Air pollution is not merely a nuisance and a threat to health. It is a reminder that our most celebrated technological achievements-the automobile, the jet plane, the power plant, industry in general, and indeed the modern city itself-are, in the environment, failures.

What is needed now is a transformation of the major systems of production more profound than even the sweeping post-World War II changes in production technology.

Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education, medicine and law; in journalism, literature and art.

The modern technologist is less 'sorcerer' and more 'sorcerer's apprentice'.

Perhaps the simplest example is a synthetic plastic, which unlike natural materials, is not degraded by biological decay. It therefore persists as rubbish or is burned-in both cases causing pollution. In the same way, a substance such as DDT or lead, which plays no role in the chemistry of life and interferes with the actions of substances that do, is bound to cause ecological damage if sufficiently concentrated.

Seen that way, the wholesale transformation of production technologies that is mandated by pollution prevention creates a new surge of economic development.

Everything is connected to everything else.