The steps in photosynthesis are as follows:

1)        The light energy strikes the leaf, passes into the leaf and hits a chloroplast inside an individual cell.
2)        The light energy, upon entering the chloroplasts, is captured by the chlorophyll inside a grana.
3)        Inside the grana some of the energy is used to split water into hydrogen and Oxygen.
4)        The Oxygen is released into the air.
5)        The hydrogen is taken to the stroma along with the grana's remaining light energy.
6)        Carbon dioxide enters the leaf and passes into the chloroplast.
7)        In the stroma the remaining light energy is used to combine hydrogen and carbon dioxide to make carbohydrates.
8)        The energy­rich carbohydrates are carried to the plant's cells.
9)        The energy­rich carbohydrates are used by the cells to drive the plant's life processes.

Photosynthesis occurs in green plants, seaweeds, algae, and certain bacteria. These organisms are veritable sugar factories, producing millions of new glucose molecules per second. Plants use much of this glucose, a carbohydrate, as an energy source to build leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. They also convert glucose to cellulose, the structural material used in their cell walls. Most plants produce more glucose than they use, however, and they store it in the form of starch and other carbohydrates in roots, stems, and leaves. The plants can then draw on these reserves for extra energy or building materials.

Photosynthesis has far-reaching implications. Like plants, humans and other animals depend on glucose as an energy source, but they are unable to produce it on their own and must rely ultimately on the glucose produced by plants. Moreover, the Oxygen humans and other animals breathe is the Oxygen released during photosynthesis. Humans are also dependent on ancient products of photosynthesis, known as fossil fuels, for supplying most of our modern industrial energy. These fossil fuels, including natural gas, coal, and petroleum, are composed of a complex mix of hydrocarbons, the remains of organisms that relied on photosynthesis millions of years ago. Thus, virtually all life on earth, directly or indirectly, depends on photosynthesis as a source of food, energy, and Oxygen, making it one of the most important biochemical processes known. It is a part of the global life-support systems and is a right that needs protecting at all costs. The right and responsibility that human beings have in protecting photosysnthesis has the highest importance on the Scale of Human and Earth Rights.

It is true that vegetation such as forests and organisms have produced all of the Oxygen we breathe on Earth. It took Nature billions of years to build up the amount of Oxygen found in the air we breathe.

The problems are that we are now burning the Oxygen at an astronomical rate, and we are also destroying our forests at an astronomical rate. Organisms producing the Oxygen can no longer replenish the Earth's atmosphere of the Oxygen life on Earth needs to survive. Human activities are polluting all ways of life. Our ways of doing things are impacting the most essential global life-support systems: burning Oxygen and destroying the process that actually create Oxygen on Earth, photosynthesis.

Why are we cutting forests? To build new communities. For shelter. For businesses who want to show off good looking furniture in the office. One could write an entire encyclopedia on things we do with forest products. Oops! I dont think we should ask someone to write an encyclopedia. The pulp and paper industry is so much a culprit, and it has been for over a century.

But how do you make a family understand that your ways will eventually kill the children of the future? Very simple! Tell them not to have children. Humanity has an overpopulation. Humanity has no need of more children. Dont make children. We only need a world population of about 500 million human beings to keep us going for another million years. We have already shown that in previous newsletters. The 21st century will show whether or not it is possible for the human lifeform to control its own population using voluntary and benign family management and whether we will take along with us other lifeforms. If not, this century will produce a collapse of humanity and the environment on a global scale.

If our population was to decrease as projected here then what other major global problems would be managed automatically?

Actually overpopulation is a major factor but so is the never satisfied consumer society, the 'so call free world', the over wasting and burning of natural resources by a small percentage of the world population, the modern industrialized world, the rich nations that live off poor nations.

