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environmental science— in particular, for research into the global atmo-
sphere. In Stockholm, U.S. delegation leader and Council on Environmen-
tal Quality chairman Russell Train and his colleagues unveiled Earthwatch,
an international program of scientific cooperation intended to provide a
framework for assessing environmental problems on a global scale. Earth-
watch had two main objectives. The first was essentially bureaucratic. Much
as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association— created by Nixon
in 1970— had streamlined redundant state and federal research efforts at
home, the U.S. proposed that Earthwatch coordinate, expand, and reorga-
nize existing national and international environmental research efforts at
the United Nations. The second objective was programmatic. It involved
launching collaborative efforts to “measure trends and identify problems
requiring international action.” 52 In particular, Earthwatch focused on
the potential threats to the oceans and the atmosphere that the SCEP and
SMIC studies had identified. Robert White, director of NOAA and a mem-
ber of the U.S. delegation, identified the accumulation of dust particles, a
rise in atmospheric CO 2 , and a decline in atmospheric ozone as three of the
program's primary concerns. 53 The World Meteorological Organization, a
specialized U.N. agency, would take the lead in this new research.
On the surface, Earthwatch looked much like the type of large-scale
global environmental research that systems scientists had called for in
the SMIC, SCEP, and SCOPE reports. For many atmospheric scientists,
Robert White was a welcome late addition to the U.S. delegation, and his
emphasis on climate matched their own interest in the subject. And as a
coordinating unit, Earthwatch initially managed to “'integrate' informa-
tion gathered from across the U.N. system” relatively effectively.54 54
But it quickly became clear that Earthwatch was more of a bureaucratic
clearinghouse for existing research efforts than a program to develop
the sophisticated infrastructure for scientific research called for by the
atmospheric science community. The SCEP, SMIC and SCOPE studies
proposed broadening and deepening global scientific research through a
creative new systems science methodology. Earthwatch merely sought to
integrate existing research— albeit worthwhile research— already being
conducted “within the U.N. system.” 55 It was, at best, a limited offering,
emblematic of what one scientist described as a “lack of imagination” in
the Nixon administration's approach to environmental research. 56
The administration's cautious, bureaucratic approach extended to the
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