WITH this issue, TIME introduces a new section: Environment.

Even as the world celebrates the astronauts' triumphant return from the moon, more and more people are increasingly alarmed by man's abuse of his own earth. The concern is perhaps strongest in the U.S., where America the Beautiful can all too often be described as America the Polluted, and anxiety about the quality of life has become a rising political issue. Yet the worries extend to every society around the globe where ever-growing industrialization has created a crisis of excessive waste that is poisoning--and not always slowly--plants, wildlife, and indeed man himself.

To what extent are the fears justified? What should business and government do? What role can the individual citizen play?

In seeking answers, we plan to clarify and explore man's long-ignored physical dependence on the biosphere --earth's thin envelope of air, water and soil in which life exists. Almost every week now brings new warnings of impending ecological upsets within our planet's infinitely interdependent chain of life processes: certain birds becoming extinct, hauls of inedible fish, mysterious animal sickness. Environment will tackle, for example, the effects of such forms of pollution as DDT pesticides and radioactive waste, chemical fertilizers and hot water from nuclear power reactors; it will explore the cacophony of modern noises that grate on the nerves and damage living organisms; it will contemplate festering cityscapes as well as blighted landscapes; it will examine the visual pollution of ugliness that defiles the esthetic spirit and stunts man's ability to live in peace and harmony with nature.

Environment will undoubtedly contain its share of grim trends and events, but it will by no means be devoted only to gloomy news. Pessimists believe that much environmental destruction is irreversible. Optimists argue that technology and will power can salvage the situation. To that end, Environment will describe the exciting ideas of architects, city planners, ecologists, engineers, politicians and plain people. These ideas will include, among many others, dispersing glutted populations, building new experimental cities, designing steam and electric autos, restructuring mass transit, recycling all kinds of waste --and in general making this world a more liveable place.

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