_Instruments for environmental research._
[Illustration: _A radiation analyzer for laboratory examination of field
samples._]
[Illustration: _Installing environmental research equipment in the
field._]
The first two decades of the Atomic Age have comprised a period of swift
maturity. Much has been done to gain perspective. Atomic energy as a
potential force for destruction has not been controlled. But there is a
surer knowledge of the hazard inherent in the absence of control and a
rational hope that the new power will be directed toward peaceful
objectives. We know that:
1. The uninhibited release of nuclear products into the environment of
the earth will create problems—fundamentally biological problems—of
long duration and of still-unassessed ultimate effect.
2. Use of atomic weapons in war could have a “biological cost” beyond
calculation.
Yet, in terms of constructive employment of atomic resources, we also
know that:
1. Atomic energy may help solve the very problems that the new age
presents.
2. Careful and controlled development of atomic forces will provide
the reservoirs of energy that will be needed to sustain the world’s
populations of the next century and beyond.
In whatever case, the solutions lie in the direction of environmental
knowledge.
Man, the human animal, will live in the environment he has the
intelligence to understand and to preserve.
[Illustration: “_... All creatures are linked to each other ... in their
dependence on limited environments that together form the whole of
nature ..._” (_Page 3_). (_White-capped noddy tern nesting colony,
Engebi Island, Eniwetok Atoll, photographed in 1965._)]