GETTING "THERE" FROM "HERE"

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Thank you for the opportunity to return home. I want to commend theUniversity and President Carrier for your splendid contributions to highereducatio n and the preparation of young adults for productive careers in publicservice and private enterprise. James Madison recognized that if `the peoplemean to be their own governors, they must have access to the power thatknowledge gives.' Your efforts he lp equip our "citizen governors" forexercising the responsibilities of citizenship and for full participation inand appreciation of the human adventure.

For much of my career, I have focused on transforming facts into accessibleknowledge for po licy makers. I have often been inspired by a poem of Edna St.Vincent Millay:

For nearly 14 years at the Office of Technology Assessment, I worked with atalented staff to analyze and synthesize information for decision makers in theCongress. At the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Icontinue to do such work, but find I am a customer for it as well. At theWhite House, as in Congress -- and at all points of decisionmaking -- timelyaccess to relevant, trustworthy informati on boiled down to its essentialingredients is golden. As Lewis Carroll said, "There's nothing quite souseless as a map laid out on a 1:1 scale."

In electing Bill Clinton, the American people voted for change< /u> -- fromconsumption to investment, from separation to cooperation, from exploitation toconservation. The voters expect to see heavy emphasis on a new responsivenessin government; they expect to see increased emphasis on utilization of scienceand technology in providing options to meet national needs. As ThomasJefferson said, "Sometimes the right direction means a change incourse."

I would like to provide a brief description of the role President Clinton seesfor science and tech nology in the business of governing over the coming years.Mr. Clinton took office in a time not unlike that of James Madison. In hisfirst inaugural address, Madison said:

"The present situation of the world is indeed without a parallel, and th at ofour own country full of difficulties. The pressure of these, too, is the moreseverely felt because they have fallen upon us at a moment when the nationalprosperity being at a height not before attained, the contrast resulting fromthe change has been rendered the more striking."

This new President must help the Nation face the traumatic reality of thechallenges ahead, help us face the consequences of long postponed responses todomestic and international crises. Fifteen years ago, we wer e the world'sleading creditor; today we are the largest debtor. Real income has, for mostAmericans, barely held even or declined during that same period. Many of thedreams for science and technology turned into nightmares. For examples,promising ad vances in medical science now haunt us in the form of health carecosts spiraling out of control.

Not all the news is bad. The specter of nuclear war and the awesome burdensof financing the Cold War are steadily receding -- just barely in time. Unbelievable advances in computers, communications, and other informationtechnologies give hope for global access to opportunity. The newAdministration sees science and technology as fundamental drivers of economicprogress. Though the Administration emphasizes thrift and deficit reduction,our strategies also acknowledge a fundamental truth: to succeed and work ourway out of the hole we dug for ourselves, we must invest in the future.

Technology drives economic growth. Advances in technology created two-thirdsof the productivity growth in the United States over the past 60 years. Forthese reasons, on February 22, 1993, President Clinton and Vice President Goreannounced a technology initiative, Technology for America's Economic Growth:A New Direction to Build Economic Strength. This plan offers acomprehensive blueprint to focus American science and technology on 3 centralgoals:

With this initiative, the Clinton Administration takes a critical step towardensuring tha t the federal investment in science and technology becomes a keyinstrument for promoting U.S. economic growth and for satisfying other nationalgoals.

The knowledge-based, growth industries of the future depend on continuousgeneration of new technological innovations and rapid transformation of thoseinnovations into marketable products. We can promote technology as a catalystfor economic growth by:

Directly supporting the development, comme rcialization, and deployment ofnew technology. The nation urgently needs improved strategies forgovernment/industry cooperation in the support of industrial technology. ThePresident has announced his intention to increase the civilian share ofgo vernment R&D funding to more than 50% by 1998 and to encourage industryconsortia to improve our competitive posture, for example, in the area of"green technologies" that reduce pollution and manufacturing waste.

Creating a world-class bu siness environment for innovation and privatesector investment. Capital and technology know no national boundaries. Tocompete for industrial and technological leadership, and for high-wage,high-skill jobs for American workers, the United States m ust create anenvironment that invites private sector investment and job creation. We mustensure that our tax, trade, regulatory, and procurement policies support thisobjective.

