The world can only save itself by

POOLING EFFORTS

In 1997, a document was adopted in the Japanese city of Kyoto, which came to be known as the Kyoto Protocol. It reflected the desire of states, aware of the global threat of climate warming, to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The Protocol sets countries individual emission targets.

By now the Kyoto Protocol has been signed by more than 80 states (all developed countries and nearly all CIS countries) while nearly 40 have ratified it.

Under the protocol, developed countries and transitional economies are to reduce greenhouse emissions at least 5 percent by 2008- 2012, to return to the 1990 level, assumed as basic. The cuts are not equal. Say, the United States, Japan, and EU member states must cut back emissions 7 percent, 6 percent, and 8 percent below the 1990 level. Russia’s commitments are relatively mild: It does not have to reduce emissions, but during five years (from 2008 to 2012) it has no right to exceed their current level. Within the protocol framework, Russia has to monitor and control emissions and emission targets as well as regulate emission targets. To this end, a national emission control system is to be put in place and a special registration center is to be set up.

The Kyoto Protocol is the first international document to use a market mechanism in addressing global environmental problems. Its international cooperation tools are based on the premise that climatic effects do not depend on the place of greenhouse gas emission while greenhouse gases in existing concentrations are not harmful to human health. These are known as Kyoto flexibility mechanisms.

In Russia, up to 98 percent of all emissions of the main greenhouse gas, CO, result from the burning of fossil fuel coal, natural gas, and oil products. This means that the problem of reducing emissions is a problem of energy efficiency and energy saving. Russia’s technological potential for energy efficiency and energy saving has been tapped only fractionally whereas EU countries or Japan have virtually exhausted theirs. So it is far cheaper to implement a particular project and reduce emissions in Russia than in the majority of developed countries.

KINDS OF POLLUTION

There are several kinds of environmental pollution. They include air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, and pollution caused by solid wastes, noise, and radiation.

All parts of the environment are closely related to one another. The study of the relationships among living things, and between living things and other parts of the environment, is called ecology. Because of the close relationships, a kind of pollution that chiefly harms one part of the envi-ronment may also affect others. For example, air pollution harms the air. But rain washes pollutants out of the air and deposits them on the land and in bodies of water. Wind, on the other hand, blows pollutants off the land and put them into the air.

Air pollution turns clear, odorless air into hazy, smelly air that harms health, kills plants, and damages property. People cause air pollution both

outdoors and indoors. Outdoor air pollution results from pouring hundreds of millions of tons of gases and particulates (tiny particles of liquid or solid matter) into the atmosphere each year. Indoor air pollution results from many of the same substances found outdoors. But indoor pollutants can present a more serious problem because they tend to build up in a small area from which they cannot easily escape. Cigarette smoke is a familiar indoor air pollutant.

Most air pollution results from combustion (burning) processes. The burning of gasoline to power motor vehicles and the burning of coal to heat buildings and help manufacture products are examples of such proc-esses. The pollutants range from small amounts of colorless poison gas to clouds of thick black smoke.

Weather conditions can help reduce the amount of pollutants in out-door air. Wind scatters pollutants, and rain and snow wash them into the ground. But in many areas, pollutants are put into the air faster than weather conditions can dispose of them. In crowded cities, for example, thousands of automobiles, factories, and furnaces may add tons of pollut-ants to a small area of the atmosphere each day.

One serious result of air pollution is its harmful effect on human health. In cities throughout the world, long periods of heavy air pollution have caused illness and death rates to increase dramatically.

ENERGY FOR THE FUTURE

During recent generations, the world depended mostly on hydroelec-tric power. Governments built dams across rivers, forming large lakes and putting thousands of acres of land under water. More and more people ob-ject to hydroelectric power because it seriously changes the balance of na-ture.

Thermonuclear power, or nuclear power, comes from the splitting of atoms. It is a widely used and inexpensive form of energy. However, it is possibly the most dangerous because there are health risks from radiation.

Coal, one type of fossil fuel, is one of the dirtiest kinds of energy used. Other fossil fuels that come from the earth are petroleum products: gasoline, which is used for most vehicles, and natural gas, which is used for some vehicles, but mostly for heating and cooking.

