Our Environmental Hopes for 1985–86

For the first time in several years, and despite still-rising population pressures, we felt, with the incoming New Year, a little less apprehensive than latterly about our planet's future, and only hope there are good grounds for such relative optimism. For is not Mankind, although sometimes too clever for his own or the world's good, withal quite fantastically adaptive? To convey to our world readership what we believe will be eminently enlightened current opinions in assessing the soundness of these grounds for some ultimate optimism, we have asked an acknowledged authority on or near each of a wide range of the environmental topics involved, to give his or her frank views on self-chosen items within it in which he or she can foresee fair prospects of improvement in the coming biennium. A selection of these authoritative views will now follow, with more to come later on if circumstances prove propitious. All will be reasoned prospects rather than firm predictions, and none should be idealistically biased or politically motivated. N. P.