Investing in life-long learning. Americans must have acces s to theeducation and training they need to compete in the world economy and livesatisfying lives. To provide this level of access, it will be necessary torestructure primary and secondary schooling, to use youth apprenticeships andother programs to facilitate the transition from school to work for people whodo not expect to go to college, to make training accessible and affordable forworkers who must upgrade their skills to keep pace with rapid economic changes,and to target workers displaced by declining defense budgets or increasedinternational trade. We intend to use new technology to increase theproductivity of learning in all environments, make instruction and resourcesavailable to schools, businesses, and homes throughout America, and t urn theschools into high-performance workplaces. Our programs will ensure that allstudents are well trained in math, science, and engineering, particularlystudents in minority communities. We want to exploit our investment in defenseeducation and tr aining for applications in the civilian economy.

Supporting information superhighways. American businesses gain acompetitive edge through efficient access to information. Many more businessescan join the banks, insurance companies, manuf acturing concerns who now usehigh-speed communication links if the systems are reliable, easy to use, andinexpensive. Accelerating the introduction of an efficient, high-speedcommunications system can have the same effect on U.S. economic and sociald evelopment as investment in the railroads had in the 19th century.

Upgrading the transportation infrastructure. A competitive, growingeconomy requires a transportation system to move people, goods, and servicesquickly and efficiently. A strategic program to develop new technologies forassessing the physical condition of the nation's infrastructure, together withtechniques to repair and rehabilitate those structures, could lead to morecost-effective maintenance of the infrastructure n ecessary for economicgrowth.

Present circumstances demand that we use technology to reinvent government --to make it work better, quicker, smarter, and cheaper. The federal governmentlags behind the private sector in use of advanced communications systems and inadoption of energy efficiency technologies. The taxpayers foot the bill forthese inefficiencies. The federal government is also wasting opportunities byfailing to use its enormous purcha sing power to stimulate markets forinnovative products. The federal government can become more responsive to theneeds of its clients by:

Making better use of information technology. Government can becomemore cost-effective, efficient, and "user-friendly" through the use ofinformation technology. Fast communication makes it possible for teams to workclosely on a project even if team members are physically distant from oneanother, which presents an opportunity to flatten existing org anizationalstructure, form effective cross-disciplinary problem-solving groups, and expandthe definition of the workplace and workforce. Information technology plays akey role in the President's program to make government more efficient. Ournew pro gram will improve quality and timeliness of service and improve accessto government information.

Operating energy-efficient buildings. The federal government iswasting tax dollars by operating inefficient buildings. California, Texas,I owa, and several other States have successful programs that have profitablyinvested in buildings during the past several years. These programs haveincreased the efficiency of State structures and stimulated the localconstruction industries. In his ef fort to learn from the States and improvethe use of tax dollars, the President will emphasize investments in energyretrofits that have short payback periods: for instance, the budget includes$1.4 billion over the next 5 years for energy retrofits in f ederal buildingsthat we expect will have an average payback time of about 5 years; and some ofthe $3-4 billion a year that HUD spends subsidizing the energy bills of 5million low income households could be invested in energy retrofits that wouldpaybac k in less than 5 years and represent a lasting decrease in energybills.

Reforming procurement policy. The enormous purchasing power of thefederal government has often played a key role in ensuring early markets forinnovative technologie s. An accretion of complex regulations governingprocurement, however, has made it difficult for the government to purchasecost-competitive commercial products or to stimulate markets for innovativeproducts as a matter of policy. We will work to elimi nate these problems toensure that the taxpayers get their money's worth from federal purchases. Wewill develop purchasing procedures that give priority to advanced commercialproducts whenever they are justified on the basis of life-cycle costs(includ ing environmental, health, and safety costs). Where appropriate, wewill also set aside funding to create markets for technologies likely to havesignificant economic or social benefits. Contracting procedures will bedesigned to ensure that commercial firms are given the opportunity to proposeinnovative responses to federal requests and to retain rights in technologiesdeveloped.

