Achieving a Solution to Acid Deposition and Other International Environmental Problems

Abstract

Acid deposition was first recognized as a large-scale ecological threat about forty years ago when Swedish scientists tied the environmental decline of lakes to acid rain. Solving this problem presented a special challenge because the sources of the pollution were hundreds of miles away, in other countries that had little at stake in the water quality and biological diversity of Swedish lakes. Today we recognize that our most important environmental problems can only be solved through international cooperation, often at a global scale. Efforts to deal with acid deposition across political boundaries serve as a model for dealing with other international environmental problems such as greenhouse gas emissions, ozone depletion, and protection of migratory birds and marine mammals.