I. Introduction 1 - 5

II. Levels of Sustainability 6

III. What is the World’s Environmental Status Today 7 - 10

IV. Chemistry of the Ozone Layer 11 - 13

V. Ozone Layer and Life 14 - 15

VI. Pakistan’s Challenges for Sustainability 16 - 21

VII. Pakistan’s Scientific Managerial Capability 22 - 23

VIII. Domestic Scientific Community 24 - 27

IX. International Focus on Science 28

X. Pakistan: Scientific infrastructure 29 - 32

XI. Conclusion 33

• Graph 1 The Ozone Layer and Ultraviolet Radiation 6
• Box 1 Science in Processing 12
• Box 2 The Vicious Circle of Technological Dependence 13
• Box 3 The Vicious Circle of Economic Dependence 14 Superimposed on the circle of technological dependence
• Table 1 Annual Cost of Environmental Mis-management 20
• Table 2 Profile of Human Deprivation, Some Comparisons 21
• Table 3 Military Expenditures and Resource Use Imbalances 22
• Table 4 Scientific and Engineering Capability, 22

• Table 5 Share of Mainstream Science Journal Articles 23
• Table 6 The Four Areas of Science and Technology 24
• Table 7 Proficiency Test Scores in Mathematics and Science 24

• List of References: 25

I. Introduction

1. I feel very privileged to have been asked to deliver this lecture. I would like to thank the Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Muhammad Yaqub, and the committee for the Zahid Husain Memorial Lectures for the privilege to speak to you and to expose my biases to your critical scrutiny.

The subject is the Role of Education in ensuring sustainability for our beloved Pakistan. I will talk about a future that all of us want and the children of today would need.

What could such a "future" be? perhaps, one:

I am aware that talking about the "future" at this time may appear surreal when Pakistan is standing at a cross-road and undergoing political and economic turmoil. My hope is that the messages that I present would be relevant for our needs of today. All that we have is today.

2. "Sustainability" as a technical term entered our vocabulary in 1987 with the publication of the (Brundtland) Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. The Commission defined "Sustainability" as use of resources by the current generation in a way that it does not reduce the capability of future generations...

All action or lack of it is thus with the current generation. Today’s conditions, whatever they are, have therefore, to be taken as the starting point for ensuring or failing to ensure sustainability.

The Human Development Report (HDR, 1993) defines sustainability as development:

• of the people
• for the people
• by the people

• The first means investment to improve human capabilities - education, health, employment experience - so they can be productive and creative;
• The second means ensuring that the economic growth that results is shared widely and equitably;
• The third means improving participative and consultative (i.e. democratic) processes in ensuring the first and second above.

3. Both the Brundtland Commission and HDR definitions of sustainability highlight human capabilities as the ultimate source of growth. Other forms of capital - natural and Physical - may play a complementary role in the growth process, but it is "human capability or human capital" and "growth" which are described as the fountains for sustainability.

Thus education for and maintenance of health of the citizens of a country are defined to be central for ensuring sustainability.

This is the thesis I will attempt to develop.

Within education I will argue that scientific and mathematical literacy is a specially important ingredient - actually a necessary component if there is to be sustainability for Pakistan in the 21st century.

This is not to imply that primary, secondary, vocational and non-science tertiary education are not important.

And given our low levels of adult literacy, universal primary and secondary education are essential for national revival. The whole educational system is important. Balance in the education system would require actions on all components.

I have chosen to emphasize science and mathematics as specially important at this time in our history, because these would provide the solutions and the resources for the tasks ahead.

I will argue that serious "inequality of opportunity for developing capability" within nation states significantly reduces the prospects for sustainability.

4. I will thus talk about two relationships which bear strongly on achieving a sustainable future for Pakistan:

• Link between inequality and sustainable development;
• Role of science and technology in reducing inequality and for generating the resources for shared growth.

These translate into two related hypotheses: 1) significant "capability" inequality within and among nations (given globalization) is a binding constraint to achieving sustainability; and 2) education generally, but scientific education specifically is a sine qua non for reducing intra- and inter-national "capability" inequality.