This question is really saying that the overpopulation and the uncontrol consumerism by the rich nations of the world are the cause of several major global problems such as:

*        lack of resources
*        poverty
*        wars
*        climate change
*        damage to the global life-support systems
*        a lesser quality of life
*        threat to security
*        lack of good quality soils for agriculture
*        polluted air, water and land
*        overcrowed cities
*        weapons and war products and equipment able to spark global wars
*        widespread drug, human and Earth rights abuse, more old and new diseases out of control

There are many related aspects of the global life-support systems that is affected by an overpopulated planet:

*        global warming
*        Ozone layer
*        wastes of all kind including nuclear and release of radiation
*        climate change
*        species of the fauna and flora becoming extinct
*        losses of forest cover and of biological diversity
*        the capacity for photosynthesis
*        the water cycle
*        food production systems
*        genetic resources
*        chemicals produced for human use and not found in nature and, eventually, reaching the environment with impacts on Earth's waters, soils, air, and ecology

History can help us understand ourselves and what is happening to us, and our impact upon the rest of the world, only when we look at ourselves on the grand scale of time. As members of families, we note the passing generations. Historians traditionally deal in centuries. For the most part we are unaware of the deep rhythms that lie beneath naturally occurring events, rhythms that must be measured in millennia, or in millions of years, or in tens of millions of years. We have a huge effect upon all life on Earth and the fabric of the planet itself yet we are vaguely aware of the rhythms. From an engineering point of view that is totally unacceptable. If Earth was seen as a spaceship whith specific life-support systems, to think of those rhythms would be of outmost importance. The knowledge and understanding of the rhythms would determine our policies now, today. Even though our lives are so brief, a million years should be a proper unit of political time. Politicians would become in a way engineers who can think not only a week at a time but can also think ahead a million years. The world needs 'engineer politicians' with the highest integrity of judgment.

We all know we are rapidly wiping out our fellow species on Earth. We tend to think that this present-day destructiveness is just an anomaly and that in the fullness of time the world will settle down again into some form that may be slightly different from the present but nonetheless agreable. Not so! By changing the climate and the process of photosynthesis as we do we influence the ecology and evolution of the whole world for the rest of time. It is important to understand that the way climate and the process of photosynthesis behave, the extreme of which these natural processes are capable of, and the ways in which they can be influenced. Yet when we look at our own history as human beings and briefly at the 100 million years or so of prehistory, we see how dangerous this complacency is, the sheer precariousness of our existence and of all other lifeforms.

Small events today can have huge global consequences that can change the flora and fauna of the whole world. Some people at least are bothered now by global warming, the burning of the Earth's Oxygen, and know that nothing can ever be the same again. But what is the cause of global warming? The chief cause of this warming is thought to be the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, which releases into the atmosphere carbon dioxide and other substances known as greenhouse gases. As the atmosphere becomes richer in these gases, it becomes a better insulator, retaining more of the heat provided to the planet by the Sun. The burning of fossil fuels requires three basic elements: the fuel, Oxygen and a spark to start the fire or burning. In our car engine the fuel is gasoline, Oxygen is in the air we breathe, and a spark-plug keeps the burning going. In actuality everytime we drive our car we are impacting three global life-support systems: the climate of the Earth, the global warming of the Earth's atmosphere, and we are depleting the air we breathe of its Oxygen.

Global warming, a rise in concentration of a gas in the atmosphere that in any case is present in barely more than a trace. That is all it takes to change the climate of the world. When we look at our own history and prehistory we see this very effect in action and the results. Without such effects, this time in reverse, that is, a loss in greenhouse gases rather than a gain, our own species probably would not have come into existence. Earth as it stands now is a miraculous jewel of a place, an oasis in an infinitely hostile and diverse universe, Shangrila. Nothing says that this Shangrila will ever come back again after we destroyed it.

The physical environment depends upon the content of the atmosphere, the heights and positions of mountains, and where the continents happen to be as they migrate around the world, and how the Earth is located in space relative to the sun. It is because the planet has behaved as it did that our species came into being. We have realized now that the climate is a crucial force in the evolution of all living things. During the period of time when conditions remain the same, the existing lifeforms seem to come to a consensus that encourages them to stay as they are. Conditions can be altered in several ways but the most devastating one is climate. The kind of changes that we are now threatening to make, that is the global warming, will change the physical environment forever and Earth will never be the same again. A small change in the atmosphere can have catastrophic effects. Some of these effects will happen within a decade others will follow within twenty years. There will be no time for any lifeform to adapt and survive. By changing the climate we influence the ecology and evolution of the whole world for the rest of time.

