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PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT: A RESEARCH STRATEGY FOR THE 1990S
Citation:
U.S. EPA. PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT: A RESEARCH STRATEGY FOR THE 1990S. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/9-90/022, 1990.
Impact/Purpose:
publish information
Description:
Mounting evidence suggests that we are facing a new generation of environmental problems - problems that threaten not just isolated areas, but global ecological resources; not just the health of certain individuals, but our ability to sustain life on this planet. Coping with these problems will require a fundamental change in our approach to environmental protection. We must develop the capabilities to anticipate and prevent pollution, rather than simply controlling and cleaning it up after it has been generated. The tools with which we protect our environment - policy, education, regulation, and technology - are grounded in the knowledge and understanding provided by environmental research. As the federal agency charged with protecting our environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has conducted environmental research since its inception in 1970. However, this research has generally been designed to fulfill EPA's immediate regulatory needs. It is inadequate for addressing the critical, long-term, system-wide environmental problems we now face. There are many basic questions that we cannot answer now and will never be able to answer without fundamental changes in our national environmental research agenda: • What is happening to our ecosystems? • How quickly are the changes occurring? • Are we causing irreversible damage? • What are the impacts of these ecological changes on human health? This document describes an innovative new research program proposed by EPA to provide the knowledge essential for addressing the environmental issues of the future. The proposed program would integrate EPA's current basic research and expand it into critical new areas. It would enable EPA to attract and retain leading environmental scientists and policy makers. And it would generate the information we need to develop effective solutions to our mounting environmental problems.