As the document now stands, enforcement provisions are in fact rather meager. Leaders of nations who believe their environment is under attack may present evidence to the U.N. Security Council. However, the council would be put in a severe bind should such a case come before it, because any evidence intended to show "weather warfare" would be highly debatable. Climatology is an infant science, full of unknowns. Our planet's climate is already in a period of severe instability (whether from human or natural causes is uncertain). As a result, many countries will suffer terrible weather, drought and crop failures, and many will try weather and climate modification as remedies. In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences even raised the possibility that a new Ice Age may be upon us within a century-a threat that certainly could prompt the United States and the Soviet Union to try global climate modification, not as an instrument of war but as a new form of "cold war." So what is clearly needed, in addition to this treaty, is some form of international agreement on inspection, assessment and reparation guarantees for countries injured by environmental modification. Another weakness of the proposed treaty is that it prohibits only those environmental modification techniques by the military that have "widespread, long-lasting or severe effects harmful to human welfare." Would this have kept the United States from modifying weather in Vietnam? Perhaps not, for, as one Pentagon analyst said, "People in Southeast Asia are used to heavy rains." But how prolonged would rains have to be in a monsoonbelt nation to be called "long-lasting and severe?" Indeed, what is a "hostile" act, as blamed by the treaty? The Russians are now busy reversing rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean and creating inland seas. Experts say this action will alter world climate, but the treaty as written excludes "peaceful' environment modification from coverage. Some lawmakers fear the treaty would even encourage potentially dangerous military research into environmental modification by helping it gain legitimacy and funds. Pell-along with Representatives Gilbert Gude (R-Md.) and Donald M. Fraser (D-Minn.)—would eliminate this risk by putting all U.S. government research into weather and climate modification, including that of the military and the Central Intelligence Agency, under control of a civilian authority answerable to Congress. Next month, the Geneva disarmament conference will resume discussions on the treaty. It is expected to consider adding a prohibition on research into weather warfare-which would meet Pell's chief objection. Without such a restriction, the proposed treaty would have only limited value. |