One of the main themes of Planet Under Pressure is the way many of the Earth’s environmental crises reinforce one another.

Pollution is an obvious example – we do not have the option of growing food, or finding enough water, on a squeaky-clean planet, but on one increasingly tarnished and trashed by the way we have used it so far.

Cutting waste and clearing up pollution costs money. Yet time and again it is the quest for wealth that generates much of the mess in the first place.

Living in a way that is less damaging to the Earth is not easy, but it is vital, because pollution is pervasive and often life-threatening.

# Air: The World Health Organization (WHO) says 3 million people are killed worldwide by outdoor air pollution annually from vehicles and industrial emissions, and 1.6 million indoors through using solid fuel. Most are in poor countries.

# Water: Diseases carried in water are responsible for 80% of illnesses and deaths in developing countries, killing a child every eight seconds. Each year 2.1 million people die from diarrhoeal diseases associated with poor water.

# Soil: Contaminated land is a problem in industrialised countries, where former factories and power stations can leave waste like heavy metals in the soil. It can also occur in developing countries, sometimes used for dumping pesticides. Agriculture can pollute land with pesticides, nitrate-rich fertilisers and slurry from livestock. And when the contamination reaches rivers it damages life there, and can even create dead zones off the coast, as in the Gulf of Mexico.

Chronic problem

Chemicals are a frequent pollutant. When we think of chemical contamination it is often images of events like Bhopal that come to mind.

But the problem is widespread. One study says 7-20% of cancers are attributable to poor air and pollution in homes and workplaces.

The WHO, concerned about chemicals that persist and build up in the body, especially in the young, says we may "be conducting a large-scale experiment with children’s health".

Some man-made chemicals, endocrine disruptors like phthalates and nonylphenol – a breakdown product of spermicides, cosmetics and detergents – are blamed for causing changes in the genitals of some animals.

Affected species include polar bears – so not even the Arctic is immune. And the chemicals climb the food chain, from fish to mammals – and to us.

About 70,000 chemicals are on the market, with around 1,500 new ones appearing annually. At least 30,000 are thought never to have been comprehensively tested for their possible risks ?o people.

Trade-off

But the snag is that modern society demands many of them, and some are essential for survival.

So while we invoke the precautionary principle, which always recommends erring on the side of caution, we have to recognise there will be trade-offs to be made.

The pesticide DDT does great damage to wildlife and can affect the human nervous system, but can also be effective against malaria. Where does the priority lie?

The industrialised world has not yet cleaned up the mess it created, but it is reaping the benefits of the pollution it has caused. It can hardly tell the developing countries that they have no right to follow suit.

Another complication in tackling pollution is that it does not respect political frontiers. There is a UN convention on transboundary air pollution, but that cannot cover every problem that can arise between neighbours, or between states which do not share a border.

Perhaps the best example is climate change – the countries of the world share one atmosphere, and what one does can affect everyone.

For one and all

One of the principles that is supposed to apply here is simple – the polluter pays.

Sometimes it is obvious who is to blame and who must pay the price. But it is not always straightforward to work out just who is the polluter, or whether the rest of us would be happy to pay the price of stopping the pollution.

One way of cleaning up after ourselves would be to throw less away, designing products to be recycled or even just to last longer.

Previous generations worked on the assumption that discarding our waste was a proper way to be rid of it, so we used to dump nuclear materials and other potential hazards at sea, confident they would be dispersed in the depths.

We now think that is too risky because, as one author wrote, "there’s no such place as ‘away’ – and there’s no such person as the ‘other’".

Ask not for whom the bell tolls – it tolls for thee, and for me.

And the insurance industry says this year will face unprecedented claims for damage from weather-related disasters.

Both sets of figures were released as ministers from 180 countries heard a message from the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urging an end to doubts and delays on action to combat climate change.

The WMO reported that the average temperature of the world’s surface for 2004 was expected to be 0.44C higher than the mean for the period 1961-1990, making it the fourth hottest year since 1861, just behind 2003, but still well below the all-time record year of 1998.

