are not so bad and the very high levels of government or nation-states are
the very worst. The very, very small municipalities show a moderate amount
of intelligence; very large municipalities, none; tiny corporations, some;
very large corporations, none.

 I think this is absolutely tragic. I think it really is absolutely true.
However, wouldn't it be nice if people knew what they were doing? By people,
I mean every aspect of social organization. How could this be facilitated?
Well, my little dream is to find this. It's probably unrealizable, but
nonetheless, one can dream about it. I would organize some kind of institution,
although that's a very, very dangerous thing to do because we all know
institutions are fearfully dangerous and almost by definition unresponsive.
But let's think about a way and if we have time for discussion and then if
things get serious enough, then we could talk about how an institution might
be organized. But let's think of an institution which would be responsible
for the natural environment. Imagine that we create now such an institution
and now the question about its objective and its internal organization is of
concern.

 I would organize it into a National Environmental Laboratory, and I'd
subdivide it into 34 Regional Environmental Labs, and the regions would be
these regions that Charles Hunt defines in The Physiographic Regions of the
United States. There are 34 of them. And every single one of these regions
like the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont, Allegheny Plateau, and so on, would be
staffed with a scientific group and the scientific group would, of course,
be determined in its composition and members by the nature of the regions.
For instance, the continental shelf would obviously have, say, marine
biologists, physical oceanographers, and so on. Whereas the Rocky Mountains
would obviously have different scientists, seismologists, geologists,
geomorphologists. They're very, very different in composition. Each of the
regions would then have a scientific staff which would be determined by the
region itself. Each one of these staffs would be required to model the
geology, geomorphology, physiography, hydrology, cells, plants, animals, the
whole bloody thing, and they would also be required to digitize these into
polygons and store it. Further, they would be required to monitor the region
continuously, and would have to show flows, rates of changes, and so on.
The latest and best information about every region of the United States and
the whole United States as an interacting biophysical system would then repose
within this institution and would be universally accessible.

 This would then be a public institution rather like public libraries,
that any of you with a terminal or access to a terminal will be able to have
access to. And so you could simply sit down at a terminal and say, "I want
to find those locations where there's 20,000 acres of land at not more than
$5,000 an acre where I can get a billion gallons of water a day and where
the physiographic range should be not more than, etc., etc., etc. Then you
collect 200 or 300 categories and then the damn thing displays.

 Or you could say retrospectively, the Army Engineers propose to build
a dam in this area. This is my value system. These are the things I cherish.
Display to me what the costs and benefits are within my value system of that
introduction. What more does one have to say about it?