環境汚染의 解決을 위한 綜合科學的 接近方法 (I)

An Interdisciplinary Approach for the Solution of Enviromental polution

Environmental pollution or contaminations caused by various kinds of pollutants have become one of most serious problems of our time. Environ mental pollution is the unfavoralble alteration of our surroundings, through direct or indirect effects of changes in energy patterns, rediation levels, chemical and physical constitution and abundances of organisms. These changes may affect humans directly or through their supplies of water and of agicultural and other biological products, their physical objects or possessions, or their opportunities for recreation and appreciation of nature. Pollutants that meet the criteria of this definition of environmental pollution are numerous: gases (such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides) and paniculate matter (such as smoke particles, lead aerosols, and asbestos) in the atmosphere; pesticides and radioactive isotopes in the atmosphee and in waterways; sewage, organic. chemicals, and phosphates in water; solid wastes on land; excessive heating (thermal pollution) of rivers and lakes; and many others. Some of these pollutants are introduced into the environment naturally, others by human actions, and most in both ways. Our major concer is with environmental pollution resulting wholly or largely as a by-product of human activities, because these can be controlled most readily. Environmental pollution cannot be solved by science and technology alone. It should be handled by an interdisciplinary approach with combined methods of science and technology as wen as social science disciplines for the better solution of this critical problem. In this respect, introducing "Environmental Science," a new scientific approach for the solution of environmental problems, which is now widely accepted by most developed countries of the world will be very helpful for systematization of theoretical basis for a new scientific approach to environmental pollution. Environmental science is "the study of all systems of air, land, water, energy, and life that surround Man. It includes all sciences directed to the system-level of understanding of the environment, drawing especially upon such disciplines as meteorology, geophysics, oceanography, and ecology, and utilizing to the fullest knowledge and techniques developed in such fields as physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and engineering as well as many social science disciplines, such as economics, such as economics, law, political science and public administration." The components of this discipline are not new, for they are drawn from existing areas of science within biology chemistry, physics, and geoscience. What is really new about environmental science, however, is it siewpoint - its orientation to global problems, its conception of the earth as a set of interlocking, interacting systems, and its interest in Man as a part of these systems.