5. I have borrowed heavily from the work of Dr. Abdus Salam - the scientific pride of Pakistan and our only Nobel Laureate (in Theoretical Physics). I have also borrowed from the literature on Environmental and development issues produced by UN, World Bank, UNEP and the (U.S.) National Academy of Sciences.

II. Levels of Sustainability

6. Operationally, "sustainability" has been defined to have three levels -- weak, sensible and strong -- depending on how strictly one chooses to use the concept of maintenance of capital.

Weak sustainability is maintaining total capital intact without regard to its composition (natural, man-made, or human).

Sensible sustainability requires that the composition of total capital be balanced in some defensible way. Thus oil may be depleted as long as the receipts are invested in, for example, human capital. Judgment on balanced composition requires definition of critical levels of each type of capital, beyond which concerns about substitutability could arise. This assumes that man-made and natural capital are to some extent substitutable.

Strong sustainability requires maintaining the three kinds of capital separately intact. This assumes that in most production functions natural and man-made capital would be complements not substitutes. A saw-mill (man-made capital) is worthless without the complementary natural capital of a forest and the human capital invested in mill operators with forest management personnel.

Our knowledge about the relationship between human activity and maintenance of "capital" is fragmentary. We need to make greater scientific efforts to understand these connections in order to create more favorable environmental outcomes and thus improve the prospects for sustainability.

A key question that we may ask for Pakistan is:

What should we seek: weak, sensible or strong sustainability?

I would submit that at the end of 1996 a point between sensible and strong would be appropriately ambitious for us to aim as we prepare to enter the next millennium. The reason is simple: it will be irresponsible to take risks with respect to the next generation and those not yet born.

III. What is the World’s Environmental Status Today?

7. Humans have not trodden softly on planet earth. The effect of human activity is pervasive and is transforming the surface of the earth such that in many places its original state is lost forever. It is ironical that this wholesale mutation has been caused by both increasing poverty (i.e. land degradation) as well as by increasing affluence (air pollution; ozone layer hole). By now the effect is global so that most people from the developed countries realize that their world, and their children’s futures, may be jeopardized by unchecked deterioration of the environment. The poor of the world do not fully comprehend the extent of the danger that they and their children face as they struggle to survive every day. This scale of change is unequaled in human history.

In just one generation (i.e., since 1970) the world has lost nearly 200 million hectares of tree cover, an area roughly the size of the United States east of the Mississippi. Thousands of plant and animal species no longer exist. And the world farmers lost an estimated 480 billion tons of topsoil, roughly equivalent to the amount of India’s cropland. Air pollution has reached health threatening levels in hundreds of cities. The amount of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, is rising 0.4% per year from fossil fuel burning and deforestation. While no one can be precise about timing, we know that climate change will occur unless national energy policies are modified. National accounting systems do not display the environmental debts being incurred by this generation. Will we continue to behave as the "dictator-generation" with respect to "all future generations", i.e., unconcerned about "their needs and claims" on the resources of planet earth. As Herman Daly put it succinctly "There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the earth as if it were a business in liquidation".

8. Two types of transformations of the earth have affected the global environment: changes in how humans use the land, most notably for agriculture, and changes in industrial capabilities. During the past three centuries, as the area of land under agriculture expanded, humans increasingly adapted land to suit their own purposes. The land area devoted to cropland has expanded by over 400 percent in the past 300 years, amounting to a world increase of about 12.5 million square kilometers (i.e. 25% larger than the area of China or Canada). The net loss of forests due to human action amounts to approximately 8 million square kilometers (or, about the area of Brazil). Over this period, the population of the 40 largest urban areas increased 25-fold and urban uses of land increased even faster. These changes drastically altered the earth’s surface, the energy balance, the hydrologic cycle, the emissions of biologically produced gases to the atmosphere, and the vegetation.