The other lifeforms that have occupied Earth this past 100 million years helped to shape our evolution. We have evolved to cope with them, and we, in turn, have influenced them.

No society has ever experienced the full range of enormity of which the Earth is capable. Two and a half billion years ago the composition of the Earth's atmosphere changed completely as free Oxygen gas was introduced for the first time from the new organisms that practiced photosynthesis. Over the lifetime of the planet, continents have moved right across the surface of the globe, splitting and rejoining, floating like froth on the hot rock of the mantle beneath. There has already been at least a half dozen climate changes over the planet causing the entire fauna of the world to be transformed. The latest one was a small climate change and yet it wiped out the dinosaurs.

In the troposphere and stratosphere some of the crucial roles are played by gases that are present in amounts so small that the highest of technologies are needed to detect them at all, and by unstable ingredients produced by human activities that persist for only a twinkling before they are converted to something else. Our effect on the atmosphere of the Earth is immense and out of control.

Evolution is happening now. We are a part of it. Human beings have evolved like all other lifeforms. We have been affected by the evolution of other lifeforms and we are affecting them in our turn. We are all a part of the process of evolution. In fact we came late in the process as life started at least 4 billion years ago. They were billions of lifeforms of all kinds.

When we think about life on Earth we must think as a matter of course in very long periods of time. Whatever happen in this 3rd Millennium, which we have called the New Age Civilization of the 3rd Millennium, will depend of us and to what degree we are willing to make a difference to manage wisely Earth, our home. Will our actions be geared to survive a decade, a hundred years, a thousand years, or a million years? If our actions were geared to survive a million years, the chances are that we would learn to master great things including harnessing the sun flare energy, interstellar travel, genetic engineering, and reajusting the planetary position of another planet in our solar system to initiate a new life on its surface. Is it no worth to make sacrifices now?

A sound governance of the Earth is needed for the long term survival of our species. This is 'la raison d'etre' of the Interim Earth Government. ECO has proposed the creation of global ministries to manage Earth and humanity's global problems.

History can help us understand ourselves and what is happening to us, and our impact upon the rest of the world, only when we look at ourselves on the grand scale of time. As members of families, we note the passing generations. Historians traditionally deal in centuries. For the most part we are unaware of the deep rhythms that lie beneath naturally occurring events, rhythms that must be measured in millennia, or in millions of years, or in tens of millions of years. We have a huge effect upon all life on Earth and the fabric of the planet itself yet we are vaguely aware of the rhythms. From an engineering point of view that is totally unacceptable. If Earth was seen as a spaceship whith specific life-support systems, to think of those rhythms would be of outmost importance. The knowledge and understanding of the rhythms would determine our policies now, today. Even though our lives are so brief, a million years should be a proper unit of political time. Politicians would become in a way engineers who can think not only a week at a time but can also think ahead a million years. The world needs 'engineer politicians' with the highest integrity of judgment.

We all know we are rapidly wiping out our fellow species on Earth. We tend to think that this present-day destructiveness is just an anomaly and that in the fullness of time the world will settle down again into some form that may be slightly different from the present but nonetheless agreable. Not so! By changing the climate as we do we influence the ecology and evolution of the whole world for the rest of time. It is important to understand that the way climate behaves, the extreme of which it is capable of, and the ways in which it can be influenced. Yet when we look at our own history as human beings and briefly at the 100 million years or so of prehistory, we see how dangerous this complacency is, the sheer precariousness of our existence and of all other lifeforms.

Small events today can have huge global consequences that can change the flora and fauna of the whole world. Some people at least are bothered now by global warming and know that nothing can ever be the same again. But what is the cause of it? Just a rise in concentration of a gas in the atmosphere that in any case is present in barely more than a trace. That is all it takes to change the climate of the world. When we look at our own history and prehistory we see this very effect in action and the results. Without such effects, this time in reverse, that is, a loss in greenhouse gases rather than a gain, our own species probably would not have come into existence. Earth as it stands now is a miraculous jewel of a place, an oasis in an infinitely hostile and diverse universe, Shangrila. Nothing says that this Shangrila will ever come back again after we destroyed it.

