Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

Knowledge-Based Regime Analysis 69
planned programs for the management of resources if past degradation of
the environment and deterioration of ecosystems are to be corrected, if the
biosphere’s productivity is to be maintained and even enhanced, and if aesthetic
appreciation is given opportunity to flower.” (UNESCO 1970, p.
234) But because the economic, social, and political dimensions of the
problems of the biosphere were outside the purview of the Biosphere
Conference (UNESCO is concerned primarily with science issues and scientific
aspects of policy making), the final report made only vague recommendations
for future legal and institutional changes. It concluded (ibid.,
p. 235) that “it has become clear . . . that earnest and bold departures from
the past will have to be taken nationally and internationally if significant
progress is to be made,” but the more precise nature of those “departures”
was not mentioned. The 1972 Stockholm conference, in contrast, would
focus on the economic, political, and social dimensions of protection of
the global environment.
“Man and His Environment: A View Toward Survival” was the telling
title of the 13th National Conference of the U.S. National Commission for
UNESCO dealing with the environment. The conference took place in
November of 1969 at Stanford University and was attended by representatives
of more than 200 organizations. Prominent environmentalists such
as Paul Ehrlich, Barry Commoner, and Margaret Mead contributed background
papers or participated in panel discussions, or both. Considerable
attention was paid to ocean pollution as well as to control of population
growth, reduction of atmospheric pollution, and preservation of ecological
diversity. One scientist warned that “the end of the ocean came late in
the summer of 1979 and it came even more rapidly than the biologists had
expected” (Pryor 1970, p. 115). 33 Another contribution (The Sea: Should
We Now Write It Off As a Future Garbage Pit?) was headlined as follows
in an anthology (Riseborough 1970, pp. 121–136): “For those who don’t
as yet believe that the sea is dying, this is ample proof. For those who do, it
is further documentation.” It was concluded that “scientific, practical, economic,
moral, and esthetic reasons require that the sea not be used as a
garbage dump” (ibid., p. 122). Much as had happened at the Biosphere
Conference, it was concluded that international machinery was needed
because DDT, polychlorinated biphenyls, 34 and radioactivity released by
atomic explosions were capable of traveling great distances. The conference
proposed that “the leaders of all nations through the United Nations