UCS Marks 20 Years As Advocate For The Wise Use Of Technology

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.—In 1969, the Union of Concerned Scientists was formed to combat the perceived threat of the United States military’s spread onto campuses, throughout southeast Asia, and into space. Next week, the organization will again rally faculty and students against a potential threat to their well-being. But this time the danger—the possibility of global warming and its impact on the environment—affects the entire planet. Officials of the Cambridge, Mass.-based UCS say that the shift from armaments to atmospheric science points to what the organization has always tried to be: an independent, nonprofit advocate of the proper use of technology on a range of issues that rank high on the public’s list of concerns. And it’s hard to argue with success. Although other political activists chide it for having a short attention span and for being unduly influenced by what’s hot, they envy UCS’s political clout. “A lot of what UCS does is to mobilize its membership,” says John Pike, associate director for space policy at the Federationof American Scientists. “And with 100,000 members, you can do a lot.” Even its opponents grudgingly acknowledge its technical expertise. “I consider UCS to be a responsible organization,” says Carl Goldstein of the U.S. Council on Energy Awareness, an organization that has clashed with UCS in its role as spokesman for the nuclear power industry. “They’ve been a burr under our hide, but they’ve raised some legitimate questions.” UCS was formed on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by faculty members concerned about the Nixon administration’s proposed antiballistic missile program and such related issues as the university’s role in defense research. A few years later, the group had switched to the potential hazards of commercial. nuclear power plants. At the dawn of the Reagan administration, its focus became arms control and national security. And as the 1990s beckon, the organization is once more redirectitng its attention, this time to environmental issues and a national energy policy. That concern will be publicized in the upcoming “Week of Education,” to be held November 6-12 on 120 campuses across the country. The event has been held every year since 1981, when it was begun as a symposium on the threat of nuclear war. Befitting the organization’s scientific approach to whatever issue it tackles, the week will feature such activities as a report by students and faculty at the State University of New York, Buffalo, on levels of carbon dioxide emissions from campus facilities—along with recommendations on how to lower them. But UCS isn’t above a bit of showmanship, either. Students at the University of New Mexico will sell T-shirts and plant trees, and Cornell activists will distribute leaflets and host lectures by campus celebrities like Carl Sagan. To carry out these and other activities, UCS has created an office on climate change and energy policy. “There has been an explosion in public awareness about environmental issues in general, and global warming in particular, in the past year,” says Alden Meyer, who joined UCS in January to direct the new effort. New ventures cost money, of course. And UCS, like most organizations that depend on membership dues for the bulk of their budget, is always working to expand that base of support. It recently became part of the Environmental Federation of America, a coalition of 18 activist organizations this has won permission to tap into the annual charity campaign that solicits contributions from federal employees. UCS executive director Howard Riis calls the affiliation a marriage of convenience, noting that “it’s an inexpensive way to collect donations.” UCS spends about 20% of its annual budget of $3.1 million raising money. Its staff of 35, divided between Cambridge and Washington, D.C., conducts research, disseminates results through press releases and publications, and lobbies federal officials. For example, an upcoming survey of renewable energy sources and the potential for conservation will highlight the long-term need for such sources as hydroelectric, wind, and solar power, Meyer says. The report will serve as the basis for an information campaign. Its concern for environmental issues in some ways takes it back to the l970s, when it was challenging the way in which U.S. nuclear plants were being designed and licensed. The effort began in 1971, when Daniel Ford, a Harvard alumnus and economist, teamed with Henry Kendall, then as now an MIT physics professor, in a review of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in nearby Plymouth, Mass. The federal government was holding public hearings in the course of issuing the plant a license, and the pair captured headlines with a report that questioned whether the plant’s emergency cooling system could replace the water lost from a broken pipe or other malfunction in time to prevent a meltdown of the nuclear fuel. Kendall had been present at the birth of the organization, two years earlier. But his role as a consultant to the Department of Defense forced him to keep his distance in the debate over themilitary’s presence on campus. Instead, he focused on such local environmental issues as trying to persuade electric. utilities in the region to use low-sulfur fuel. By the time of the Pilgrim hearings, Kendall says, interest in defense issues had waned the group's membership had shrunk to a handful of MIT faculty working out of his office. Although Pilgrim eventually received a commercial license and is now generating power for the residents of New England, Kendall cred- its the hearings with giving UCS “its big launch.” And he says the response of the scientific community was gratifying. “As the debate continued [the hearings lasted nearly two years], we began to attract foundation money,” he recalls. “Then we started a direct-mail campaign, and got supporting membership. We grew from one staff-member to three, and then five, and so on.” In 1973 UCS formally incorporated, and Kendall assumed his present role as chairman of its board of directors. " Robert Pollard, for 13 years the point man for the organization’s efforts on nuclear energy issues, was sitting on the other side of the fence during the Pilgrim hearings. He was a reactor engineer with the Atomic Energy Commission and a licensing project manager for its successor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). But he was impressed with the arguments that UCS offered during the hearings. “I used to go over and watch them on my lunch hour,” he recalls. ‘Although I was never involved with the licensing of that plant, they had a reputation throughout the agency as the most technically competent opposition we had.” In 1976 Pollard left NRC after deciding that it “was more interested in protecting the nuclear industry than the health and safety of the public.” But his UCS job doesn’t mean he’s donned an intellectual strait-jacket. For example, Pollard thinks civil disobedience is sometimes warranted as a means to shut down a nuclear plant. His bosses disagree. That conflict doesn’t prevent him from testifying at trials of nuclear plant protesters. But out of deference to UCS’s views, he says, “I do it on my vacation time.” The Reagan presidency led UCS to take on new issues relating to arms control. That decision brought it in contact with several professional groups already active on the issue, like the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and Physicians for Social Responsibility. But UCS officials don’t think there’s any risk of overcrowding. “I’m impressed with the way the arms control coalition works together,” says Kevin Knobloch, UCS legislative director for arms control and national security. “The groups complement each other rather than compete.” The broad range of subjects that UCS has tackled during its 20-year history leads to an inevitable overlapping of membership with other activist organizations that seek to enlist scientists. Now that the group has expanded well beyond the MIT campus, scientists represent only about 20% of its total membership. But they help the organization retain its emphasis on the technical aspects of complex issues facing the country. And outsiders seem to welcome the contributions that UCS can make to a process that belongs ultimately to tbe country’s elected representatives. “It’s hard to make anything happen in Washington unless you have a lot of people working together,” says FAS’s Pike. “And when you have a success, no one organization or individual can claim credit for it.” Adds Knobloch, “We can stand on our heads [to argue our case], but it is always the members of Congress who make the final decisions. Still, when we see a defense bill in which the House has one on record in favor of limitations on antisatellite weapons, the ICBM program, and cuts for Star Wars, then you’ve got to figure that something is happening. And the people across the country who have been involved in the issue ought to be able to claim some credit.” Karen Klinger is a freelance writer based Cambridge,Mass.

UCS Marks 20 Years As Advocate For The Wise Use Of Technology

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