We are just beginning to see what a dangerous game we are playing. More specifically we begin to see how inadequate it is to think only in shorth periods of time, and to be satisfied with politics and policies of economics that deal only with the here and now. Over the past several years the Earth Community Oragnization has fought the economic systems of the world requiring that the FTAA, the EU and the WTO be governed by the Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Charter of the Earth Community. The Scale was designed for the survival of our species and that of other lifeforms we want to take along with us over a period of one million years.

This 21st century is very crucial for humanity as it will determine our survival or not for the next million year. The Earth Community Organization is proposing to the world a way to achieve our survival. The policies described in this article are by no means the only ones and we do need the global community to send suggestions and recommendations.

Earth has existed for the past 4.5 billion years. Life on Earth has existed for almost 4 billion years. Human activities are influencing the climate to change in many ways. We have transformed entire landscapes. Although our influence is huge oour control is minimal. Having initiated the breakdown of the Ozone layer and having set the global warming of the planet in motion it will be hard to reverse these events. History shows that the beneficence of the planet cannot be taken for granted. It has always been hospitable to life of a kind, but not always of our kind. The kind of conditions that suit us are very narrow and our influence is far greater than our control. We are creating global conditions that are threatening all life on Earth. Our manipulations of the Earth atmosphere may generate conditions that could be suitable to only to bacteria in marshes. It is an enormous mistake to take our present good fortune as a given.

The humans species has to regulate its population by means that are voluntary and benign and has to take along with a fair proportion of other lifeforms. Proper Earth management will certainly be a necessary tool to achieve our goal. If not there will be a collapse of humanity and of the environment. From now on every global decision we do will have tremendous consequences on our future.

In general, populations of all lifeforms grow exponentially that is by a steady proportion of whatever was there before. When there is no practical limit on resource then populations usually grow maximally and the only limit is that of the reproductive capacity of the female animal. About 10,000 years ago, human beings were obliged to commit themselves more or less fully to agriculture and the human population was 5 to 10 million. By the time of Christ, after only 8,000 years of large-scale agriculture, the human population was 100 to 300 million. After this time, the exponential growth of the population entered its rapid phase. The billion mark was passed by 1800 A.D. By year 2000, the human population exceeded 6 billion. Thus agriculture allowed a thousand-fold increase in numbers over a period of 10,000 years.

More agriclutural land also meant cutting down of forests and thus impacting on the Oxygen contents of the air we breathe.

In practical sense, agriculture cannot feed a human population that has grown beyond the capacity limit. We must ask ourselves whether we can stop the growth by means that are voluntary and benign, or whether the eventual environmental restraint will be out of our hands. At some questionable time in our future we will find that our soil will no longer have the nutrients it needs to produce quality food. For some time we may counter this problem by fresh weathering of rock. Not for long! The loss of lifeforms on Earth will be permanent.

Obviously something has to be done! ECO proposes a tight global policy, benignly implemented, or it will be very nasty indeed. In practice, a human population of 10 to 12 billion would be too uncomfortably high and would add a high strain on world resources. What kind of world population would be reasonable? What goal should we aim at? A population should be small enough to be sustainable indefinitely and still allow plenty of leeway for ourselves and other lifeforms. It should also be large enough to allow the formation of healthy civilizations.

We propose a world population of 500 million. The policy to apply is for every family to have only one or two children. It would take a thousand years to reach our goal of a population of 500 million.

Some religious people will argue that to reduce human reproduction is to prevent the birth of possible babies, to deny life for the glory of God, and that more babies means more glory. We understand this view as we have discussed the sanctity of all life during Global 2000 and Global Dialogue 2002. Proceedings are on our website. Read section 'Evolution, Creation and now, Guiding Souls'. God loves diversity in Nature and in Souls. Let us discuss those legitimate concerns.

We have the responsibility of managing Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of life within Earth Community. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as oppose to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.

Life exists on millions of other planets in the universe, and our species got to be who we are today through the evolutionary process. Other lifeforms in the universe may have evolved to be at least as advanced as our species. Their Souls may even be more complicated than ours. They may have merged a trillion times more than our Souls. They may have evolved as well.

