The scale of our technology and industry has given us the power to affect the basic functioning of the Earth in profound and perhaps irreversible ways. There is growing evidence that we may have already wrought such changes. There are many different viewpoints about the causes, the scale, and the solutions to the environmental crisis. There seems to be, however, agreement that the crisis of the environment is a global one and can only be solved from a global perspective, recognizing first that the Earth is a single, interconnected, and finite system. We must find ways of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the right of future generations to a healthy, inhabitable planet.
Human activities have a rapidly growing rate of impact on the environment.
The problems appear to be complex and interconnected. There are no easy solutions. The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. If not checked many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. If the past is anything to go on, this seems quite likely.