Computers helping solve environmental problems.

Faster working, cheaper computers, better programs, and rapidly expanding international computer networks are becoming extraordinary tools for environmental protect on, according Global Network: Computers in a Sustainable Society, a Worldwatch Institute study.

Computers have made it possible to model the effects of air pollution on the global climate, as well as track changes in global temperature. Biologists now use computerized animal collars to study endangered species, monitoring their every movement. Microchips govern the functions of energy-efficient lights, advanced windmills, and solar power installations. Moreover, thousands of environmental activists and organizations around the world are using computer networks to exchange news and coordinate campaigns.

There are ecological costs to computerization, however. "Swept tip in our visions of the potential power of computers, we have failed to come to grips with their impacts," maintains senior researcher John E. Young. "Few people realize that Silicon Valley, birthplace of the computer industry, is also home to the highest concentration of hazardous waste sites in the United States. Or that computers now use about as much electricity each year as the entire country of Brazil." In addition. for computers to realize their potential to promote environmental sustainability, the report stresses, more attention needs to- be devoted to ensuring public access to computerized information.

In British Columbia, the Sierra Club of Western Canada is using computers to create detailed maps of forest cover on Vancouver Island. Their system has revealed that just 23% of the island's original low-elevation, temperate rain forests--an increasingly endangered ecosystem--remain uncut. Eighty-two percent of the island's land currently is...