Our basic science program provides the foundation for new technolo gies. Thefederal government has invested heavily in basic research since the SecondWorld War, and this support has paid enormous dividends. Our researchuniversities are the best in the world; our national laboratories and theresearch facilities they house attract scientists and engineers from around theglobe. In almost every field, U.S. researchers lead their foreign colleaguesin scientific citations, in Nobel Prizes, and in most other measures ofscientific excellence.

None of the innova tions in technology proposed in our initiative will befunded at the expense of basic science. Our budget proposal ensures thatsupport for basic science remains strong and that stable funding is providedfor projects that require continuity. We will no t allow short termfluctuations in funding levels to destroy critical research teams that havetaken years to assemble.

But stable funding requires setting clear priorities. In recent years, ratherthan canceling less important projects when rese arch budgets have been tight,Federal agencies have tended to spread the pain, resulting in disruptive cutsand associated schedule delays in hundreds of programs. Improved management ofbasic science can ensure sustained support for high-priority progra ms,including university research, national laboratories, space science andexploration, and environmental research.

The plan embodied in Technology for America's Economic Growthrepresents a major departure from the programs of the past. Organized aroundbroad, national goals, it abandons the notion that we can depend onserendipitous spin-offs from space and defense R&D for future wellbeing andadopts an ambitious, integrated investment strategy to ensure national,economic, and envi ronmental security.

Adlai Stevenson spoke of Americans as "those people who never really see thehandwriting on the wall until their backs are up against it." It took 12years of economic mismanagem ent to create a domestic economic crisis ofadequate proportion to capture the attention of enough Americans to effect achange in course. For too long we have been accommodating ourselves to otherslowly-developing crises, rather than seeking to prevent or ameliorate themwith science, technology, and other policy tools. I see at least 5 crises ofglobal proportions developing -- crises that cannot be solved by ignoring them;crises that will continue to grow worse as long as we refuse to address them:

First, there is the crisis of changing perspectives. Before Apollo 8,the Earth was our universe, and it seemed infinite. But the astronauts in thattiny craft revealed , through a breath-taking photograph of Earth, that we areall trave ling in a spaceship -- one that is stunningly beautiful, but is also isolated, unique, and limited bythe vast and inhospitable reaches of outerspace.

In the 20 short years since Apollo 8, our perspective on the earth has changedagain. Pictures taken from space now show a world on fire -- burning forests,flared natural gas, and electrical illumination. From such a per spectiveemerges a world view that indefinite exponentiation of population and resourceconsumption is simply not sustainable over time.

The idea of limits contrasts dramatically with an idealized "frontiersociety." Many people continue to pr opound the deep- seatedbut anachronistic Western civilization view that exponentiation is theprincipal route to progress. They wou ld deny the crises with contortedstrategies for accommodation, such as:

-- Population growth assures that more geniuses will be born to solve ourproblems;

-- Such problems as scarcity and environmental problems will triggertechnological fixes that will enable us to continue exponentiation.

But other people are adopting new concepts of maintaining progress along withthe idea of limited resources. These concepts are based on use of eleganttechnologies, new approaches to solving problems, and a transition to asustainable global future. This crisis of changing perspectives is alteringour perceptions of who we are, how we measure progress, and how we identify ourgoals.

President Clinton has repeatedly pointed out that w e need to devise somebetter measures of progress than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We continueto measure economic health in terms of the rate of flow of materials and energythrough the economy -- the faster, the better. On that basis, human and environmental disasters such as the Oakland fire, the Los Angeles riots, andHurricane Andrew have one thing in common: they increased the GDP! Our recent"economic recovery" of corporate profits is being accomplished in significantmeasure by downsizin g employment (i.e., lay-offs). People without jobs makevery poor consumers and cannot sustain the "recovery."

Second, there is a crisis in bio- geo- chemicalcycles. We have greenhouse problems, upper atmosphere ozone problems, speciesdiversity problems, land and water use problems, water quality problems, andproblems associated with use and depletion of hydrogen- richfossil fuels. Each problem on this long list affects the habitability of theplanet. Some of the problems already demand attention at the local or regionallevel. Others are more insidious, preying on our tendency to focus on the short- rather than long- term.

