Coming to terms with the microenvironment: Ending the war and winning the peace

Microenvironmental risks are largely unseen but not wholly uncontrollable. They are subject to exaggeration and misunderstanding but also to exacerbation, which can indeed be dangerous, and to amelioration, which requires a high degree of policy convergence. Technologically mediated alterations of the microenvironment have been both intentional and incidental; three types, while overlapping in mechanism and interactive in effect, may yet be distinguished by motivation: immunomodulation, chemotherapeusis and chemoprophylaxis, and species population management. Eight types of collective action are recommended to lessen microenvironmental risks. Their common feature is emphasis on ecological stability with quick identification and minimally disruptive containment of destabilizing elements on either side-microbial or human-of a highly dynamic and generally fruitful relationship. Their goal is "global microenvironmental community policing,".