International Council of Scientific Unions Newsletter No.62 August 1996

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF SCIENTIFIC UNIONS - ICSU SCIENCE INTERNATIONAL Newsletter No. 62 August 1996 Code Number: NL96019 Size of files: Text: 131.5K (This file is broken into 64K sections for delivery) Graphics: photographs (jpg) - 251.9K CONTENTS MEETING REPORTS The First IGBP Congress Sheila Lunter, Information Officer, IGBP During five days in April, the IGBP's leading researchers assembled in the small medieval town of Bad Munstereifel, Germany, for the First IGBP Congress. This was the first time in the ten year history of the IGBP that all the Programme Element (PE) Scientific Steering Committees (SSC) had met together. As emphasised by Chris Rapley, the IGBP Executive Director, and Peter Liss, the SC-IGBP Chairman, in their opening speeches, a major objective of the meeting was to reinforce the "corporate identity" of the IGBP, and to place ever-greater emphasis on the integration and synthesis of the Programme's results. Brief report on various meetings at the ICSU Headquarters Julia Marton-Lefevre, Executive Director, ICSU The months of April and May were busy ones at the ICSU Secretariat in Paris. The third meeting of J-GOOS (Joint Scientific and Technical Committee for the Global Ocean Observing System) took place from 23 to 25 April, followed immediately by a strategic meeting on a possible role of ICSU in Science and Technology for Earth Management (STEM). GETTING TO KNOW A World Network of Historical Research Robert Halleux, Secretary, Division of History of Science of IUHPS Benoit Severyns, Executive Assistant Although the Division of History of Science (DHS) is relatively discreet among the various bodies of ICSU, it is very rich in human resources, activities and projects. The scientific profiles of the officers of DHS reflect the diversity of the discipline. Our Past President, William Shea, is one of the leading personalities in the history of the Scientific Revolution. President Robert Fox (UK) is an historian of the relationship between science and industry in the nineteenth century; the first Vice-President Raffaella Simili (Italy), an historian of scientific institutions; the second Vice President Mary Jo Nye (USA), a specialist on Chemistry in the nineteenth century; the Secretary General Robert Halleux (Belgium), an historian of pre-Lavoisian chemistry and metallurgy; Treasurer David King (Germany) is dealing with Arabic astronomy and scientific instruments. Two Strategic Priorities For DHS, one of the main priorities is the keeping of the records of contemporary science. Indeed, our discipline is increasingly turning towards XXth century science. It is understandable since our century has witnessed more scientific revolutions than all previous centuries together. However, and quite paradoxically, we are less documented on the XXth century than on the Scientific Revolution because laboratory and scientific papers are regularly disposed of and their lifetime is very short. ln order to establish priorities, the Commission on Bibliography and Documentation and the International Council on Archives organised a conference entitled "Archiving the records of contemporary science", in Liege, on 28-29 May. DHS is trying to awaken all its national committees to the necessity of a policy to be followed in this field and is sending them guidelines in this respect. It is equally important that the different Scientific Unions of ICSU be aware of the emergency of preserving materials for future historical research and that they also inform their national scientific committees. Keeping the Windows to the Radio Universe open: The side effects of increased telecommunication Willem A. Baan, Chairman of Inter-Union Commission on Frequency Allocations for Radio Astronomy and Space Science (IUCAF) Do you use a cellular telephone daily? a pager? satellite TV and CD-quality audio broadcasting? a GPS global positioning system? Are these services essential in your life? If so, then you are part of the rapidly growing global demand on a global resource, which has detrimental effects on part of the scientific community. Sophie Boyer King Sophie Boyer King, Environmental Science Officer at ICSU was born in France and educated both in France and the UK with an international background. SPOTLIGHTS ON SCIENCE World Climate Research Programme (WCRP): Successes Stimulate Far-reaching Plans: A report of the 17th meeting of the Joint Scientific Committee for WCRP Coordination of Global Change Research Coordination of WCRP Projects Climate Modelling Climate Monitoring Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate Polar Climate and the Arctic Climate System Study (ACSYS) WCRP Mid-term Scientific Conference World Health Organization (WHO): The Advisory Committee on Health Research Meetings Terms of Reference Priorities Peer Review Recent Trends Current Plans Appendix SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Energy and Wastes: From Plutonium to Carbon Dioxide Introduction The growth of population and the local quality of life are related to many of our modern technologies. However, there is no question that the availability of low cost energy is a dominant component of our life support system. If one examines energy use and development, the numbers speak for themselves (e.g. energy per capita, kg oil equivalent units, Ethiopia 21, Pakistan 223, Mexico 1525, Germany 4358, see Kursten, 1996). Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems Vladislav Kotchetkov Member of the EOLSS Configuration Control Board This is one of the most exiting scientific projects so far with regards to its ambitions, scientific potential involved and the expected results. The Encyclopedia is supposed to be one of the largest sources of human knowledge ever to be compiled. Dr. Darwish Al Gobaisi, the Editor-in -Chief of the encyclopedia, outlines its objectives in the following way: "The Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems- EOLSS -will represent a comprehensive, authentic, authoritative, organized and integrated body of knowledge of the science, technology and management of life support systems development and use. It is a future-oriented document designed to have a major impact upon professional practice and education and to heighten social awareness of critical life support issues. The EOLSS... will be broadly useful in humanistic endeavors that result in the development of remedial measures for issues that have a potentially destabilizing effect on the global environment" A Comprehensive Freshwater Assessment Gunilia Bjorklund, Executive Secretary, CFWA, Stockholm Environment Institute In the UNCED process, including at the Dublin conference, the global concern over freshwater was expressed and was manifested in the Dublin statement. The most extensive chapter of Agenda 21, agreed at UNCED in Rio 1992, is the freshwater chapter, Chapter 18. There are links to water issues in other chapters of Agenda 21 as well, for instance in Chapter 17, the chapter on Oceans, all kinds of seas, and coastal areas. And there exist cross references in the Land Chapters even though water and land are not integrated the way we would like to see them. The Star of Tolerance - an object lesson for astronomy SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FOR DEVELOPMENT News from COSTED-IBN Veena Ravichandran, Senior Scientific Officer, COSTED-IBN, Madras COSTED-LINKS Programme Launched COSTED-INCASR Fellowship Programme Cooperation with UNESCO New National members for COSTED-IBN PUBLICATIONS NEWS NEWS IN BRIEF Summary of the Ninth Meeting of the OECD Megascience Forum The Latin American Workshop on Education in Global Change LOOKING AHEAD Workshop on the financing of Basic Research in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union A full report on the meeting will appear in the next issue of Sdence International. 8th Congress of the Panamerican Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PABMB) Timetable for the 25th General Assembly of ICSU and Associated Meetings, Washington D.C.from 21st September1996 - 27th September 1996 CALENDAR Calendar of forthcoming Events from August 5th 1996 - November 1st 1996 Members of the ICSU General Committee for the period 1993-1996

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