Next, we have a crisis of resource conversion. The way we go about providinggoods and services in the 20th Century leaves too much waste and pollution inits wake. We turn resources into waste during the production process, and thenmust use additional resourc es to clean up that waste.

This traditional approach to manufacturing is being challenged by the notionof green manufacturing. Rather than producing goods and services in an open- endedsystem that gives scant consideration to the ultimate fate of the resourcesutilized, green manufacturing creates a closed system in which most or all ofthe residuals can be returned to feed the production cycle the next timearound. By increasing efficiency and substitutability, manufacturers producegoods and services with less waste -- leading to a more profitable bottom line. See f

The fourth crisis is modern warfare, still the largest threat to the planetand its inhabitants. The end of the Cold War gives the world immensely greaterhope of avoiding nuclear holocaust. But powerful weapons are ubiquitous; theycan terrorize people in all parts of the world -- from Waco, Texas, toSrebrenica, Bosnia. It does not take superpower involvement to destroymillions of lives or devastate major p ortions of the biosphere with armedconflict. The end of PAX Russia that kept traditional antagonists at bay inthat part of the world is yet to be played out, and our unique role as solesuperpower is not only poorly defined but also doe not easily fit our nationalmood.

Finally, there is a crisis in human population growth. Ninety percent of allnew people are now born in the Third World, where there is a tremendous, unmetneed for family planning. For too many years, we turned away from that need inthe same way we turn our heads from the crisis of teen- agepregnancy here at home.

We desperately need a better und erstanding of demographic change and ways tostabilize population. Too many countries around the world have put a time bombin place with their own population momentum. Even making changes now cannotsave some of these societies from near- disaster. For example, if all of Africa could reach replacement level fertility rates by2030, its population would ultimately level off at about 1.4 billion - - a large number of people to sustain on a continent so politically andecologically fragile. If replacement rates were not reached until 2065,however, Africa's ultimate population would soar to 4.5 billion! Delay has itsconsequences!

Ther e are also adverse social implications of rapid demographic transitions,where sudden changes in birth rates can induce enormously difficult socialproblems down the road. For example, with fewer and fewer young people toprovide for the older population , the People's Republic of China has had achange in philosophy and is now backing away from the one- childfamily policy. They unde rstand better now what such changes will imply forChina some 30 years hence, with too few young adults to support the aged. Thusthey have opted to settle for a slower demographic shift and to endure thetribulations of later reductions in population.

Can we cope with these crises? I believe we can, if we start today and bringto the task the resourcefulness we exhibited in creating them.

The first strategy for coping with the crises is to develop an awareness andunderstanding of their making and their magnitude. We must discover ourcourse, identify what has propelled us, and decide what direction we would liketo go.

A shared goal among all nations is a high standard of living, but not at asacrifice of quality of life. W e need to understand, therefore, how people andthe resources they use interact to improve or diminish the livability of theplanet.

An identity originally formulated by John Holdren and Paul Erlich in the 70'sdemonstrates this interaction. In t his identity, pollution -- which represents diminished quality of life -- is basically a product of four factors. See figure 2.

The first factor is the technology of energy production. For example, if wecan improve the efficiency of our power plants and have less carbon dioxide perunit of energy produced, or less sulfur dioxide, then that factor can bereduced and the amount of pollution decreased. If we substitute renewable(e.g., solar) energy for fossil energy, we avoid greenhouse gas rel eases.

The second term applies more to the demand side, i.e., technology and marketbasket changes. Introducing efficiency and product substitutions helps oneprovide goods and services with less energy per unit of goods and servicesdelivered.

The third term is the economy, some kind measure of wealth per person. No onewould propose this term decrease. The fourth term is population, and in a realsense, it is the most fundamental.

The factors on the right side of the identi ty multiply; they don't add. Sincethere are no magic methods for reducing any factor, the problem on the left -- pollution&n bsp;-- will likely grow unless we devote serious attention to the factors in theidentity.

With the understanding provided b y the identity, we can proceed to the secondstrategy for coping with our crises: targeting sustainability as a long termobjective and pursuing technological choices accordingly. A national strategyfor energy is a critical component of the sustainabili ty strategy.

