In the post-Cold War world what people worry more about biological invaders -- diseases, weeds, insects -- than the dangers of a nuclear holocaust. Yet political leaders have been slow to catch on to the brave new world of biological globalization and the threats it poses. PNS associate editor Walter Truett Anderson attended a conference of ecologists and medical scientists in Lisbon on the subject. Anderson is a political scientist who writes widely on issues of the environment and global governance. His newest book, "Evolution Isn't What It Used to Be," will be published in 1996.

LISBON -- The CIA spying on bugs and plants?

It's high time, say some scientists who worry that we are living in a different kind of world which Washington hasn't yet comprehended.

In the new post-Cold War world the invaders people worry about most are biological ones -- diseases, weeds, insects -- that imperil the health of humans and animals, the productivity of farms, the integrity of ecosystems. That the government recently announced it would use spy satellites to monitor changes in the global environment is one indication -- but only one -- that political leaders are beginning to hear the message.

At a recent conference in Lisbon of ecologists and medical scientists, the buzz word was biological -- not economic or cultural -- globalization. Given the stunning new mobility of plants, animals and wildlife, participants noted how our ecosystems, like our cities, are becoming pluralistic -- home to travelers from all over the world. In many ways, they agreed, this is a healthy and necessary development -- American agriculture, for example, would be practically nonexistent without imported seeds, plants and farm animals. But they also highlighted the new dangers it is creating.

Start with AIDS -- the virus that, most scientists believe, lived quietly in an isolated region in Africa for thousands of years before it became a world traveler and a major public health problem. The ebola virus, although far less lethal in its actual number of victims, is another new factor on the global scene -- the subject of the best selling book "The Hot Zone." Bacteria also get around -- notably the new antibiotic-resistant strains of old enemies such as tuberculosis. While worldwide plagues aren't new the accelerating rate of human mobility is creating vast new opportunities for them.

Then there are other kinds of invaders: foreign insects in the imported food, plants and pets brought by travelers, tropical birds and fish smuggled in a huge illicit international trade; foreign mollusks dumped into the harbors with the ballast water from ships; seeds and clippings shipped around the world for farms and gardens.

The study of this kind of movement is now a well-established branch of the life sciences, and a large and growing body of information monitors its causes, and impacts on specific regions. Just before Congress cut off its funds and put it out of business, the Office of Technology Assessment issued one of the best sourcebooks on the subject entitled "Harmful Non-Indigenous Species in the United States."

But if there was one priority in dealing with biological globalization that the conference agreed on, it was the urgent need for better systems of information. Prof. Harold Mooney of Stanford, co-editor of the definitive study "Biological Invasions: A Global Perspective," proposed an "early warning system" be set up to alert people to the probability that new weeds, insects or other biological threats might invade their regions. Such a system should also inform people about how to deal with the new invaders. The problem, Mooney says, is not so much lack of information as lack of access to it early on. Often the risk of a pest are heightened when people overreact by trying to exterminate it when a lower level of control is possible.

Paul Silverman, adjunct professor of medicine at the University of California at Irvine, believes global epidemics like AIDS and the spread of anti-biotic resistant bacteria makes it imperative that medical diagnostic efforts be globalized. "For individual countries to deal with such problems is hopeless," Silverman says, adding that the present activities of the World Health Organization fall far short of the present need.

Some of the scientists thought this might present a whole new job opportunity for organizations such as the CIA that are grappling with a post-Cold War identity crisis. Instead of gathering military information they would be monitoring biological conditions around the world, and instead of classifying their findings Top Secret they would make them public -- available and usable to the people who could use the information.