Our proposal of a world population of 500 million does not in any way contradict God's Plan for humanity. On the contrary, it reinforces the Will of God for the diversity of Life throoughout the universe. By accomplishing our higher purpose we will be able to propagate trillions of liferforms and much more over the universe. Beside, with such a small population, there is no doubt that our species would last at least a million years. That is

0.5 x billion x 1 million = 0.5 x 10 15 person-years

But if we let our population rise to about 20 billion then we may not survive more that 1,000 years or so. That is

20 billion x 1,000 thousand = 2 x 10 13 person-years

In order words, if we exercise restraint the total number of human beings who will be on the planet could be at least 25 times greater than it would be if we allowed the population to increase to 20 billion. Who, then, are those who deny life for the glory of God?

In practice, if our proposal of one or more children was accepted then the population would eventually fall. We would make all efforts to minimize infant mortality. We need to ensure that the women of the world who have shown an interest in the proposal of family planning would have access to all the help needed to achieve their goal. Contraception for men is also desirable.

The only way humanity will be able to resolve the problem of overpopulation and all other global problems is through the acceptance and implementation of the criteria to obtain the Global Community Citizenship. The criteria has six parts:

1. Acceptance of the rights and responsibilities of a person belonging to 'a global community' and to 'The Global Community', the Earth Community, Earth Government, the human family. That is, to take such a stand has four parts:

a) I am not just a woman, I am a person, I am citizen of a global community,
b) I am not just a man, I am a person, I am citizen of a global community,
c) We are responsible, accountable and equal persons in every way and,
d) We are citizens of The Global Community, the Earth Community, the human family, Earth Government.

We need to take this stand for the survival of our species.

2. Acceptance of the concept of 'a global community'.
3. Acceptance of the Scale of Human and Earth Rights.
4. Acceptance of the Charter of the Earth Community.
5. Acceptance of your birth right of electing a democratic government to manage Earth.
6. Acceptance of the Earth Court of Justice as the highest Court on Earth.

If that is still possible, what are those other lifeforms we should take along with us?

The creatures we are most directly aware, the grand survivors of the overkill by the human species over the past several million years, are bears, beavers, elephants, mooses, lions, rhinos, wolves, tigers, camels, kangaroos, deer, camels, antelope, cheetahs, coyotes, koalas, and others you may want to add. None of them has a chance to survive in the wild, unless we take their cause seriously. Even then it will be difficult to keep them with us for a long future. The Scale of Human and Earth Rights was designed to protect the ecosystem of the Earth and that certainly includes do what we can to take along with us as many God's creatures as possible. The Scale of Human and Earth Rights takes first into account all reasonable needs of the human species. On top of the scale are the protection of the global life-support systems without which no life could survive on the planet. Then the primordial human rights are those basic human rights that have kept us going throughout the evolutionary stages of life on Earth.

Beside the global warming, the human activity that affects Earth most is that of food production. We need to form a global ministry dealing only about agriculture and the protection of our soils. All nations will be part of the ministry. We have to design systems of food production that meet our own needs, and also leave room for these other lifeforms we want to take along with us. Western agriculture is designed in the end to maximize profit. As a primordial human right, the prime concern of the human species is to feed people. Therefore we have to do things differently. We will have to produce less livestock as we effectively double the population we need to feed: ourselves, plus the livestock that is supposed to be feeding us. We also have to apportion the land surface of the whole world more efficiently, using some for highhly intensive food production (which makes use of less land), some for extensive agriculture (combining food production with wildlife conservation) and designing some specifically as wilderness areas with global corridors between them. Hopefully this will help natives of British Columbia, Canada, to settle their land claims in their favor as they are the only people in Canada who can help protecting wildlife, at least for now. There should be a definite and specific clause in any agreement with the natives that it is what they will do with the land and not turn it into a huge industrial and commercial site as would the white man do.

Global warming is certainly affecting the survival of these other lifeforms we want to take along with us over the next million years. Climate change has always been a major factor throughout the entire evolutionary stages of life on Earth and will continue to be so in the future. We will have to make sacrifices not only for our own survival but also for all life on Earth. Changes now are far too rapid for these other lifeforms to adapt. They will have to tolerate us more to survive.

