries and the results of efforts to reduce them support the view that the decisive factor determining environmental quality is the nature of the technology of production, rather than the size of the population.

A forum: how big is the population factor?

PIP: 6 protagonists responded to the issue of population growth and its likely ramifications: Nafis Sadik, Ben J. Wattenberg, Herman E. Daily, Barry Commoner, James T. McHugh, and Karan Singh. Sadik stated that at the current rate of growth the world's population could double in 40 years. In 1990 the total reached 5.3 billion with the addition of another 92 million people that year. At this rate the number could reach 6.25 billion by 2000, 8.5 billion by 2025, and 10-11 billion before leveling off around 2085 with 96% of this growth in the developing countries. The African rate of growth of 3-4% cancels out development programs. The present signs of environmental stress include the impairment of the ozone layer, acidification, depletion of rain forests, and erosion. According to Wattenberg the problem is not population, it is culture, what people do that makes the difference. In south Korea, Indonesia, India, China, Brazil, and Mexico there have been major decreased in fertility since the early 1960s. Free market opportunities with family planning offer the solution. Daly opined that affluence was the main environment problem. Poverty induces higher fertility and environmental degradation; the specter of the consumption level of the average Indian rising to the levels of the average Swede looms; thus the consumption of industrial countries must be reduced. Commoner declared that the demographic transition as it had occurred in developed countries explains population growth as a result of improved living conditions and reduced mortality before fertility plummets because of even higher living standards. The economies of developing countries must be strengthened to eliminate poverty whereby they can attain stable populations. Cooperation among nations, enhancement of human life and dignity, and intensified efforts to provide family planning were advocated by the others.^ieng

The population bomb: an explosive issue for the environmental movement?

PIP: Statements solicited by Utne Reader editors from 12 environmentalists, scientists, feminists, and social activists reflect both a sense of urgency for effective action to address rapid population growth and recognition of the need for change in the political and economic power structures of many societies. Several contributors urge ecological activists to broaden their perspective to consider the psychological and cultural factors, especially women's subordinate social status, that contribute to the persistence of large family size in developing countries. Ways in which population has been a divisive issue for feminists and people of color are addressed in several essays. Others note that developing countries have been denied the opportunity to experience a clear-cut demographic transition and the attendant increase in living standards. Also addressed by numerous contributors is the controversy unleashed by a 1987 article in Earth First: asserting that AIDS may be the earth's own protective response to overpopulation and ecological imbalances.^ieng

The mutagenicity of cigarette smokers' urine.

Using the methods of Yamasaki and Ames (1977), we have studied the mutagenicity of urine samples from 29 cigarette smokers and 14 nonsmokers. Duplicate plates at each dose yield reproducible dose-response curves, evening and 24-hour samples of smokers' urine have similar levels of mutagenic activity, as do evening samples from the same smoker from different days. Smokers' daily cigarette tar intake is correlated with urinary mutagen concentration, but the correlation achieves statistical significance only in the sub-sample of smokers over 25 years old. Mutagenic activity is also detectable in some nonsmokers, but as a group, their urinary mutagenic activity is far lower than that of smokers.

Formation of mutagens in beef and beef extract during cooking.

Mutagens, distinguishable from benzo[a]pyrene and from mutagenic amino acid and protein pyrolysis products, are formed when ground beef is cooked in a home hamburger cooking appliance or when beef stock is concentrated, by boiling, to a paste known commercially as beef extract. "Well-done" hamburgers contain about 0.14 part per million of the mutagens, and beef bouillon cubes which contain beef extract about 0.1 part per million. Since such mutagens may be potentially carcionogenic and are formed during ordinary cooking procedures, their occurrence raises questions about possible risks to human health.

Isolation of mutagens from bacterial nutrients containing beef extract.

The enhanced rate of mutation of Salmonella strain TA1538 (Ames) by microsomes results from the presence of about 2--5 ppm of microsome-activatable mutagens in bacterial nutrient broths that contain beef extract. Since mutagens toward Salmonella are likely to be carcinogenic, the data have significant implications for the problem of carcinogenesis.

Environmental mutagens in urban air particulates.

A bioassay capable of detecting carcinogenic substances that are associated with the elevated incidence of cancer in the urban environment would be important for epidemiologic and environmental analyses. The feasibility of using the Salmonella mutagenesis system developed by Ames for this purpose has been tested by analyzing Chicago air particulate samples. Active material, as evidenced by enhanced rates of mutation, both in the presence of microsomes and in their absence, is readily extractable from samples of air particulates. Dose-response curves have been obtained from such extracts of 15 successive samples, taken at intervals during 1975 from a sampling site in South Chicago. A method for analyzing such data in order to evaluate the relative mutagenic activity of different samples is described. The presence of a number of mutagenic constituents has been demonstrated by means of thin-layer chromatography of particularly active samples, in which the active material is located by mutagenic analysis of successive chromatographic zones. Mass spectrometer analysis of material isolated from an original sample in this way indicates that benzo[a]pyrene and benzo[e]pyrene, which are known to be mutagenic and carcinogenic, are present. It is concluded that within certain constraints, which are described, the methodology can serve the purpose of an environmental bioassay for organic carcinogens.