9. Similarly, growth of industry and expanded use of fossil fuels had a noticeable effect on a global scale through pollutants introduced into the troposphere and even the stratosphere. The most well known effect of this pollution is the destruction of ozone in the stratosphere through chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which were invented in 1930 and were hailed as safe alternatives to ammonia. At that time scientists could not imagine that "safe and stable" CFCs would punch a hole in the ozone layer which has provided a natural shield from solar ultraviolet radiation, or that CFCs would contribute to global warming.

10. Global warming is feedback from the earth’s ecological system. So are the ozone hole, acid rain in Europe and eastern North America, soil degradation in the world, deforestation and species loss in the tropical forest zone. These are the faces of global change, but none of these would have been even noticed if world class scientists had not been studying and observing the ecological system. To demonstrate the importance of the scientist let me illustrate the complexity of the investigative process by briefly describing how the hole in the ozone layer was discovered by humankind.

IV. Chemistry of the Ozone Layer

11. Until the hole was discovered, scientists believed that they understood the chemical processes at work in the ozone layer. Oxygen molecules (O²), abundant throughout the atmosphere, are split apart into individual atoms (O + O) when energized by radiation from the sun. These atoms are free to collide with other O² molecules to form ozone (O³). The particular configuration of the ozone molecules allows them to absorb the sun’s radiation in ultraviolet wavelengths that are harmful to life if they penetrate to the earth’s surface. The ozone molecules formed by collision are partially removed by other naturally occurring chemical reactions, and so the overall concentration of stratospheric ozone remains constant. High above the stratosphere, the density of gases is so low that oxygen atoms rarely find other molecules to collide with, and so ozone does not form in abundance. Below the ozone layer, too little solar radiation penetrates to allow appreciable amounts of ozone to form. Thus most of the world’s ozone is in a stratospheric layer bulging with ozone at altitudes from 25 to 35 kilometers.

The Ozone Layer and Ultra violet Radiation

Insert Graph 1

Ozone is found in varying concentrations from the earth’s surface to a height of some 60 kilometers. Its concentration increases sharply in the stratosphere. Maximum ozone concentrations occur at a height of 25 to 35 kilometers but even here never exceed about 10 parts per million by volume. (Adapted from U.N. Environment Programme. 1987. The Ozone Layer, Fig. 2, p. 9. Copyright © 1987, U.N. Environment Programme.)

12. Closer to the ground, in the troposphere, ozone produced through a series of chemical reactions involving hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide emissions from vehicles and industrial activity is an effective greenhouse gas. Thus ozone plays two very different roles in global environmental change: one in the stratosphere as a shield against harmful ultraviolet radiation, and another nearer the ground in the troposphere as a greenhouse gas and a health hazard.

13. Atmospheric chemists studying chlorine released into the atmosphere from industrially produced chlorinated molecules found that natural mechanisms for their removal are not known? Researchers observed in 1974 that stable CFCs rise unchanged through the troposphere and are dispersed so that there are as many CFC molecules over Antarctica as over Washington, D.C. Researchers hypothesized that upon reaching the stratosphere, the CFCs encounter high-energy ultraviolet light, which breaks them down, releasing their chlorine atoms. the chlorine atoms then engage with ozone in a catalytic reaction in which each chlorine atom destroys up to 100,000 ozone molecules before other chemical processes remove the chlorine from the atmosphere. The hypothesis was borne out and improved by measurements and observations. In 1970 chlorine was present in the stratosphere at 1.2 parts per billion, but in 1985 it more than doubled to approximately 3 parts per billion.

V. Ozone Layer and Life

14. The ozone layer is essential to life because it shields it from damaging ultraviolet radiation. Researchers are now studying how humans, vegetation, and aquatic ecosystems each are being affected by ozone depletion. We have learned that direct exposure to ultraviolet radiation can damage the human immune system, cause cataracts, and increase the incidence of skin cancer. Researchers have tested numerous plant species which show sensitivity to increased ultraviolet exposure. Soybeans are particularly susceptible to ozone damage as are members of the bean, pea, squash, melon, and cabbage families. Plant responses to ultra violet radiation include reduced leaf size, stunted growth, poor seed quality, and increased susceptibility to weeds, disease, and pests. Scientists are also in the early stages of understanding how ultraviolet radiation might affect marine ecosystems and animals.