New risks

And this year has been the most expensive ever for the insurance industry in terms of payouts for damage from natural disasters such as hurricanes and typhoons.

According to preliminary figures compiled by the leading re-insurer Munich Re, insured damage for the first 10 months of 2004 amounted to $35bn, with the United States facing the biggest bill of $26bn.

Overall economic losses, the majority of which were uninsured, are expected to be about $90bn.

Among the disasters singled out in the report are Hurricane Ivan, which devastated the island of Grenada in September, killing 28 people and causing an estimated $1bn in damaged homes, buildings and agricultural losses.

The report says the insurance industry is also worried that new climate-related risks may be emerging, such as Hurricane Catarina, which hit southern Brazil earlier this year.

It developed in the south Atlantic where the sea temperatures are normally too low for tropical cyclones to form.

homas Loster, a climate expert with Munich Re said: "As in 2002 and 2003, the overall balance of natural catastrophes is again clearly dominated by weather-related disasters, many of them exceptional and extreme.

"We need to stop this dangerous experiment humankind is conducting on the Earth’s atmosphere."

The figures were released as ministers gathered for the final stage of the UN conference to discuss future action on climate change.

‘Seize this moment’

The executive director of the UN environment programme Klaus Toepfer read a message from Mr Annan saying the eyes of the world were on the governments gathered in Buenos Aires.

Mr Annan said: "People ar?und the world want to know that you are working together, on a multilateral basis, to address this challenge with all your creativity and will.

"They want genuine signs that the days of delay and doubt are behind us. I call on you to seize this moment."

While it did not mention the US by name, the apparent reference was to the refusal of President George W Bush to take on targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions set by the Kyoto protocol, which comes into force next year.

A more obvious attack on the US position came from the President of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner.

He accused rich countries of double standards by insisting on the repayment of financial debt from the developing world, while refusing to acknowledge their own "environmental debt" – since it was the industrialised economies which created the build-up of greenhouse emissions, but the poor who will suffer the worst impacts of global warming.

The life of the average Antarctic penguin chick is harsh enough at the best of times. But if predators and appalling weather were not enough to worry about, the birds now face something rather more menacing: a giant iceberg with the ominous name BI5A.

And its 1,200 square miles of ice and snow is floating between them and their next square meal.

According to scientists, as many as 50,000 penguin chicks face a cold, lonely and very hungry Christmas because B15A has blocked the birds’ route to open water and forced their parents to waddle more than 60 miles to find food.

The iceberg also threatens supply routes to three Antarctic research stations on the McMurdo Sound coast, where a US icebreaker and three cargo ships are scheduled to arrive next month.

Lou Sanson, chief executive of Antarctica New Zealand, called the iceberg "the largest floating thing on the planet right now".

It is part of an even bigger iceberg that broke loose from the mainland in 2000 and split into two in November 2003.

US experts reckon B15A contains enough fresh water to supply Egypt’s Nile River complex for 80 years – or to satisfy the water requirements of the UK population for 60 years.

It was drifting north at about 1.2 miles a day when it wedged between the land and a tiny island, where it now stops the wind and currents breaking up the thick layer of ice covering coastal waters. "There is more blocked ice in McMurdo Sound than we’ve ever recorded in living history for this time of year," Mr Sanson said.
The blocked ice causes real problems for the 50,000 breeding pairs of Adele penguins stranded miles from the open sea, where they catch krill to feed themselves and their growing chicks.

Keith Reid, a penguin expert with the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, said: "Adeles will often walk a long way back to their colonies to breed in the expectation the ice will disappear during the time they are incubating the eggs. But that’s not been happening, the ice hasn’t been blowing out."

Thousands of eggs are now hatching. "The adult penguins commute across the sea ice to the sea for food and this big iceberg has created a much longer walk," said Dr Reid. "It costs them a lot of energy to walk instead of swimming."

The adults will use all their food in the struggle back to the nests. And when they realise they cannot feed their chicks they will abandon them.

