Headline News, Science Views II (1993) / Chapter Skim
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8 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
8 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Pages 151-176
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From page 153... ...
As a biologist ~ worry especially about continued destruction of tropical vegetation and species. During the past 30 years about one-third of the tropical rain forest has disappeared.
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From page 154... ...
The most basic research requirement is to gain a better sense of "what's out there." We need to know more about how biological diversity is distributed, how it is faring, how to protect it and use it in a sustainable manner, and how to restore it. With biological resources disappearing so quickly, it also is essential to identify the most effective methods for preserving and restoring ecosystems.
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From page 155... ...
The best way to deal with the problem is through a series of what might be called national biological resource commissions, which bring together the private and public sectors of countries in studying how to economically exploit biodiversity for national benefit while conserving it for future generations. The Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad in Costa Rica is an excellent example.
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From page 156... ...
But deep in the Amazon jungle, where few politicians or journalists tread, the battle to preserve the worId's biggest rain forest continues. At the forefront of that battle are scientists racing to categorize and study the forest's plants, animals and other "biodiversity" before it disappears.
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From page 157... ...
Their plight is not just Brazil's problem but our own. If the Rio conference taught the world anything, it is that environmental problems such as saving tropical rain forests extend beyond national borders.
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From page 158... ...
The largest scientific publishing house in the former Soviet Union reportedly has turned to publishing a book on astrology to raise cash. All this has attracted attention in the United States, mainly because of fear that former Soviet weapons experts may go
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From page 159... ...
The former Soviet scientific system must remain vital if reform efforts are to succeed. Russia and the other states need technical expertise to achieve economic growth, clean up the environment, expand agricultural output, provide health care and meet other essential goals.
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From page 160... ...
companies, meanwhile, are prepared to consider commercial, non-military business arrangements in the former Soviet Union if given the go-ahead from the Defense Department. These and other initiatives are a small fraction of the total funds being considered to help prevent economic collapse and other turmoil in Russia and the other republics.
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From page 161... ...
Although Guatemala is just a few hundred miles south of the Texas border, most Americans are unaware that some 40 thousand people, mostly Mayan Indians, have been killed or made to "disappear" for political reasons. We spent that bright day in Guatemala City learning the chilling facts of the murder of anthropologist Myrna Elizabeth Mack Chang, and expressing concern to government officials about her death and the deaths of more than 30 other scientific colleagues in Guatemala who, during the past 10 years, have been murdered for political reasons or abducted and never seen again.
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From page 162... ...
After passing through a dozen or so courts, the case now Is at a crucial stage known informally as "the trial phase." That the trial has progressed so far is a hopeful sign, although, as with the peace talks with the leftist guerrilIas, progress has been distressingly slow. We spoke with Guatemalan government and military officials who expressed support for the policy of President Jorge Serrano Elias to improve human rights abuses and reach a just resolution of the case.
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From page 163... ...
The problem of refugees is changing in ways that demand new solutions. The victims increasingly are not able to cross international borders but are "internally displaced persons," mostly women
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From page 164... ...
The horror of thousands of Kurdish children dying needlessly from dysentery and pneumonia on bleak mountains was similarly grim. Helping displaced persons can be much more complicated politically and logistically than assisting international refugees.
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From page 165... ...
At a meeting ~ chaired for the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, experts said a new framework of international cooperation could make much better use of limited resources in helping both refugees and displaced persons. Recent decisions in the United Nations are establishing improved mechanisms and new authority to coordinate relief efforts and promote future development.
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From page 166... ...
It is the need to expand water supplies, protect the environment, boost agricultural yields, control disease, and improve the standard of living by taking advantage of science and technology. If Israeli and Arab experts began working together more actively on these problems, they could ease many of the region's underlying pressures.
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From page 167... ...
All of the nations in the Mideast, for instance, share abundant sunlight, which can be harnessed to produce electricity and reduce the use of environmentally damaging fossil fuels. Israel, a leader in constructing solar energy facilities, could share its technology with others while working with its neighbors on large regional projects and new advances.
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From page 168... ...
Carpenter Imagine that every person in the United States all 250 million or so woke up tomorrow with a disease that causes high fever and chills, sometimes progressing to kidney failure, shock, coma and death. Now add another 50 million people to the total and you begin to grasp the dimensions of a worldwide health threat that requires not imagination so much as recognition.
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From page 169... ...
What's needed is a broad and diversified effort combining both malaria research and control. On the research front, a priority of the U.S.
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From page 170... ...
The United States is the biggest single contributor to malaria research and control activities; the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research has the worId's most successful antimalarial drug development program. Yet government support for U.S.
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From page 171... ...
Richards growing rapidly. Although there was discord aplenty and widespread criticism of the United States, the recently completed Earth Summit in Brazil accomplished much in setting up an international framework for action.
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From page 172... ...
172 HEADLINE NEWS' SCIENCE VIEWS I:' ' ~.~. ..WA Artwork from The Fort Worth Star Telegram by Kevin Kreneck.
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From page 173... ...
Other problems such as [Language differences, a lack of training mechanisms, and inadequate local skills and infrastructures all make it hard for developing countries to take advantage of alternative technologies. Many of the countries also need help putting market forces to work and providing private industries with appropriate incentives to invest in the production, distribution and recycling facilities needed to move away from ozone-depleting substances.
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From page 174... ...
Grossman Unless our attention is riveted on the tragedy of a sudden disaster like the earthquake that just hit Southern California, it is almost impossible to get anyone to focus on all that can be done to reduce the terrible toll of nature's ravages. Unfortunately, whenever flood, fire, hurricane, tornado, volcanic eruption or earthquake does strike, television coverage usually is so apocalyptic that we are left with the hopeless feeling that we can do nothing to reduce nature's toll.
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From page 175... ...
While we cannot seem to meliorate ethnic and religious conflicts abroad or bring racial harmony to our own cities, there is no doubt that we can dramatically reduce the damage caused by floods in South Asia, hurricanes in the Pacific, earthquakes in Mexico and other natural disasters, especially those that strike our own country. Recent studies of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco area and Hurricane Hugo, which hit the Carolina coast the same year, have shown that science and technology now make it possible to minimize the destructive consequences of even the most hazardous events of nature.
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From page 176... ...
176 HEADLINE NEWS, SCIENCE VIEWS management, among others. ~ am not a scientist but a broadcast executive and r was stunned to learn just how wrong my own fatalistic thinking about natural disasters turned out to be.
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