15. This is what scientific investigation and scientists gave to all humankind. The scientific consensus that CFCs deplete the ozone layer prompted nations to come together leading to the Montreal Protocol (in 1987) on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. This protocol calls for a 50 percent reduction in CFC production from 1986 levels by 1999. The Montreal Protocol has proven to be a model for actions that span national boundaries and interests as the world addresses common environmental issues such as greenhouse warming and other forms of global change. Three other protocols have followed. They are perhaps the best illustration of the central role of scientific information and scientists in discussions about policies to manage transboundary environmental issues. Their other, equally important, role is to provide solutions for "national" and "local" problems and provide the basic knowledge for technology development. This role is central to economic growth and is fully recognized by industrialized countries, but not as well by the developing world.

VI. Pakistan’s Challenges for Sustainability

16. The environmental problems of the world are interlinked scientifically and politically. Scientifically, their resolution requires an understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological processes that govern the earth, and of the interaction of these processes in the entire earth system. Politically, policy options to address these problems converge on the need for internationally accepted actions relating to energy, technology, land use, and economic development. These issues are large and are challenging world political leadership. National actions and international cooperative action is needed to address these transboundary problems.

17. In this context, let me submit that the consequences of global and local environmental changes for Pakistan need more attention than they have, so far, been given. This is partly because we, as a nation, are struggling with the challenges of today and seem to be incapacitated by the weight of poverty. It is also partly due to our limited domestic scientific capability which appears inadequate for the challenges of sustainability.

18. To illustrate the magnitude of Pakistan’s growth and environmental challenges let me describe the current picture in terms of:

• Environmental mismanagement (Table 1);
• Profile of human deprivation (Table 2); and
• Resource use imbalances and extent of inequality (Table 3).

The highlights are:

• The annual environmental cost from air and water pollution and land degradation exceeds US$2.2 billion. This is about 4% of Pakistan’s GNP. The people impact is in tens of million.
• The profile in human deprivation affects most of the country’s population. The biggest deprivation is, of course, illiteracy which afflicts 85 million people and closes many options for the poor. Close to 40 million, one third of the total, live in absolute poverty.
• Inequality of income is extreme. The ratio between the income shares of the top and bottom quintiles is six. In a comparison with India, Indonesia and Bangladesh—Pakistan has the highest level of inequality.
• Pakistan also spends the largest fraction of its GNP on Defense. Perhaps, it is necessary in our geopolitical environment, but this bears re-examination, given our inequality and our poverty.

19. Let me also highlight two of Pakistan’s most serious environmental deteriorations: salt balance in the Indus Basin; and watershed erosion in the catchment areas of our rivers systems. Together these two are destroying our most precious resource, i.e. the integrated irrigation system of the Indus Basin which feeds us and provides the bulk of our export earnings.

The salt balance issue springs from the relatively straight forward arithmetic that unless the outflow of salts out of the Indus Basin equals or exceeds the salts flowing into the Basin, salt accumulation would occur in the Basin. If such accumulations occur, then it is only a matter of time before salt accumulation in the soil and the underground aquifer becomes intolerable to plants and life as it is known today. The Indus basin system is unique in that it has virtually no return flow of subsurface drainage water - effluents from canal commands remain in the canal commands. In gross terms, about 25 million tons of dissolved salts enter the Indus Basin annually, about seven million tons are (presently) discharged into the sea, leaving a net annual addition of 18 million tons to the canal commanded area. This amounts to 1000 lbs per acre per year - an insignificant annual increment, but adding up to significant proportions with the passage of time.

