ESTIMATES provided by the government-sponsored YES campaign鈥攖he Year of
Engineering Success鈥攊ndicate that Britain is only getting half the 30 000
newly qualified engineers it needs to replace those leaving the profession.
Today鈥檚 engineers need to be well-versed in physics and mathematics. But sadly,
this year has seen a decline in the number of applications for mathematics
courses in our universities, and the number of school students opting to take
physics at A level. So it seems that far from giving a YES response, many
students are saying 鈥淣O鈥� to these important subjects.
This coincides with a tiny increase in the number of students applying for
entrance to university physics departments鈥攖he first for many years. The
鈥渋mprovement鈥� has come too late for the four universities that are shutting shop
on undergraduate physics. The question of physics and maths training should be a
high priority for incoming ministers of science and education. We need positive
action to get the balance right. Our futures depend upon it.
EARLY one morning, 10 years ago, Patrick Aimedieu of France鈥檚 National Space
Research Centre and Bob Sheldon of the University of Houston sent a balloon
soaring 40 kilometres above southern France in order to investigate the
concentration of nitrogen oxides in the Earth鈥檚 atmosphere. The balloon also
gathered information on ozone concentrations, but at the time the researchers
did not consider the data to be of any special importance. Realising now that
very little is known about stratospheric ozone, Sheldon decided to take another
look at the data, as Fred Pearce reported in the 1 February issue of New
杏吧原创 (This Week, p 14).
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Sheldon found a marked ozone cycle. As dawn strikes, ozone levels drop
sharply and continue to do so for about 20 minutes until half of the total is
destroyed. Then levels start to climb. Sheldon speculates that the early light
hitting the Earth鈥檚 atmosphere is diffracted, so low-energy wavelengths reach
the stratosphere. It is this radiation that does the damage to the ozone.
It set me wondering whether there were any special implications in the
research for policies relating to the Montreal convention on CFCs and the ozone
layer. John Gummer, the environment secretary, agrees that the findings could
cast new light on ozone chemistry. He adds, however, that the suggested process
is entirely natural and takes place only in the upper stratosphere, above the
main ozone layer. There would appear, he comments, to be no effect on ozone
depletion by human activities and as the temporary ozone loss only occurs at
dawn, no implication that the increased ultraviolet B radiation is causing skin
cancer. 鈥淚t is unlikely there will be any need to change the current policy on
phasing out ozone-depleting substances,鈥� says Gummer.
I am assured, though, that this resurrected work is being taken extremely
seriously in scientific circles.
ONE of the first acts of a new government of whatever hue, I hope, will be to
rejoin UNESCO. Though 170 states are members at the moment, the US, Singapore
and Britain are not. Ten years ago, Britain pulled out in an effort to suck up
to Washington, which had just done the same thing. The official excuse was the
Conservative government did not like the way UNESCO was being run. It was
costing Britain a paltry 拢10 million a year鈥攁bout the size of a
week鈥檚 National Lottery jackpot.
The attitude to UNESCO held by Nicholas Bonsor, the Conservative Foreign
Office minister, is as deeply disappointing to many of his friends as it is to
his opponents. He tells me that Britain鈥檚 departure was prompted by excessive
politicisation of the organisation and by its extravagance and inefficiency.
Since then, he says, the organisation has made good progress in putting its
house in order. But he adds that there is scope for further reform, and that
given government commitments to keep a tight rein on public expenditure, any new
commitments to international organisations must be weighed against competing
priorities for resources. The 拢11 million cost of rejoining UNESCO could
only be found by cutting significantly into other activities, he says.
鈥淚t is too early to take a final decision on whether Britain should rejoin,鈥�
says the minister. 鈥淲e will keep the issue under review, in the light of
progress with reform and other financial priorities.鈥� In the meantime, though,
Britain continues to participate in some of UNESCO鈥檚 scientific programmes:
namely the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, the International
Geological Correlation Programme and the Man and the Biosphere Programme,
comments Bonsor. British experts are, of course, at a considerable disadvantage
for posts on UNESCO鈥檚 secretariat. Keeping Britain out of UNESCO has been an act
of pettiness that undermines the country鈥檚 real interests.