Michel Ferrier

Nuclear proliferation is a current topic. Although it has stimulated political and geostrategic thinking, official systems have shortcomings when handling this subject: actual proliferation may turn out to be more troublesome than the proliferation analyzed by diplomats. Given this, it is worthwhile to describe nuclear weaponry as well as its technological components, and to review the issue of proliferation on this basis.
 

Europe and climatic change

Domenico Rossetti di Valdalbero

More and more scientists admit that global warming is actually occurring largely due to human activities producing greenhouse gases . How does the EU measure up in this regard? Who emits what and how much? How are CO₂ emissions correlated with GNPs? What can we say about changes in greenhouse gas emissions over the past ten years? Are observed trends natural, or was there a chance decrease in emissions? What are the predictions for European and worldwide levels of greenhouse gases by 2010 and 2030?
 

Reducing greenhouse gases: The scope of the issue

Jean-Marc Jancovici

The concentration of greenhouse gases in the air has increased by 30% over the past century and a half. The rising world population but partly accounts for this. The average earthling consumes seven times as much energy today as a century ago. To avoid concentrating more CO₂ in the atmosphere, worldwide emissions due to human activities should be less than the equivalent of 2 or 3 GT of coal. In other words, each earthling would have the right to emit 500 kg per year. There is no denying that the improved technology, now available, will help us reduce emissions — but under condition that global consumption not increase indefinitely in the meantime. Renewable sources of energy for replacing fossil fuels will not enable us to solve the problem, at least not as long as total energy consumption amounts to 3 or 4 TEP per person (in Europe) and as much as from 7 or 8 (in the United States). Switching to nuclear energy will not solve the problem either. Only a radical break with current life-styles can lay the conditions for significantly reducing greenhouse gases so as to safeguard the future.
 
 

Christophe Abrassart and Franck Aggeri

"Ecoconception" forms one of the pillars of the integrated product policy recently adopted by EU authorities. It necessitates new techniques of environmental diagnosis for analyzing product life-cycles, etc. The advances made by these techniques are reviewed; and their limitations, described. Two different approaches to "ecoconception" — the engineer’s and the designer’s — have arisen. Concrete examples are used to inquire into the factors that have impeded these approaches from being implemented inside firms. Ecoconception cannot be reduced to a mere decision-making problem for choosing between already available technical alternatives or as a function of externally preset targets. The practices it entails require a more managerial approach that implies collective processes for exploring and learning about product life-cycles and specific arrangements for steering these processes.
 

The indoor environment: More awareness of a health issue in France

Corinne Mandin, André Cicolella and Jasha Oosterbaan

In the United States, Canada and northern Europe, an awareness of problems related to indoor environments has developed during the past twenty years. These problems are finally becoming a full-fledged health issue in France. Proof of this can be seen in the pubic policies targeting this issue and in the number of institutions that have acquired adequate tools for handling it. More evidence comes from the changing attitudes in scientific circles (research laboratories, ministerial agencies, associations for monitoring air quality), the building trades and the health sector. Thanks to this growing awareness, the issue of indoor environments should find its place in health programs. This would open the way toward assessing and managing environmental risks.
 

Pierre-Alain Roche

At first sight, EU water management guidelines apparently extend to the whole of Europe an organization of water-management that seems to come from France — given the emphasis placed on the integrated management of big hydrographic basins. Nonetheless, French institutions will have to try as hard as those in other countries in order to comply with the letter and the spirit of this EU directive. Whether with respect to procedures for setting long- or mid-run objectives or defining methods for assessing public policy (all of which imply plans of management and programs for measuring results), France’s currentpractices fall short. They do not meet up to the requirements set for master water development plans (SDAGE), for a "water police", or for the means with which agencies must be endowed so as to cover costs, tax and plan. It is high time that all parties involved in water management take an active part in the first phase of this process, the inventory of what already exists. In the guise of a scientific, objective process, this phase will determine the goals to be pursued in order to control the environment.