20. The salt balance arithmetic of the presently usable ground water areas deserves special mention in this context. So far, human reclamation efforts or natural processes have essentially moved soil salts from the upper soil layers to either below the root zone or into the aquifer itself. As more surface water is brought into these areas and/or ground water is recirculated without providing effective salt drainage, the soils or the aquifer continue adding to their prior accumulations of salt. This positive salt accumulation process has to be stopped or slowed down; if neither is done, these areas would eventually become saline ground water areas. So far, drainage projects (SCARPs) in usable ground water areas have only attempted to address water balance issues i.e. lowering the water table. In the longer term view, the salt balance issue acquires cardinal importance. The on-going construction of the Left Bank outfall drain is the first effort to export salt from the basin into the sea. We have just began to scratch the surface of this environmental issue.

21. In the northern catchment areas of the Indus and Jhelum, watershed erosion has been a recognized issue for quite some time, but little authoritative data is available on the rates of watershed erosion and their likely effects on Kharif and Rabi river flows and on the siltation of the rivers and reservoirs. Since human populations inhabit watershed areas, erosion control has a more immediate imperative - as it deals with the problem of poverty in the uplands, which is partly the result of misuse of watershed areas through over intensive farming on steep slopes, over grazing of range lands, and removal of forest undergrowth. Loss of vegetation in low rainfall hilly areas through uncontrolled grazing has not only reduced the carrying capacity of the land for livestock, but has led to loss of top soil, in some cases down to bedrock, and has increased rainfall runoff rates, aggravating flooding downstream. In many areas this process may already have gone beyond the point of reversibility.

VII. Pakistan’s Scientific Managerial Capability

22. These environmental, inequality and resource-use imbalance challenges would be formidable for any nation. They are huge for Pakistan. What scientific, managerial and technical capabilities do we have as a nation to meet these challenges?

I have chosen to focus on scientists and engineers who are the technical problem solvers and managers of the nation’s resources. It is through this "group" that present industrial countries (older and the newer) have accomplished economic transformation. If a society is to become self-reliant it is essential that the problems of its agriculture, of its local pests and diseases, of its local materials base, of its environment, water bodies, soil mass, salt balance, watershed erosion, energy production, industrial production, be solved locally.

Pakistan’s scientist/engineer population is about 290 thousand. Of these, only seven thousand, or less than 3% of the total, are engaged in research and development. This translates to 58 scientist/engineers per million of population. In comparison, India has 150; Indonesia 170; Korea 2000; Germany 4000; and Japan 5700. That is, Japan’s scientific/engineering capability is about 100 times that of Pakistan. India’s is three-fold and Korea thirty-fold. In addition, the proportion of the scientist/engineering workforce engaged in research and development is half that of India or Indonesia (Table 4).

23. The above was quantitative capability comparison. For making a "quality of capability" comparison we would use the "number of scientific journal articles published" as a proxy. Pakistan’s share of "mainstream science journal articles" (in 1994) was 0.06 percent. This rate is one fourth of Turkey; one-tenth of Brazil; one-thirtieth of India (Table 5). These inter-country comparisons are meant to indicate the extent of the "quantitative" and "qualitative" effort that Pakistan has to make to join the ranks of those who have succeeded in the 20th and are likely to retain that lead in the 21st century.

VIII. Domestic Scientific Community

24. In the work done for the South Commission , science and technology were divided into four overlapping subsets (Table 6). These are:

25. Another truism today is that "basic" and "applied" sciences are synergistic and must coexist. You may be surprised to know that NESTLE uses fourteen basic and applied sciences (see Box 1) to develop its basic products from the Soya plant. The scientific base of all products and process is becoming stronger. The more science a new product or process has, the more it is likely to be competitive. Most developing countries have hardly any creative science. Ninety percent of the world research capability is concentrated in about 35 countries with about 25% of world population. The R & D expenditures in three countries range from 2.3% of GNP (U.K.) to 3.1% GNP (Japan). The US spends 2.7% on R & D. In comparison, Pakistan spends about 0.2%. Hence the imperative necessity for developing countries to find the most effective policy to bring about rapidly a macro science transfer on which to base sustainable development. Without such a science transfer developing countries will continue to be technologically, and hence economically and politically, one-sidedly dependent. This is lucidly illustrated in two vicious circles of Technological and Economic Dependence (Box 2.3) which I have borrowed from a presentation by Dr. M.A. Kazi. These are self-explanatory and illustrate why change is needed at a radical pace. However it should be noted that science transfer is effected by and to communities of scientists. It cannot be done when there is limited scientific capability in the host country. Domestic scientific communities (in developing countries) need building up and this calls for wise science policies with long-term commitment, generous patronage, self-governance and free international contacts. Few developing countries have promulgated such policies; few aid agencies have taken it as their mandate to encourage and help with the building up of the scientific infrastructure. Few world class universities are focusing on this as an important international function. We are also doing very little in Pakistan which has contributed to putting us at the bottom of the league table of scientific capability.