Obviously our survival on Earth and that of these other lifeforms are dependent on our behavior and attitude to the world. This point was largely discussed during Global 2000 and Global Dialogue 2002. The Earth Community Organization (ECO) and Earth Government have researched and developed sound solutions to humanity's problems and recommendations are made available on our website. Our new ideas are part of life natural selection process and will be passed on from generation to generation. The human gene pool is changing naturally worldwide. We ourselves are in a position to change our species and create a new one depending of natural circumstances. Because the human population is now so large, mutations are accumulating more rapidly than ever before over the entire evolutionary stages of our species. This do not necessary means we are evolving to become smarter people. That is an unlikely option. It means we are adapting to new circumstances. Evolution will be active most likely in circumstances occurring after an ecological crash or a world war involving nuclear weapons. Such catastrophic events might eliminate all life as we know it on Earth. But we cannot predict which particular lifeforms are liable to evolve and be dominant species. Our brain may be turned off by an evolutionary step for survival, to adapt to the new circumstances. That is if we survive as a species after such huge ecological change. But then we dont really know of what life is capable of...! What life has created so far on Earth may be a small sample of what it is capable of in the future.

Whatever happen in this 3rd Millennium, which we have called the New Age Civilization of the 3rd Millennium, will depend of us and to what extent we are willing to make a difference to manage Earth wisely. Will our actions be geared to survive a decade, a hundred years, a thousand years, or a million years? If our actions were geared to survive a million years, the chances are that we would learn to master great things including harnessing the sun flare energy, interstellar travels, genetic engineering, and reajusting the planetary position of another planet in our system to initiate a new life on its surface. Is it no worth to make sacrifices now?

A sound governance of the Earth is needed for the long term survival of our species. This is 'la raison d'etre' of the Interim Earth Government. ECO has proposed the creation of global ministries to manage Earth and humanity's global problems. The higher purpose of humanity is to serve God by propagating Life throughout the universe. So dont we have an obligation to do whatever we can to protect life on Earth?

In the light of the U.S.A., Japan, Australia and Russia refusal of taking actions to avert certain global calamity in regard to global warming, and the lack of a strong commitment from India, China and Indonesia, the Earth Community has decided to pleade the people of these countries to reason and good sense. We are asking them to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and to plan for strong actions to stop greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, and temperatures are rising globally due to these activities.

Canada is willing to reach the Kyoto target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 6 per cent below the 1990 level.

The European Union leaders have agreed to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol by the end of this year. Let us hope that the action plan they will offer to the world will be real and honest.

The Earth Community Organization has created the Climate Change Ministry and offer national governments to coordinate efforts in implementing the Earth Community Action Plan with regard to climate change. There are thousands of actions everyone in Earth Community could take right now. Several more of these actions were listed in the Proceedings of the World Congress on Managing and Measuring Sustainable Development - Global Community Action 1 held on August 1-22, 2000.

Positive actions:

A)     By increasing vegetation in urban areas will reduce the urban heat, and the impacts of other urban environmental problems, which will be exacerbated under climate change. Reducing the urban heat will also reduce the energy demand for space conditioning, and hence greenhouse gas emissions. Plants directly reduce the urban heat through evaporative cooling but further reduce energy consumption through shading. The most common strategy to increase urban vegetation is to plant trees at ground level. However, where space is not available for trees, vegetation can be grown on building roofs, but walls offer far more space, hence vertical gardening is a viable alternative. 

B)     Aboriginal Peoples as well as everyone else in the world have noticed that the climate has changed over the past years. They came forward (actions) and said that they too had observed climate changes over the past years and generations. In some countries the temperature has increased by one or two degrees and natural catastrophes are becoming more and more frequent. Flooding or freshwater scarcity as well as water pollution are harming the environment of the Third World and developing countries and water and air pollution characterizes the industrialized regions. Therefore, poor and rich regions are facing a common problem which is linked to climate change, that's why we should negotiate honestly and find a compromise as quickly as possible. If no solution is suggested, developing countries like China will repeat the same mistakes as the developed world. In fact, the latter can expect a higher salary, which will close the gap between rich and poor regions. 

