While human beings have always been able to visualize and seemingly care about the entire globe, it is only recently that the world has come to know genuinely global problems. Global warming, ozone depletion, and threats to biological diversity represent the first, bona fide global challenges, because they threaten the fundamental organic infrastructure that supports life on earth. If they come to pass, they will have universal physical consequences, in contrast to the more circumscribed consequences of non-global issues. This understanding conflicts with much contemporary thinking, which tends to see all problems—from poverty and hunger to war and human rights abuses—as global in character and thus in need of globalist responses. Proper understanding of what constitutes a genuinely global challenge will work against this tendency, and thus encourage addressing problems at the most appropriate level of governance. This article tries to provide such an understanding. It delineates the global dimension of global warming, ozone depletion, and threats to biological diversity and—after differentiating local, regional, and global issues—argues against addressing all common, transboundary challenges at the global level.

This article approaches the current global environmental crisis from an evolutionary perspective. It identifies two features in contemporary states' behavior: impotence and intransigence in the face of global crisis. These traits stem from humanity's evolutionary past, in which groups had to maintain their integrity while surviving intergroup competition. Contemporary sovereign states are groups that have survived this process, and they guard their sovereignty vigilantly. They do so by instituting coercive measures on the one hand and cultivating members' loyalty on the other. A belief of common descent must be articulated successfully in order for members to feel group solidarity. Hence, states are intransigent in maintaining that they truly represent the welfare of their members. To the extent that states are successful in inculcating a belief of common descent and identity, they are also constrained in acting altruistically—hence, their impotence in the face of deepening global crisis. To find a way out of this dilemma, strategic alternatives are explored. The emerging role of nongovernment organizations, with certain caveats, is seen as promising.

How do members of different ethnic or racial groups differ in their responses to the same political events? Previous research has shown that when leaders are seen on television, the viewers' episodic emotional and cognitive responses can influence their attitudes and subsequent voting behavior. In an experimental replication, using excerpts of all candidates in the 1988 American presidential election, episodic emotions elicited by facial displays were again found to produce positive attitude change in white viewers. For blacks, however, the emotions felt while watching leaders—including Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis, who elicited highly favorable responses—did not influence posttest attitudes. This contrast between black and white viewers' emotions and attitudes differs from the effects of nonverbal behavior associated with personality or gender. These findings suggest that nonconscious factors may play an important role in the way blacks perceive and react within the American political system.

There is currently considerable investment in research aimed at producing transgenic farm animals with enhanced productive capacities. This article submits these prospective technologies to critical ethical evaluation. The analysis provided, focusing on issues relevant to public policy, suggests the need to introduce additional regulations governing the use of these technologies. Should their use be permitted in principle, specific legislation would seem to be required: (1) to protect the welfare of transgenic animals produced/kept in commercial enterprises; (2) to ensure the freedom of choice of purchasers of food and other products derived from transgenic animals by provision of adequate information on the source of the products; and (3) to provide a mechanism for limiting the use of transgenic technologies to those that are in the public interest.

Much research in social studies of science addresses scientists' interpretative flexibility in the construction of scientific knowledge. This flexibility is readily visible among different scientists' competing knowledge-claims as well as in their accounts across different social settings. This article illustrates this process and discusses some of its implications through a case study of descriptions of acid rain in published scientific papers and Congressional testimony. As acid rain was flexibly reconstructed in Congressional testimony, its meanings and implications for control legislation became more contested. Some descriptions of acid rain that were intended to usefully clarify the phenomenon actually contributed to an impression of scientific uncertainty, and thereby further polarized debate.