North Carolina State University News Services Campus Box 7504 Raleigh, NC 27695 (919) 515-3470
Media Contacts: Dr. Marvin Soroos, 919/515-3755
Pam Smith, News Services, 919/515-3470 or
November 13, 1997
NC State Professor's Book Bridges Science and Policy Gap
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A book by a North Carolina State University political science professor could become required reading for international policy makers who are serious about protecting the air we breathe.
Dr. Marvin Soroos' timely book, The Endangered Atmosphere: Preserving Global Commons (University of South Carolina Press, 1997), bridges the gap between science and policy. It comes just as world leaders prepare for a critical December meeting in Kyoto, Japan, to attempt to conclude a binding international agreement on carbon dioxide emission reduction. Scientists believe that carbon dioxide from motor vehicles, power plants and factories contributes significantly to global warming and climate change.
In The Endangered Atmosphere, Soroos makes a case for international cooperation. He argues in favor of a holistic, "environmental security" approach to analyzing "the problem of preserving the atmosphere, which provides all living species a thin, but fragile, protective buffer from the harsh conditions of outer space." Soroos writes in a style meant to engage a broad audience. The book underscores the fact that, like the sea, all the world depends on the atmosphere as a life-giving, common resource. Unlike the sea, which is protected by numerous treaties including the comprehensive Law of the Sea adopted in 1982, there is no overarching law governing the atmosphere.
Soroos says, "There may be practical reasons why not. It has taken decades to get where we are now on separate issues, such as testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere or acid rain- forming air pollutants. Perhaps the strength of these gains lies in having directed specific responses to specific problems. "
Soroos presents the depletion of the ozone layer and global climate change issues as examples of different challenges requiring different policy strategies.
"The agreements on preserving the ozone layer represent successful international cooperation," Soroos says. "Policy makers heeded the warnings of scientists about the threat that CFCs and other chemical substances posed to the fragile, life-sustaining ozone layer. Strong agreements were possible, in part, because companies that produced CFCs could count on even greater profits from manufacturing substitute chemicals."
With global warming, the economic stakes are high, and so are the environmental implications. Soroos laments that public interest in global warming has diminished in recent years, despite even stronger scientific agreement about the serious threat it poses. The public may get an unwelcome lesson about the state of the atmosphere from El Nino, currently developing in the Pacific. Scientists link El Nino to climate change and predict that it will be the most intense such phenomenon on record.
In recent months, the global warming debate has heated up in media reports: On the one hand, the administration holds educational conferences to sway opinion; and on the other hand industry groups warn that fossil fuel emission limits will harm the economy.
Soroos says the world is looking to the United States since it leads the world in green- house gas. "On the average, Americans consume nearly twice as much fossil fuels as citizens of other developed countries. We have the scientific knowledge for alternative energy and conservation, but we need the political will to change."
Soroos says his latest book represents a major intellectual and emotional investment -- the cumulative effort of nearly a decade of research. He approached it with intensity and scrupulous attention to scientific facts. Colleagues at NC State, respected globally for their environmental research, reviewed chapters to corroborate scientific details.
For his part, Dr. Robert Bruck, coordinator of environmental programs at NC State, says he is excited to have the book in his resource arsenal. "Finally, a compilation addressing the science and policy of the single largest commons on our planet -- the atmosphere. Dr. Marvin Soroos has written a seminal work which addresses man's impact on the air we -- and all other living creatures -- breathe. Soroos, a political scientist, has bridged the gap between science and policy in this important work. It is a must read for serious environmental students, scholars, policy makers and the public."
Soroos' previous book, Beyond Sovereignty: The Challenge of Global Policy, was a best seller for USC Press. He is an author of The Environment in the Global Arena and an editor of The Global Predicament: Ecological Perspectives on World Order.
He has been a member of the NC State faculty since 1970 and has chaired the political science and public administration department for 10 years. -- smith --
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