ENVIRON IMPACT ASSESS REV 1986:6:1-2 1

NOTES ON CONTENTS

The Viewpoint guest editorial for this first issue of 1986 is by Timothy O'Riordan, Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. He discusses future directions for environmental policy, and what EIA might contribute to them, in the context of the intellectual traditions that have come together to form modern environmentalism. Professor O'Riordan is also a member of the advisory board of the International Institute for Envi- ronment and Society based in Berlin, and has recently published under its auspices a more extensive piece on the issues raised in the present Viewpoint. Those interested may obtain a copy by contacting them.

The Feature pages in this issue are largely devoted to a special report on "Environmental Health Impact Assessment: Methods and Source Materials" by Julie E. Martin of Cobham Resource Consultants, Oxford, England. Noting that health factors have often been inadequately considered during the formulation of development policies and project planning, she presents an outline of the current resources and concepts available for the systematic identification and prediction of environmental parameters with important significance for human health. The World Health Organization has been particularly active in promoting the application of Environmental Health Impact Assessment (EHIA). An earlier version of Martin's article was written for presentation at a WHO seminar at the University of Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Management and Planning.

In Impacts on the Natural Environment, Mary S. Quinby-Hunt, P. Wilde, and A. T. Dengler of the Marine Sciences Group, University of California at Berke- ley, discuss "Potential Environmental Impacts of Open-Cycle Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion." Open-cycle OTEC can be a relatively benign technology compared to conventional methods of energy production, but does raise some new environmental concerns. The authors outline the potential impacts of the shore-based configurations currently under consideration in the US, and identify various options for operations and the discharges associated with each of them.

The two articles in AGENDA for Environmental Negotiation suggest future directions and perspectives for alternative dispute resolution in the environmental field. Lawrence Susskind outlines five ways in which those involved the practice of dispute settlement should further the development of their profession. Leonard G. Buckle and Suzann R. Thomas-Buckle, directors of the Graduate Program in Law, Policy and Society at Northeastern University, consider the idea that "failed" mediations, e.g., those in which agreements are never reached, may nevertheless often serve important educative and facilitative functions for the parties involved. Their article suggests using a step-by-step evaluation measuring the success of the mediator's success in terms of how much parties learned about rational joint decision making.

© 1986 Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 0195-9255/86/$3.50

2 NOTES ON CONTENTS

Sherwood B. Idso challenges the findings of two recent evaluations of the greenhouse effect, the impact of CO2 emissions on climate, by two groups, the National Research Council and the EPA. He questions the applicability of the research on which their conclusions are based, conclusions accepted by the present scientific majority (including authors Quinby-Hunt et al. in this issue!). Idso also takes issue with the conventional wisdom that increased CO2 will be detrimental to both the managed and unmanaged biosphere.

We look forward to Volume 6, Number 2, a special issue on the role of impact assessment on environmental decision making in New England. This ten-year retrospective will cover some of the most important and interesting decisions in the region, and will illuminate the evolution in the application of EIA during this period. We hope to develop comparable special issues for other regions in the next few years. I welcome your thoughts on this possibility.

Teresa Hill March, 1986