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Many years ago people lived in harmony with the environment. Economists have long thought of the environment as an unlimited source of resources. They

have thought that the atmosphere, forests, rivers and seas are capable of absorbing all the rubbish the economy throws into them. In fact, the economy and the environment are closely related. The environment supplies the economy with all its resources, such as water, timber, minerals and oil. The environment has to absorb all its waste products.

The official number of people in our planet is 6,000,000,000 (six billion)! The world's population is growing. Every new person added to the planet needs food, water, shelter, clothes and fuel. More people mean more car, roads, factories more electricity, throw away more litter and cut down more trees, our planet becomes more and more polluted.

There are many consequences of damaging the environment. One of them is acid rain. This happens when factories send gases and chemicals into the air. There they mix, and the mixture is carried for hundreds of miles by the wind and finally, it falls back to earth. Acid rains damage water, forest and soil resources. It slowly destroys everything. Industry countries should control their level of pollution and try to reduce it.

Another one is water shortage resulting from abuse of arable lands in agriculture. For example, although water covers most of the planet, less than 1% of it can be used for drinking. One out of every 13 people around the world does not always have enough clean water.

The third one is destroying the ozone layer of the Earth through pollution from factories and plants. Industrial enterprises emit tons of harmful substances. These emissions have disastrous consequences for our planet. They are the main reason for the greenhouse effect and acid rains.

The fourth problem is damage to water and soils. The seas are filled with poison: industrial and nuclear waste, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The Mediterranean is already nearly dead; the North Sea is following. The Aral Sea is on the brink of extinction. If nothing is done about it, one day nothing will be able to live in the seas.

The fifth one is damage to wildlife: numerous species of animals and plants can disappear. Every ten minutes one kind of animal, plant or insect dies out for ever. If nothing is done about it, one million species that are alive today will have become extinct.

Another problem is global urbanization. Humanity will make the historic move from a rural to an urban species. The speed and scale of global urbanization is so great that most countries are not prepared for the effect it will have, Ms Obaid, executive director of the Population Fund, said: "In human history we have never seen urban growth like this." For thousands of years more people have lived in rural areas than in urban areas. Thoraya Obaid added that each week the number of people living in cities grows by nearly a million. "Most cities (in developing countries) already have many problems: not enough clean water and sanitation, waste from factories, electric power stations, the chemical industry and heavy industry, the problem of radiation and air population. In Cairo just breathing the air is life threatening - equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. The same holds true for Mexico City and other cities. But the problems could get worse. "If we do not plan ahead it will be a catastrophe", said Ms Obaid. "The changes are too fast to allow cities to react. If governments wait, it will be too late." Climate change will increase the demand for energy as more people need air conditioning. This energy demand will add to greenhouse gas emissions which could raise temperatures in urban areas by 2-6° C. "Heat, pollution, smog and ground-level ozone (from cities) will affect surrounding areas. This will reduce agricultural production, increase health risks, and will produce tornadoes and thunderstorms. The effects of climate change on urban water supplies are expected to be dramatic," the report says. Cities like New Delhi, in the drier areas, will be hit particularly hard.

Now the situation is quite difficult. People all over the world cannot ignore the problem of the protection of the environment because of modem industry and the need for energy. Newspapers and magazines write a lot about water pollution, air pollution and land pollution. There are some laws and decisions on this important question. There are state organizations and international conventions which pay much attention to this problem. There is a science, named ecology, which study the relation between people and their environment. People are beginning to realize that environmental problems are not somebody else's. Each of us also must do everything possible to keep our environment clean for ourselves and for the next generations.