World industrial activity is now profoundly affecting the atmospheric environment. It is now the population number and industrialization that makes the major impacts on the atmosphere. The most important changes affecting the atmosphere are due to the growth in the burning of fossil fuels. The burning of fossil fuels increases carbon dioxide concentrations and air pollutants. The clearing of forested lands for agriculture and other purposes has reduced the amount of carbon absorbed by the forests and contributed to the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. We have disturbed a fragile balance by causing chemical changes in the global atmosphere.

The most devastating effects of contamination of the atmosphere on a global scale include:

*        An increase in greenhouse gas concentrations brought the warming of the climate;
*        Depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer;
*        Acidification of lakes and forests; and
*        Toxic chemicals have contaminated our food chain on the land and in the waters.

The most sophisticated climate models take into account factors such as:

*        The changes in the radiation balance of the Earth;
*        Contamination of the atmosphere;
*        Greenhouse gas concentrations;
*        Absorption of heat by the oceans;
*        The ice and snow fields;
*        The hydrological cycle of precipitation; and
*        The melting of glaciers and the Greenland ice cap.

A consequence of a warmer climate is a rise in global mean sea-level. Several countries will be more susceptible to inundations. We will see hundreds of millions of environmental refugees searching for land.

The mid-latitude wheat belts of the planet will dry; forest fires will wipe out most of the forests; world food markets will have to adjust to help a starving population. 

Tourism and wildlife in the tropics will be seriously affected by a temperature that is just too hot.

Tropical diseases will cause epidemics.

Major changes in evaporation and precipitation patterns will not adjust quickly enough to supply the population with water it needs to survive; agriculture will become a dying industry either because of too much water or not enough of it.

Sub-Arctic communities will disappear because of the melting of the permafrost.

It is well known that biological communities of the waters and of the land absorb and bio-accumulate toxic contaminants through the food webs. Trace concentrations deposited by the atmosphere have become harmful. They are chemicals carried through the atmosphere to seas, rivers, lakes and other streams, and subsequently into sediments and soils. Metals and chemical contaminants can be absorbed for a long time, and are in fact chemical 'time bombs'. 

Urban air pollution is a mixture of several pollutants emitted from different energy and industrial processes, and of secondary pollutants in the atmosphere. Some air pollutants are more important than others. At a given concentration some pollutants are more toxic or more unpleasant. Pollutants have different effects related to health, ecosystems,  economics and aesthetic.

C)     Tropical tree plantations may be an important component of the global carbon cycle because they represent a carbon sink that can be manipulated by humans and they ca mitigate the effects of tropical deforestation, which is the main biotic source of atmospheric carbon. Most forest plantations in the tropics are planted with fast growing trees that culminate in volume and biomass production earlier than natural forests. These high biomass production forests have a high capacity to sequester atmospheric CO2 and hence assist in mitigating global warming. Sequestration of CO2 in plantations occurs in tree biomass (stems, branch, foliage and roots), forest floor and as storage in the soil. Young growing forests are one of the best means to removing CO2 (the gas partially responsible for the greenhouse effect) from the air. Thus planting forests help to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air (by the action of sunlight on the green chlorophyll organic compound, CO2 is absorbed by trees through the small fissures in the leaves or needless, these gases are fixed as biomass).

D)     Ever-increasing anthropogenic releases of greenhouse gases are driving the United Nations Climate Change effort. As the atmosphere's concentrations of "greenhouse gases" increase, so too does the atmosphere's ability to retain heat radiated from the earth's surface. This phenomenon, known as the greenhouse effect, is linked by many scientists to a long-term rise in global temperatures.

The greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, are critical to the atmosphere's ability to retain heat and thereby maintain the global temperatures necessary to maintain life as we currently know it.

The increases in concentrations of these gases are produced primarily through the burning of fossil fuels, but also by such activities as deforestation and land clearing, which release the carbon naturally contained in vegetation. Over the past 100 years, humans have caused the release of these gases faster than natural processes can remove them from the atmosphere.