Biologists in New Zealand predict that only 10% of the breeding penguins will raise a chick this season – bird numbers in the?colonies could fall by up to 70%. Dr Reid said populations should recover in time.

Rescue is out of the question. "The Americans, New Zealanders and Italians are having difficulty getting their ships in to resupply their bases," Dr Reid said. "So it’s difficult to imagine them flying down a few tins of pilchards to feed several thousand penguins."

At a recent international summit of NGOs in Vienna ? preceding the EU Ministerial Meeting of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) ? WWF, together with 18 NGOs, called on Danube Basin countries and the European Commission to ensure that future shipping projects do not destroy the river.

"In contrast to many other European rivers, the Danube and its tributaries have a unique biodiversity," said Michael Baltzer, Conservation Director of WWF’s Danube-Carpathian Programme.

"It is a living lifeline that offers crucial benefits for people, such as drinking water, fisheries, tourism and forests that help flood prevention."

The EU Trans-European Network for Transport (TEN-T) proposes to use the Danube more intensively for inland shipping and so-called "bottlenecks" ? the shallow waters of the Danube with the greatest ecological value are to be modified or destroyed. However, more than 65 per cent of the "bottlenecks" are either existing or potential Natura 2000 sites protected under the EU Habitats Directive.

The work would also affect three national parks ? Dunau Auen in Austria, and Duna-Ipoly and Duna-Drava National Parks in Hungary ? as well as 11 Ramsar wetland sites and one world heritage site in Wachau, Austria along the Danube basin. White pelicans, white-tailed eagles, and sturgeon are some of the species that will be threatened to any development.

WWF and the other NGOs have adopted a resolution that calls for ecologically sensitive implementation of shipping projects along the Danube basin, following the EU Water Framework Directive. It also asks to ensure public participation and to avoid new depth requirements beyond existing legislation. In addition, NGOs are calling for a European Environmental Co-ordinator to be appointed to help protect the environment.

WWF and its partners also urge the government of Ukraine and the European Commission to stop further construction works on the Ukrainian Danube?Black Sea Canal and to restore the damage that has been already done.

Notes:
? In 1972, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. This international agreement aims to protect landscapes of outstanding beauty and variety from destruction and to protect them as world heritage.

Three landscapes on t?e Danube have been declared World Heritage sites: the Danube Delta in Romania, the Srebarna Nature Reserve in Bulgaria, and since December 2000, the Wachau Cultural Landscape in Austria.

? The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was adopted in 1973. It aims at protecting internationally significant wetlands, which host rare or threatened animal or plant species. Most States along the Danube have Ramsar sites.

? On May 11, 2004, the Ukrainian government launched the construction of a canal to aid shipping through the Danube Delta. The government has chosen a route called the Bystroye Canal that will cut through the heart of the Ukrainian Danube Delta Biosphere reserve. Up to eight alternatives have been suggested for the route of the canal, including two endorsed by a special Ramsar and UNESCO mission to the Delta.

"Today, we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system," said the first African woman and first environmental activist to win the peace prize.

Maathai, 64, warned that the world remained under attack from disease, deforestation and war.

"We are called to assist the earth to heal her wounds, and in the process heal our own – indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder," she told the crowd of dignitaries, including the Norwegian royal family and talk-show host Oprah Winfrey.
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"This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process," said Maathai, who founded the Green Belt Movement. She received a gold medal and diploma along with the $1.5 million prize.

Before she took the stage, the usually stodgy ceremony lit up with color and sound as three African dancers and accompanying drummers pounded out a brief piece of African music that echoed off the walls of the large auditorium. Maathai herself wore a brilliant orange traditional dress.

In neighboring Sweden, the other Nobel prizes – for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics – were awarded.

Bengt Samuelsson, chairman of the board of the Nobel Foundation, addressed the frequently heard criticism that too few women have received the Nobel Prize over the years.

