A B B O T T L. FERRISS
SELECTIONS FROM S I N E T - - The Social Indicators Network News
(Accepted 18 January 1993)
World Monitoring of Environmental Indicators Is Needed For Policies to Forestall Global Degredation
Recent studies show that the quality of life of the world population is not keeping pace with population growth. One-fifth of the world's people are malnourished. Since World War 1I, 17 percent of the vegetated land has become degraded. The unwise use of natural resources is becoming apparent in the depletion of the protective ozone through higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide as a result of burning fossil fuels in industrial production and rapid change in land usage. -- These and other realities have created the need for indicators on natural resources as well as social, economic and demographic indicators related to them. Three publications have recently been released, opening for research and policy consideration the interface between environmental conditions and quality of life of the population. The World Resources Institute (1709 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20006) in collaboration with the UN Environmental Progralnme and the UN Development Programme have compiled extensive data on the global environment in a recent publication: World Resources 1992--93 (available from WRI Publications, P.O. Box 4852, Hampden Sta., Baltimore, MD 21211, USA; tel. 410 516 6963). It is published by Oxford University Press. The volume argues for "sustainable development," wherein development would "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The human, economic, and technological implications of sustainable development are explored with the goal of establishing policies for its achievement. Problems of industrial countries, poor countries and rapidly industrializing countries are separateIy addressed. Tables of indicators by country are given for economic conditions, Social Indicators Research 32: 97-- I00, t 994. © 1994 KtuwerAcademic PubIishe,~. Printed in the Netherlands.
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population and other social indicators, land cover and settlements, food and agriculture, forests and rangelands, wildlife and habitat, energy and materials, freshwater, oceans and coasts, atmosphere and climate, etc. A second publication, The 1992 Information Please Environmental Almanac (2 Park St., Boston, MA 02108; $9.95, paperback) organizes environmental data by city, province, state and country. At least 24 environmental indicators are included, from nitrogen dioxide levels to population density. A page of demographic, geographic and environmental data are presented for each state and province. The environmental ranking of 64 U.S. cities is included along with a Environmental Stress Index for the city. About half the volume gives tables of data for 147 countries along with a text which summarizes the country's major environmental problems. This includes water quality, lake pollution, forest damage, air pollution, hazardous waste sites, pollution from animal manures, land degredation and other categories. The volume should prove useful for studying trends in environmental change in relation to change in the quality of life. A third study points to the need for global environmental monitoring that would utilize data from some the current monitoring programs. A report by Jessica T. Mathews and Daniel B. Tunstall, "Moving Toward Eco-Development: Generating Environmental Information for Decisionmakers," WRI Issues and Ideas, August 1991 (World Resources Institute, address above), demonstrates the need for bringing together indicators from several sources, so as to achieve a unified image of the environmental situation. Indicators are needed "to construct indices of ecosystem stability, biodiversity conservation, land degredation, resource consumption, emissions and impacts of pollution, and others." A sample of 20 countries are used to illustrate the utility of assembling the data. Ten major global environmental monitoring programs are cited as a beginning for developing environmental indicators: World Weather Watch; Isotopes in Precipitation, coordinated by the International Atomic Energy Agency and WHO; GEMS/Air which compiles data on sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, coordinated by the UN Environment Programme and the World Health Organization; Global Atmosphere Watch; GEMS/Water; Land Use and Cover (Food and Agriculture Organization); Flora and Fauna (World Conservation Monitoring Centre); Energy; Population; Coastal Waters (UNEP's
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Regional Seas Programme). The authors point out the need for greater support for these programs in order that they may do a more adequate job of environmental monitoring.
Germany's Population: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future When the two Oermanies were reunited in 1990, 16 million East Germans were added to the West German population, raising its population to 20 million more than Italy, France or the United Kingdom. Until 1990, marriage, fertility and mortality in the two Germanies followed different paths. The wealthier West German women delayed marriage and childbearing and West German men lived longer than East German men. These differences may reflect the pronatatitst, repressive policies and sagging economy of the G. D. R. Unification may eliminate these differences. Immigration -- which triggered the demise of East Germany -- has long played a crucial role in German demography. In recent decades, guestworkers from southern and eastern Europe raised many sensitive issues for the public and policymakers. As to the future, even if immigration and fertility increase, Germany faces population decline in the long term. The social and economic problems associated with an aging population remain a major concern of German policymakers. These, and other, indicators of the dynamics of Germany's population are discussed in a study that traces its growth from the 1870's to the present and charts its prospects for the future. -- Adapted from: Gerhard Heilig, Thomas Buttner, and Wolfgang Lutz, Germany's Population: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future, Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, RR-91-10, June 1991, reprinted from Population Bulletin, vol. 45, no. 4, Dec. 1990.
Nordic Countries Test UNESCO's Educational Indicators System International comparisons of educational indicators are difficult because of the organizational vagaries among national educational systems. As solution to this problem, UNESCO has developed an ISCED: International Standard Classification of Education (Paris: UNESCO, 1976). In a new contribution to educational indicators, the five Nordic coun-
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tries have tested the applicability of the system to Nordic education. The study shows that the ISCED system can be used to reflect the Nordic system fairly" accurately, but that refinements in ISCED are needed, especially at the higher rungs of education. The study: Nordic Statistical Secretariat, Educational Indicators in the Nordic Counwies (no. 56), Copenhagen: Nordic Statistical Secretariat, 1991. Years of schooling remains the most uniform unit for international comparisons. Despite many similarities in the socio-cultural systems of the five countries, detailed comparisons of indicators pose problems: "... differences in the definitions, classifications and statistical systems in the Nordic countries make comparisons between the statistics presented in this report only possible to a certain limit." (p. 14) Nevertheless, the several systems share many commonalities: Grade 9 graduates transfer into "upper secondary" school at fairly high rates: 88% in Norway, 86% in Sweden. As in other industrialized countries, boys in upper secondary training seek engineering, trade, craft and industrial subjects "4 to 7 times" as women, who seek commercial and business administration training. In addition, the overall levels of educational attainment of the population (aged 30--64) are generally the same in the four countries (compared). The percentage of men attaining the first university degree or post-graduate degree varied only between 10.9 percent to 12.6 percent, and women, 6.9 to 10.2 percent. Information for the report was contributed by educational specialists of each country. The report was compiled and edited by Lief Gniedo and Lisbet Ahlz6n-Grahn, both of Sweden. Additional information on Nordic education may be found in the Yearbook of Nordic Statistics, published jointly by the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Statistical Secretariat, the latter at Sejrogade 11, DK-2100 Copenhagen.
(Editor's Note: Readers interested in contributing items to this department should address them to: SINET, P.O. Box 24064, Emory University Station, Atlanta, GA 30322, U.S.A.)