Some scientists predict that average global temperatures will increase 2 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 100 years if global emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated. In addition to an increase in ambient temperatures, the other possible consequences of global warming include a speeding of the global water cycle. It is predicted that faster evaporation caused by higher temperatures would lead to drying of soils, exacerbating drought in some areas while increasing precipitation and flooding in others.

Warmer temperatures could melt polar ice caps, leading to what some predict as a rise in sea levels of between 6 to 37 inches over the next century. This, in turn, would endanger coastal populations and island nations and cause the degradation of coastal ecosystems. If these predictions prove true, human health will be affected directly as warmer temperatures increase the chances of heat waves, exacerbate air quality problems and lead to an increase in both allergic disorders and warm weather diseases. Agriculture, forests, natural ecosystems and vegetation patterns would also be adversely affected by both increases in temperatures and changes in the water cycle.

E)     The Kyoto Protocol is the latest step in the ongoing United Nations' effort to address global warming. The effort began with the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change (Convention) signed during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. (The Convention entered into force in 1994 upon the ratification by 50 nations) Despite the continuing scientific debate on the likely occurrence of global warming, the nations took action under the "precautionary principle" of international law.

The Convention is intended to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that will prevent dangerous interference with the global climate system. The time frame is to be "sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner."

To further that objective, the Convention sought to commit all parties to it to develop and implement programs to mitigate climate change by addressing emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Convention places the first level of commitment to reduce emissions on nations that have developed, prospered and established strong economies through the consumption of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution began. These developed countries are the 38 countries listed in Annex I to the Convention.

The Convention recognises the importance of preserving and enhancing the earth's natural ability to remove certain greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by FORESTS and other carbon stocks, referred to as "sinks". The removal by sinks is also a key component of the Protocol, which allows countries to meet their commitments by considering the effects of afforestation, reforestation and deforestation since 1990, a provision that is expected to promote cost-effective solutions to climate change and good forestry practices.

The Kyoto Protocol put forward three mechanisms for achieving the targets. These include mechanisms such as emissions trading, joint implementation and the so-called "Clean Development Mechanism" (or CDM), to allow flexibility in achieving the required reductions.

Assuming that development and maintenance of sinks will be accepted under CDM, knowledge on the calculation of the amount of Carbon dioxide that can be sequestered by a given project needs to be known. At times this will involve establishing the carbon offset potential of a given forest venture, before the project is in place. Use of mathematical models to predicted the carbon sequestration potential will be important. Our paper is discussing the results of study done in Tanzania.

The Earth Community makes the following recommendations to alleviate the effects of climate change in the world:

*        Introduction of appropriate sustainable agricultural system with balanced use of chemical fertilizers incorporated organic minerals and green manure's.
*        Phase wise replacement of chemical fertilizer by organic fertilizer. Similarly biodegradable insecticide should be replace by the non-biodegradable insecticides.
*        The entrepreneur should take proper mitigation measures of industrial pollution by set-up of industrial waste treatment plant.
*        Control of insect, pests through biological, natural process, alternatives of using harmful insecticides or fungicides is important to introduce.
*        Promotion of research activities in the field of industrial waste utilization and waste recovery process.
*        Reutilization of agricultural residues through bio-conservation to industrial products.
*        Need proper implementation of Environmental Policy, Environment Conservation Act’s and Legislation.
*        Enhancement of the capacity of NGOs, Govt. agencies to successfully implement poverty alleviation program including non-formal education on environmental pollution awareness.
*        Immediate and honest actions by the USA, Russia, Japan and Canada, and all countries in resolving the problems creating the greenhouse gases. The ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and the implementation of measurable positive actions to resolve the problems of global warming.
*        The support of the Climate Change Ministry of Earth Government in coordinating efforts.

a) Provide a daily report to the public
b) Define air pollution in terms of the amount of pollution created by polluters
c) Define air quality in all parts of the city
d) Measure progress toward air quality goals
e) Propose abatement steps
f) Alarm the public in case of danger
g) Provide data to researchers
h) Provide information for compliance
i) Make intelligent decisions with regard to priorities of programs toward environmental improvement