There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success." George Romney (quoted in David Halberstam's book The Reckoning)
Toffler's intriguing book The Third Wave (Toffler, 1980) suggests that time is more crucial than in the past because events are accelerated. This acceleration demands faster decisions, instant communication, and instant response in both third wave economics and war. The brief, but intensive, military phase of the Gulf War demonstrated that only an exceptionally high level of coordination could bring together air, ground, and naval forces (in addition to satellite surveillance and computer-driven control systems) to integrate front-line action and behind-the-lines precision strikes. Toffler and Toffler (1991) persuasively argue that third wave war is knowledge-intensive, even for the lowest ranks. Third wave economics and war are knowledge-driven because both have to anticipate the impacts of interdiction.
Toffler and Toffler (1991) also make the point that, in today's economy, mass production is increasingly outmoded. They note that customized production, based on the economies of intelligent technology, is superseding mass production in many fields.
As I read these two earlier publications and Powershift (Toffler, 1991) about the rapidly developing age of information, speculation about "third wave ecotoxicology" was inevitable. Present ecotoxicological equivalents to mass production in industry are the standardized Ceriodaphnia, fathead minnow, and Scertedesmus toxicity tests. These tests are not mass produced in the assembly line sense, but are in the sense that they are all-purpose tests to be used uniformly in such different ecoregions as Florida and Alaska. The chief advantage of mass production is that it requires a minimum of professional judgement. Customized testing, common in other fields, may also be appropriate in ecotoxicology. An array of test methods could be developed, perhaps standardizing procedures but not test organisms. Some suggested or recommended practices for selecting and utilizing an array of test organisms more suited to the different ecoregions would then become essential, as would the need for federal agencies, such as USEPA, to interpret the results skillfully. This would follow the third wave demassification of output and the breakup of mass markets into 'niches'.
Perhaps a more critical development in third wave ecotoxicology would be vast and site-specific increases in integrated information bases. This would be associated with an extremely high level of coordination among and between the various federal agencies, 0963-9292