Steven Dedijir has given an example of broad-based science necessary for applications:

Analytical Chemistry Organic Chemistry Ultrastructure

I. Detection and elimination II. Effect of technological III. Nutritional and sensory

of harmful factors process on nutrients evaluations of food

formulas

Clinical Chemistry Physics Technological Mathematics

Alimentary sciences Ultrastructure Sensorial Metrology

Toxicology Alimentary Sciences Experimental medicine

Nutrition and Metabolism Organic Technology Physiology

Physiology Nutrition and metabolism

The above table translated from a 1981 Nestle pamphlet illustrates the strategic advantage the industrialised countries have in all technology transfers over the other countries. The table shows all the basic and applied sciences Nestle uses to develop, from the Soya bean plant, a series of products, processes and production units. The Brochure then shows how these products, processes, factories are "transferred"; among others, to the South. The scientific base -- the know-why, know-who of science remains "at home" as a foundation for newer, better industrial outputs.

26. Most developing country policy makers and staff of aid-giving institutions speak of technology transfer as if that is all that is involved. Very few within the developing or in the donor world appear to realize that effective capacity building requires that technology transfers be preceded by science transfers; that the science of today is the technology of tomorrow and science must be broad-based in order to be effective as a fountain of technology. That is:

IX. International Focus on Science

28. Most nations of the world have begun to formally carryout science and technology development. Government offices have been created in France (1983), the Netherlands (1986), Denmark (1986), the European Community (1987), the United Kingdom (1988), and Germany (1989). In 1995 the European Commission brought out a "White Paper" which stipulates that the European Community must become a "learning society" if it is to keep its place in the competitive world of the twenty first century. Science and technology are, of course, central; but EEC defines a (i) broad base of knowledge and (ii) continuing lifetime of education/training as also essential. Finally, the United States 1996 presidential contest was on the platform of education and environment for "building a bridge to the 21st Century". Pakistan also needs such institutional capacity. To my knowledge we do not have one, or at least—an effective one.

X. Pakistan: Scientific Infrastructure

29. In order to compete in the next millennium Pakistan will have to develop a scientific infrastructure and practice scientific values. It has to introduce a world class level of science and mathematical education in the schools and universities of Pakistan. It will not be possible to become a high income society without an educated and scientifically literate population.

Of course, scientific or general literacy by themselves cannot guarantee transition of Pakistan’s economy to higher levels of income and development. A collective "national will" is also needed to ensure availability of the enabling environment, i.e. science infrastructure and scientific values. This enabling environment will not be created overnight. Thus, we must begin now to create the needed infrastructure and to acquire and practice scientific values - which curiously are similar to Islamic values. To illustrate this congruence let me share with you a brief review of the role that science and scientific values have played in earlier Islamic civilizations.

30. The period 750 AD to 1100 AD has been described by Abdus Salam as the Golden Age of Science in Islam; it was in this period that the foundations of the experimental method were laid for humankind. Ibn-al-Haitham was a great Muslim physicist. In his work on optics he anticipated Fermat’s Principle of Least Time by many centuries. Roger Bacon’s opus majus Part V is essentially a copy of Ibn-al-Haitham’s optics. It is pertinent to note Bacon’s remark to his contemporaries that he "never wearied of declaring that a knowledge of Arabic and Arabic science was the only way to true knowledge".

