RESEARCH PRIORITIES TO INTEGRATE THE NSF APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM
 INTO MAINSTREAM DEVELOPMENT


 Ronald D. Zweig
 The New Alchemy Institute



 Conservation must become a way of life, and incentives for it must
 be built into our economic system. In practical terms, this will
 mean a re-design of industrial systems to introduce super-systems
 in which the residues of one process become the raw materials of
 another. Technologies for recycling and re-use of materials and
 abatement of pollution must be integrated into such systems, not
 merely added to them.
 Maurice F. Strong


 Industrial and municipal development in the United States has been and
continues to proceed within the context of limitless resources. Most of
these processes are designed linearly and depend upon inexhaustible material
and energy wealth. Natural resources are mined and used for product manufacture
with little heed to either the quantity or kind of waste generated in the
process. The environment is assumed to be able to absorb the deleterious
impacts of these endeavors with the same seemingly infinite capacity as the
resources it rendered. Over the last fifteen years, numerous examples have
been recognized that clearly show this is not the case. Many of the resources
upon which these technologies depend are becoming increasingly difficult to
locate and expensive to extract. In addition, the pollution from these
processes is poisoning fresh water supplies, the lands, and the atmosphere.
The effects from these processes are measurable, and rapidly becoming evident
throughout this country and the world.

 As technological development continues to challenge the environment, we
must challenge the precepts upon which these developments are based. This
challenge demands broadening consciousness that searches for design improvements.
This is the role of appropriate technologies, specifically designed to co-exist
in harmony with the ecosystems in which they are to be created.

 The focus of a majority of technological developments has been directed
toward economic efficiency minimization of costs to maximize profit margins.
This has frequently been done without concern for short- or long-term negative
environmental impacts, even when deleterious effects were known but would
not be evident immediately or for decades. In other cases, the effects were
not understood, and with this lack of information the technologies spread.
At any rate, the capacity to evaluate many of these processes is now at hand,
and we must use the tools and knowledge available to make assessments of real
and potential infringements. This new context of environmental understanding