Alcohol, quite commonly used as fuel in Brazil, comes from one of Brazil’s main crops, sugar cane, which is easily processed into alcohol. Methane gas, another source of fuel, comes from garbage, but it is not widely used. Geothermal energy provides most of heat and hot water in Iceland. Other sources of energy include the wind and the sun. In many

parts of the world the sun fulfills many energy needs. Solar panels heated by the sun produce electricity. Solar energy already provides many homes with heat and hot water.

What about future sources of energy? NASA proposed a plan to use solar-powered satellites to capture the power of the sun in space, where the sun shines 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The plan would provide low-cost, nonpolluting energy for the entire world. An additional energy source to be developed is fusion energy, the process that powers the sun and the stars. Nuclear fusion, or fusion, represents an unlimited source of energy. Although these sources of energy seem easily available, their high cost is a problem. They are expensive to develop. As a result, they are not as widely used as cheaper forms of fuel.

If the world population increases as expected, resources for those kinds of energy we use today may be insufficient. We will have to look closer at different energy sources, such as fusion and solar power.

POLLUTION BY INDUSTRY

Pollution by industry is of several kinds, pollution of the air by harmful or unpleasant gases, and pollution of water, whether salt or fresh, and whether by land-based industry or by ships, pollution of the land, whether by the products of industry or by dereliction. These three: pollu-tion of air, water and land, are perhaps the types of pollution most com-monly associated with industry.

Pollution is today out of all proportion a more serious problem that it was in the nineteenth century. There are three fundamental reasons: scale of operation, complexity of the processes involved, and pace of change.

National boundaries rarely look more out of date than in the context of atmospheric pollution. The Swedes complain convincingly that their atmosphere is polluted by both the Norwegians and the Germans. The only answer at present is international agreement on control at source.

Water pollution illustrates the linked factors of complexity of indus-trial process and rate of technological change.

The field of marine pollution presents an even more worrying exam-ple. People think of the oceans as limitless, and assume that what lives in it is somehow inexhaustible. The truth is, marine biologists tell us, that some 90 per cent of that richness is concentrated in something like 1 per cent of ocean areas those nearest the coast. The Mediterranean coastal strip, once so rich in marine life, is already dying. A similar situation exists in the Pa-cific and Atlantic Oceans and their seas.

According to some estimates, about 6 million tons of oil are dumped into the world oceans, mostly as the result of the cleaning of oil tankers. Thus the pollution of the world ocean has become a global problem.

The only really safe solution to the problem of oil pollution is not to ship oil on or under the sea.

The right «long-term», ecological answer is, of course recycling of waste products – liquid, solid and gaseous – to create new products or use-ful energy. What is needed is a fiscal policy, which will make it worth-while for industry to search out every opportunity for recycling.

PRESSING PROBLEMS

Atmospheric pollution raises problems of several types. First, there are local problems due to the production of smoke and offensive gases by factories. Secondly, there are regional problems created by industrial ag-glomerations which may spread title same harmful effects over whole ar-eas. Thirdly, there are some types of pollution, such as those arising from nuclear explosives, which cover a considerable portion of the globe. And lastly, there appeared one more type of pollution which is threatening the globe as a whole.

Recent scientific research suggests that the protective layer of ozone around our planet is under severe attack. Alarm bells were sounded in 1982 when researchers in the Antarctic first identified a yawning hole over the Antarctic where the ozone layer is thinnest. This was the first sign of a hole. Five years later it was reported that the hole had grown to an area the size of the United States.

The appearance of the Antarctic hole has intensified the search for a cause. Strong evidence now suggests that it is the growing industrial use of chlorine compounds called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which is responsible.

According to measurements recorded by the US Environmental Pro-tection Agency one chlorine atom has enough kinetic energy to destroy 100,000 molecules of ozone. In its «worst prediction scenario» NASA claims that air ever-thinning ozone layer could eventually allow a more harmful form of radiation, known as Ultra Violet C, to hit the earth. Labo-ratory experiments have shown that Ultra Violet C can penetrate cells in the body and irreparably damage the nucleic acids and proteins which are the building blocks of life.

There is the need for an international agreement that would com-pletely stop CFC production.