The projected supply/demand scenario for U.S. oil is not optimistic. Thedifference between domestic production and imports is an indefinitely expandingenvelope now passing 50 percent and continuing to diverge. There are economica s well as environmental problems to deal with here: presently about half ofour net imbalance of international payments is due to oil imports. See figure3.

Most oil flows into transportation and industry. And in transportation, oilis predomin antly used to move people and goods around in autos, light trucks,and vans. There are several possibilities for a national strategy ontransportation. We can try to beef up the oil supply, which buys us some time,perhaps, but no long-term remedy. We can try to improve automobile efficiency.At this date, however, even the most ambitious proposals to reduce theenvironmental insults associated with automobiles as we now make them -- e.g.,fuel economy standards of 40 miles per gallon or more -- would result in no oronly modest improvements in the status quo. See figure 4.

What we really need is a transformation of the automobile to a low-pollutionvehicle capable of running on domestically produced fuels that continues toprovide the level o f service we expect from our cars. The technologicaloptions for resolving the environmental challenges posed by our transportationsystem include: shifting to mass transit; improving the fuel economy of thegasoline-powered, internal combustion engine v ehicle (ICEV); the use ofalternative fuels such as reformulated gasoline, alcohol fuels (ethanol andmethanol), and compressed natural gas in ICEVs; and zero- or near zero-emissionpropulsion alternatives -- both advanced battery-powered electric vehicle s andfuel cell electric vehicles powered, for example, with hydrogen or methanol.The Administration is negotiating with the auto industry to investigate allalternatives. A coherent strategy requires ambitious long-term goals forrevolutionary changes i n performance and emissions, and near-term remedies thatoffer immediate benefits.

This initiative makes it clear that this Administration wants to remove theautomobile from the list of national environmental problems while working torestore the technological preeminence of the nation's automobile producers.

In addition to the focus on the transportation sector of the economy, thereare three overarching, achievable energy goals that, together, could immenselyimprove the U.S. econom ic and environmental picture:

We need to institutionalize a national policy of continued improvement ofefficiency in how we use energy. I mentioned earlier the ClintonAdministration's plan to improve the energy efficiency of all buildings forw hich tax payers foot the utility bills. We will also make information onenergy efficiency available to industry through the manufacturing extensioncenters to be established throughout the nation to help small- and medium-sizedbusinesses adopt state-of -the-art technologies.

We should find ways to diversify our sources of imported oil and link thatstrategy to other national objectives. For example, we have announced ourintention to help the Russians restore some of their oil production and im provethe efficiency of their own use, which will increase world supplies.

The third and most important long- termenergy str ategy is to set out on a multidecade course leading the world towarda post- fossilenergy era. It may take 50 years or more, but it is our best hope forsustainability. Given adequate support, renewable energy could provide half ofthe energy needed by the world economy by the middle of the next century.Large-scale use of renewable energy is essential if we are to maintain rapidwo rldwide economic growth without increasing global production of pollutants.Cost-effective renewable sources of electricity and fuels can provide muchneeded diversity of energy supplies in all parts of the United States --diversity that can mean continu ed competition with conventional fuel sourcesthat will help ensure stable prices.

Transitions may be harder for humankind than for any other creature. One ofthe most startling things to me when I took freshman biology was to learn thatthe lowl y amoeba has an ability to sense where its food is and move toward it.The amoeba not only senses where the food is presently located, but thedirection and velocity of the food's movement. The amoeba anticipates wherethe food is going to be and heads o ff in that direction. Mankind has a lot oflessons to learn from the amoeba in terms of setting our goals, understandingwhat it takes to get there, and then committing to the course.

Fortunately, our ability to sense and interpret what's happeni ng and thetechnology that enables us to change the way we do things is improving all thetime. Human ingenuity offers extraordinary opportunities, but time, sustainedcommitment, and institutional change are required. That fact doesn't alwaysfit well with human nature. Science and technology does offer a lot of newoptions for society, but those options will not be transformed to realityunless society organizes itself to take advantage of them.