31. Within a century or so after al-Biruni, Ibn-al-Haithan, Ibn-Sina, ...first class science petered out in the Islamic world. The world went into the dark ages from which it began to get revived five centuries later by the famous names of modern science... Galileo, Copernicus, Newton. Why did science in the Islamic civilization die down? Dr. Abdus Salam explained the decline in terms of increasing:

• lack of tolerance of innovation; and
• isolation in the sciences.

"Lack of tolerance for innovation" began to develop from the 12th century onward. This process led to a loss of scientific values and produced "isolation of the sciences". A lucid example of apathy toward innovation is a quotation from Ibn Khaldun at the end of the 14th century:

XI. Conclusion

33. Government has the primary responsibility in creating the scientific infrastructure and maintaining a climate where scientific or Islamic values can be practiced. But the domestic scientific community has an equal, if not greater, responsibility to demand the infrastructure and promote, protect, and practice scientific values. In the process of building the infrastructure we must not forget that Pakistan has a diaspora which has immediately tappable scientific capacity. These scientists may live abroad, but in the first generation, remain culturally tied to Pakistan. Most of them retain a strong sense of responsibility for fellow citizens "Back home". All scientific talent that we can tap for the short or long haul will have to be mobilized. Further, we should also remember the basic universality of science. The intrinsic nature of science is universal, its success depends on co-operation, interaction and exchange, much of which goes beyond national boundaries. The community of scientists is international; the population of Pakistani Scientists in the diaspora should be considered part of the community and not as aliens or as intruders.

Finally, the citizens of Pakistan would also have to give their full support. Edward Teller, father of the Hydrogen Bomb, likened the need for public support of science to that of arts. Testifying in 1957 (post Sputnik), when science and mathematics were not highly valued by the U.S. public he said:

Five Actions comprise the Solution:

Let me close by quoting Dr. Abdus Salam on the necessity and importance of a "Meaningful commitment towards science".

"By and large, there has been scant realization in the south that science can be applied to development as, for example, there was at the time of the Meiji Restoration around 1870 when Japan’s emperor took five Oaths. One of the oaths set out a national Policy towards science.

KNOWLEDGE WILL BE SOUGHT AND ACQUIRED FROM ANY SOURCE WITH ALL MEANS AT OUR DISPOSAL FOR THE GREATNESS AND SECURITY OF JAPAN.

For the south the consequences of this LACK OF COMMITMENT have been--few research centers for Applied Sciences, sub-critical and isolated communities of science (with scant provision for infrastructure, for scientific literature and international contacts), weakness in scientific education and little expenditure on R & D---.

This describes Pakistan quite accurately; ...but we must change this through the above actions and a collective national will.

Thank you for the privilege to be with you.

 
 

Environmental Issue	Estimated Annual Cost to the Economy (1990s) US$ Millions		People Impact (Millions)
	Pakistan	India	Pakistan	India
Air Pollution   Surface water pollution   Groundwater pollution       Soil degradation   Rangeland degradation   Deforestation   Industrial hazardous waste   Loss of biodiversity	9002   750   Aquifer destruction (salt; chemicals)   350   130   50   Not known   Not known	1500   6000   Not known       2000       200   Not known   Not known	30+   50+   40+       Most of arable land	50   100+   —       50% of arable land loss of ecological functions.

 

¹ Most likely under-estimates of the true costs

² Adjusted World Bank estimate

Source: World Bank Estimates

Source: Human Development Report, 1993

Source: Human Development Report, 1993

Source: UNSEEN Statistical Yearbook, 1994

Source: Science Citation Index, 1994

Source: Abdus Salam, "Notes on Science", 1989

 
 

Country	Average days’ instruction per year	Mathematics % correct	Science % correct
China	251	80	67
Korea	222	73	78
Taiwan	222	73	76
France	174	64	69
Italy	204	64	70
Canada	188	62	69
England	192	61	69
USA	178	55	67

 

List of References