(excerpt) The group of science, environment, and business leaders who produced and discussed these memoranda share a strong conviction that you and your administration face an array ofhistoric and urgent challenges—the kind that, with bold leadership, can be turned into exceptional opportunities.

Many of the recommendations for specific areas involve policies and tools that will not slow the nation’s economy and may even provide economic opportunities and help resolve real humanitarian concerns. This article presents a sketch ofthe broad outlines ofthe environmental problems confronting humanity and suggests some paths toward their resolution.

The first two challenges, emerging into the public consciousness only in recent decades,are rooted in the unprecedented pace ofglobal change. The global economy is linking nations and people in new and different ways. But people  are only beginning to realize the extent to which human actions are radically reshaping the global environment. Without awareness of the consequences of these actions, people have taken control ofthe planet.

This paper explores the significance of policy-induced technological change for the design of carbon-abatement policies. We derive analytical expressions characterizing optimal CO2 abatement and carbon tax profiles under different specifications for the channels through which technological progress occurs. We consider both R&D-based and learning-by-doing-based knowledge accumulation, and examine each specification under both a cost-effectiveness and a benefit-cost policy criterion. We show analytically that the presence of induced technological change (ITC) implies a lower time profile of optimal carbon taxes. The impact of ITC on the optimal abatement path varies. When knowledge is gained through R&D investments, the presence of ITC justifies shifting some abatement from the present to the future. However, when knowledge is generated through learning-by-doing, the impact on the timing of abatement is analytically ambiguous. Illustrative numerical simulations indicate that the impact of ITC upon overall costs and optimal carbon taxes can be quite large in a cost-effectiveness setting but typically is much smaller under a benefit-cost policy criterion. The impact of ITC on the timing of abatement is very weak, and the effect (applicable in the benefit-cost case) on total abatement over time is generally small as well, especially when knowledge is accumulated via R&D.

All too often, researchers in the academic world find themselves cut off from their colleagues in other disciplines by the level of specialization required in their own fields. The gap between the social and physical sciences, in particular, seems unbridgeable to many scholars. Yet many of the problems confronting the world today demand an integrated approach.

The vast issue of global change -- encompassing changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and the possibility of global warming, or the dramatic increases in world population and consequent increased pressures on land use and on political systems -- demands a problem-solving approach that integrates our knowledge about the nature of human interaction and activity with the scientific knowledge we have gained on atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial patterns of interaction.

Ecological and Social Dimensions of Global Change, published by the Institute of International Studies as part of its "Insights in International Affairs" series, is a collection of lectures by leading physical and social scientists and international legal experts on the implications of global changes in climate and in population, migration, and land use. (See the Table of Contents.) These lectures also examine the responses of the international legal and political communities to these complex changes.

The volume is composed of thirteen talks from an interdisciplinary graduate seminar conducted at the University of California at Berkeley in the fall of 1992. The evolution of this seminar provides a cogent example of how research from a specific field, brought into an interdisciplinary teaching arena, becomes enriched by the input from researchers in other fields. The seminar as originally conceived focused primarily on the ecological dimensions of global change, but the numerous and fundamental links of any given ecological issue to its surrounding social circumstances persuaded the organizers to expand the focus to include the social dimensions of these problems as well. Both the physical and social scientists involved in the seminar subsequently incorporated knowledge gained from their colleagues into their own fields of study. In addition, seminar participants in the fields of legal and political policy-making were able to integrate each discipline's contributions into the prescriptions that they offered for the problem of global change. During the course of the development of this book from the lecture series, commentaries by scholars from a different academic field were added to a few of the original lectures, further broadening the focus.

Following each of the lectures is a transcription of the discussion from the classes which deepen and elaborate some of the key theoretical, methodological, and policy questions raised by the lecturer. In addition, a short bibliography and further questions for class discussion are suggested, making this an ideal text for coursework on the subject of global change. Each section of the book -- the ecological dimensions, the social dimensions, and policy and legal responses -- is preceded by a short introduction to the central ideas encompassed by the contributors to that section.

Rising labour costs and declining terms of trade for rice farmers on Java during the 1980s have encouraged the adoption of labour-saving technologies. This paper uses extensive field survey evidence to illustrate current patterns of labour-displacing technological change in the Javanese rice economy. It presents the recent introduction of pre-emergence herbicides as a potential revolution in labour-saving technologies, comparable to that of small rice mills and sickles. The evidence shows that the growing use of tractors and machine threshers is further reducing labour inputs. These changes will have a profound effect on the role of women in rice agriculture. The paper compares the transition in the Javanese rice economy with that experienced elsewhere in Asia, and shows that the adoption of labour-saving technologies has occurred more slowly on Java than in other countries in the region.

The extent of food aid since the 1960s is examined, focusing in particular on US food aid and its political context. The dimensions of food aid in the future are calculated, taking into account the effects of the Uruguay Round of Trade negotiations, the impact of new US agricultural legislation, and the prospects for improved implementation of food programmes. A series of political, economic and technical constraints will prevent large-scale changes in food aid in the future. A total food aid transfer of 10 million t per annum is the most likey forecast for the 1990s.

This book, based on fieldwork carried out by a team of American and Indonesian economists, investigates Indonesia's potential for maize production. It integrates 3 economic approaches: (1) the commodity systems approach, which traces the technical and market links from input supplier to producer, processor and consumer; (2) the macro-trade approach, which analyses the role of the commodity in generating domestic value-added and foreign exchange; and (3) the food policy approach, which analyses the efficiency of commodity systems and the distribution of their benefits in order to evaluate potential public investments and policy interventions. The conclusion reached is that Indonesia has the potential to expand its maize production by: (1) efficiency in the marketing system and (2) policies encouraging investment in storage and drying facilities.