Although only 31 of the 705 Nobel Prizes handed out since 1901 have gone to women, Samuelsson pointed out that there were three this year.

Afterward, more than 1,300 guests, including the laureates’ relatives, Sweden’s royal family, government officials, ambassadors, scientists and business leaders, attended the Nobel banquet.

Absent from Stockholm was the literature prize winner, Elfriede Jelinek of Austria, who cited a social phobia. Although she sent a prerecorded video lecture, she did not send any prepared remarks.

Presenting her award, Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said she has "given new currency to a heretical feminine tradition and … expanded the art of literature."

BiH has ratified the Convention as the last of the 13 participating states.

The meeting of ministers and other senior officials of the Danube basin countries, responsible for managing the water resources and protection of environment in the basin of river Danube, was organized ten years after the adoption of the Convention on Cooperation in Protection and Sustainable Usage of River Danube.

Further, the participants of the Ministerial Conference have adopted a declaration titled ?The Danube Basin in the Hearth of Europe?.

The countries that share the basin of river Danube have expressed their commitment to further strengthening of cross-border cooperation on sustainable managing of water resources within the Danube region.

The Declaration also sets priorities, goals and the main actions for the next ten years.

The Vienna meeting has also marked the Action Programme for sustainable protection from floods in the Danube basin.

The meeting in Vienna was attended by ministers and senior political representatives responsible for managing water resources from Austria, BiH, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Moldavia, Romania, Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and the European Commission.

The wooden Greenpeace ‘Climate Ark’ held symbolic climate refugees. Their message is simple: without action against global warming, the future looks bleak for most of the planet’s population. Global warming will bring more storms, floods and heat waves that will hit the poorest and most vulnerable first.

Among the crowds at the Ark were 4000 online activists from Argentina who turned up in person to demand action – not words – from the politicians gathering in their city.

It took the world 10 years to finally agree the only global response to climate change – the Kyoto Protocol – which limits greenhouse gases. The world cannot afford another 10 years before taking significant action to tackle the problem. Without action, the melting of glaciers, break-up of ice sheets, and sea-level rise will only accelerate.

While the world’s poor feel the impact first, responsibility for tackling the problem lies with the world’s biggest polluters – the rich countries. The US administration is currently ‘climate enemy number one’ as the biggest polluter and most vocal opponent of?action on global warming.

Not only is the US not putting its own house in order, it will be actively lobbying other countries at the talks not to take any action. But US inaction should not be an excuse for stalemate at the talks, or for other countries to put off action.

The question is, are we prepared to act to prevent even worse impacts of climate change and at the same time provide help for the most vulnerable to adapt or will we consign millions to their fates in an uncertain and unstable world?

Keeping the global average temperature increase below 2-C should be the goal of climate policy. That will still be dangerous to millions of people but it is now probably the best we can do.

By staying below 2-C we can limit damage to coral reefs; limit the risk of the Greenland ice sheet collapsing; and limit the rate and extent of sea level rise. Hunger, water scarcity and disease risk seem to accelerate with higher temperature. It isn’t too late to pull the world back from the brink but it soon may be.

There is no choice. Governments must act now to save the planet from a dangerous and uncertain future or all the arks in the world won’t be enough to save the climate refugees.

"We cannot be satisfied with the primarily raw material orientation of Russian exports (over 80%) [to Finland]," Yakovenko said.

Underlining a positive practical character of our bilateral economic relations, Yakovenko said that, according to the results of the first six months of this year, Russia is Finland’s third largest trading partner, while Finland is Russia’s sixth largest partner in trade with western countries.

According to his data, in 2003 the two countries’ trade amounted to 7.63 billion euros, given a stable tendency towards growth and Russia’s export surplus of 890 million euros.

Yakovenko outlined prospects for intensifying relations in the investment sphere and stressed the importance of creating imports-replacing production in Russia with the Finnish capital’s participation.

It is worth noting that as regards the volume of accumulated investments – over $1 billion – Finland is among major investors in the Russian economy. "This level, however, does not fully conform to the potential of Russian-Finnish relations," Yakovenko said.

