of course, with the use of these data and conventional television and
telephones, it would be possible actually to engage people in discourse about
what the costs and benefits of all proposals would probably imply.

 So I'm 60 years of age, and the chance of this happening in my lifetime
is very, very small, but this is a good opportunity to suggest to somebody
in the National Science Foundation that this would be a legitimate bloody
responsibility of public servants. I went to a conference at Vail last
year, Tom Odum, which was called "Our National Landscape." It was actually
involving people who are engaged in evaluating scenic resources, I mean a
new measure of cosmeticians, and I was deeply distressed about this, but then
the title was "Our National Landscape" and I was introduced by the
Undersecretary of Agriculture, and after his introduction I said, "I want to
know who is responsible for that bloody National Landscape because if I knew
who that bastard was, I'd sue him."

 The question is, is the National Science Foundation doing anything about
a national landscape? Is the National Science Foundation doing anything to
enhance human health and wellbeing? Only by inadvertence, I would say, and
at great public expense. Is it possible for the National Science Foundation
to try to be a very, very useful agent enhancing human health and well-being?
I think it's bloody unlikely. If it moves, however, I think it will be
necessary to assemble the most distinguished scientists in the United States,
and cause them to be some sort of committee of the National Science Foundation,
who will very vocally and very powerfully convey this necessity to the
National Science Foundation at which time, who knows, there may indeed be a
National Environmental Lab. There may indeed be Regional Labs. There may
be a commitment to understanding the way this environment works. There may
be a formal method in which we can hypothecate alternative futures, dreams
of what America might be, the land of the free and home of the brave, and
then go through in some sort of paper exercise, who will cost, who will
benefit, and who will suffer, and then present these alternatives and their
attendant costs and benefits to the American public, and allow us to conclude
what our future should be and act together to achieve it.