James Madison University's College of Integrated Science and Technology is thetype of organizational effort to which I refer. It is designed to help us"plan effectively for the 21st Century" by educating young people, by providingour futur e citizen governors with access to "the power that knowledge gives."Without solid grounding in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology,Americans can no longer partake of the privileges or the responsibilities ofcitizenship. Getting the econo my back on track -- a collective responsibility-- requires creation of high-skill, high-wage jobs that demand comprehension ofscience and its relationship to the technologies that influence our dailylives. The chance for individuals to lead productive and satisfying lives -- aprivilege long taken for granted -- depends in large part on the efforts ofinnovators such as the founders of CISAT.

JMU has its work cut out for it in making a success of this program.Performance in mathematics and sc ience among U.S. students is verydisappointing. Although recent national surveys indicate that nearly all U.S.students have an understanding of basic mathematics and science information,more than 25 percent of 13-year-olds fail to demonstrate an adequ ateunderstanding of the content and procedures emphasized in elementary schoolmathematics, and relatively few students are able to apply knowledge, analyzedata, or integrate information at levels judged to be competitive byinternational standards. St udents also have difficulty in applying mathematicsand science information to the solution of problems. Science report cardsprepared over the last several years from the results of the NationalAssessment of Educational Progress document the general in adequacy ofperformance of U.S. students. Something is wrong with American math andscience education, and the consequences for society will be very serious if wefail to remedy the problem. Universities must take an interest in what happensin grades K-12 -- to fulfill their overall educational mission as well as toensure their own survival.

As I commend you for recognizing and institutionalizing the unity of scienceand technology, I urge you to incorporate another fundamental truth in your program: "Science says the first word on everything, and the last word onnothing." Tomorrow's scientists and engineers must learn how to choose wiselyamong the options created by scientific and technological advances. They -- we-- must address pover ty and hopelessness even as we strive to keep prematureinfants alive. They -- we -- must balance investments in the research thatyields new jobs with investments in increased productivity that necessarilylead to worker displacement. They -- we -- mus t weigh the urge toward'progress' and development against the very human need for quiet, empty places.An effort to impart the values of this community, this Nation, will be anessential part of the curriculum you develop for CISAT.

The fact is, our human nature and our institutions mitigate against achievingsome of our greatest opportunities. We make plans with short time horizons andopt for decisions using high discount rates on the future - - higher, it seems, than ever before . We are dominated by self- interestand self- centeredness,seemingly with little concern about the next generation, much less those thatwill follow.

These phenomena are very evident in every political economy, not just our own,so maybe they reflect bas ic human propensities. That is a very discouragingthought.

In order to take advantage of our opportunities we need to move beyond somedeeply cherished ideas. The cowboy economy and the infinite frontier had theirday. We cannot rely on "making more" to solve our problems or continue to viewexponentials as our friends rather than our ultimate nemesis.

Instead, we need to develop and embrace a new paradigm for human progress, onebased upon sustainable futures achieved through thought ful use of elegantlydeveloped technology in a global context. In such a scenario, the future isenabled not through exponential "growth," but with a vision of dynamicequilibrium. Progress might be measured not in terms of the velocity or flowof resou rces through our economy, but in the degree of fulfillment of humanpotential and the softness of the footprint of human activities on the rest ofnature.

We have to think less in terms of exponentials and more in terms of S curves.The idea of ex ponential expansion has dominated the traditional way we haveviewed ourselves and the future. When the future is considered in terms ofexponentials, an improvement in resource efficiency or a reduction of theamount of waste per unit of goods and servi ces produced only temporarilypostpones the time when a given pollution level is breached. See figure 5.

On the other hand, the view of the life scientists -- nothing is forever exponential and everything is ultimately an S curve -- underlies a sustainable model of the future. It creates an indefiniteopportunity to provide for a certain quality of life for a given number ofpeople and a given level of economic activity.

The opportunities to provide for the future are extraordinary. Bu t so, too,are the tasks associated with effecting the transition from where we've been towhere we choose to go. Are we ready to meet the challenge, or is what we havehere a situation that Yogi Berra described as an "insurmountable opportunity?"It's up to us -- you and me -- to say. I will conclude with an old Chinesesaying that preceded Newton's First law of motion by about 2000 years. Itstates,"If we don't change our direction, we are very likely to end up where weare headed."