Moscow expects practical results from the S?andinavian business forum held in Rostov-on-Don (southern Russia) on October 12-13, 2004, and the forthcoming Russian-Finnish conference on cooperation in the lumber industry complex due to be held in Helsinki on October 26.

Valery Roshchupkin, chief of the Federal Forest Husbandry Agency, deems it necessary to involve Finnish lumberers in high-level timber processing in Russia. He made a statement to this effect at a press-conference at RIA Novosti held Friday and devoted to the forthcoming conference in Helsinki.

"We believe a shift should be made towards Finnish lumberers’ more intensive transfer to the Russian territory with their production," Roshchupkin said.

In his words, Finland meets 20% of its timber requirements by Russian raw timber. Roshchupkin believes that it is necessary to create new conditions for attracting Finnish companies to start high-level timber processing in Russia, not just buy Russian raw materials at low prices.

"Some preferences should be provided for companies engaged in high-level timber processing in Russia," Roshchupkin stressed.

He also pointed out that the new Forest Code of Russia which takes due account of this issue would be adopted in March-April 2005.

In Roshchupkin’s words, the Helsinki conference will also examine the problem of illegal wood- felling.

According to the data of the Federal Forest Husbandry Agency, illegal wood-felling accounts for 5% of the 130 million cubic metres of annually harvested wood (according to the data of Russian public organisations, illegal timber turnover accounts for 20% of the total).

"We have information that some Russian organisations supply illegally felled wood to Finnish official organisations," Roshchupkin said. He stressed that "both sides must always be held responsible; not only the side which illegally felled wood, but also that one which purchased it."

Roshchupkin underlined that uniform criteria were necessary for assessing illegal wood-felling. "What is regarded as illegal wood-felling in Russia, may not be considered as such in some other countries. Therefore, uniform assessment criteria are needed," Roshchupkin added. In his words, in September 2005, Russia will host an international conference for fighting illegal wood-felling. "We intend to raise the issue of the two sides’ responsibility – of the sellers and buyers," Roshchupkin stressed in conclusion.

Putin, speaking to armed forces chiefs, said although international terrorism was one of Russia’s main security threats the country had also to keep its nuclear defenses in sound condition.

"We know that we have only to weaken our attention to such components of our defenses as the nuclear-missile shield, and new threats to us could appear," Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying. He said research and successful testing of new nuclear-missile systems technology was being conducted, informs Reuters.

Mr. Putin said it was necessary to create a legal basis for cooperation between the government and businesses in priority areas. He noted that the state should ensure stable conditions for the work of private investors. At the same time, Mr. Putin added that the private sector should not be forced to incur unreasonable expenses and costs.

In particular, the President said the government and business should cooperate in implementing large transport projects, providing electrical power and improving border infrastructure. Another priority is knowlegde-intensive industries. "Today, Russian business, with its advanced management, logistics and communication technologies, is already ahead of the state," Mr. Putin stressed. At the same time, he noted that the government should retain the right to research projects regarding new materials and products, reports Gateway 2 Russia.

Holland America agreed to pay a $200,000 fine, to donate $500,000 to a nonprofit environmental foundation and to spend $1.3 million to establish a new environmental compliance plan, said US Attorney Tim Burgess and Rear Admiral James Olson of the US Coast Guard’s Alaska district.

The company did not offer comment. The fine is the first since stricter ship sewage water treatment rules were adopted four years ago.

An investigation into the discharge began in August of 2002 when a Juneau resident noticed a suspicious discharge coming from a docked Holland America cruise ship, the Ryndam.

Officials notified the ship of the discha?ge, but crew members failed to properly respond, according to a plea agreement signed by the company.

Holland America admitted it lacked adequate controls and failed to properly detect and report the discharge, which was untreated sewage, according to the plea agreement.

The $500,000 donation will go to the National Forest Foundation for use in reducing sewage and other water pollution in southeast Alaska, federal officials said.