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imprudent and premature political 
rush to regulate and legislate 
environmental solutions before 
there is an adequate understanding 
of the differences between natural 
and man-made global change and what 
man-made impacts are a necessary 
consequence of acceptable national 
standards of living and industrial 
economic activities. 
In response to the Washington, 
D.C. "bandwagon" series of public 
hearings and related extensive 
media coverage on "Global Warming" 
in 1988 and 1989, several industry 
organizations expanded their 
activities in response to these and 
other publicly sensitive 
environmental issues involving 
industry such as "acid rain" and 
clean air legislation and the Exxon 
Valdez oil spill in Prince William 
Sound, Alaska. 
One particularly visible 
organization focusing on global 
change studies and potential 
monitoring and regulation is the 
newly formed (1989) Coalition on 
Global Climate Change in 
Washington, D.C. This Coalition 
consists at present of company and 
industry association lobbyists, 
government affairs representatives, 
environmentalists and lawyers who 
are coordinating industry responses 
to the Washington and public 
bandwagon politics of global 
warming and global change 
activities and proposed 
legislation. The Coalition was 
initiated through committees of the 
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the 
Chemical Manufacturer's 
Association, the National 
Association of Manufacturers and 
others. It has participated in 
numerous hearings and has presented 
a general industry view of 
supporting global warming and 
global climate change research as 
the basis of increased and focused 
industry-government environmental 
management through prudent 
legislation and regulation coupled 
with responsible industry actions. 
The Geosat Committee 
Cooperative Research Initiative 
Another new industry initiative 
is that of the Geosat Committee on 
behalf of the resource industries. 
This initiative is focused on 
establishing cooperative industry - 
government R&D on global change 
studies and environmental 
management with an emphasis on 
earth observations applications. 
This initiative grew out of 
concerns by the Geosat Committee 
that NASA EOS global change 
research was being promoted without 
significant industry participation 
and the CES Global Change Research 
Plan also did not include 
mechanisms for cooperative industry 
R&D. 
Several meetings were held in 
1989 and early 1990 between the 
Geosat Committee and members of the 
CES working group on global change 
studies. These meetings produced 
general agreement that it would be 
mutually beneficial if the CES and 
the resource industries could 
develop mechanisms for cooperative 
R&D on earth observations 
applications for global change 
studies and environmental 
management. A major problem to be 
solved is under what mechanisms can 
industry R&D be linked to that of 
government in general, and of the 
CES GCRP in particular. Moreover, 
how can such cooperative R&D be 
conducted in a manner which is 
credible to the media and to the 
general public at large? 
In the Spring of 1990, 
discussions were held between