[Illustration: _Oceanographers bringing aboard a 50-gallon seawater
sampler from the ocean depths find it a difficult task, even in moderate
seas. This photo was taken aboard the R. V. Crawford in the Atlantic._]
Environmental problems are best approached in the environment itself,
where all the natural variables and unknowns are present. Laboratory
work is essential, but no laboratory can carve from nature or reproduce
artificially all the complexities of the natural environmental
“laboratory”, the ecosystem.[6]
Environmental studies frequently demand the coordinated attentions of
ecologists,[7] chemists, physicists, geologists, oceanographers,
meteorologists, botanists, zoologists, and others, all working together
to approach the environment as a synchronized mechanism.
Finally, environmental studies are conducted with a special
consciousness of the need to withhold judgment as to what is meant by
“effect”, particularly “radiation effect”. Gross, immediate effects may
be determinable. Ultimate effects may be generations in the making,
remote in time and space from their causes. Studies thus are focused on
biological processes and on isolation and identification of the
long-range trends.