This year’s celebration will be held on March 20, the first day of spring for 2008. It provides a meaningful focus for more unity in the world’s diversity.

Throughout human history, some populations have looked after the environment with great care, making sure that they would pass on the bounties of their land to their children and grandchildren in even better form than they received it. Others, however, have exploited the environment without thinking of the consequences and have been polluting the environment for their own needs. They have been contaminating the air, the land and the seas, doing damage which in some cases has been irreversible.

In recent decades, efforts have been made with considerable success to reduce pollution especially of the air and water on a local scale. However with large increases in the population and human activities, the earth is now faced with environmental degradation on a massive scale and pollution has become global in scope. On the first Earth Day in 1970, earth had a population of 3.7 billion people and they drew 46 million barrels of oil a day from the earth. Today, nearly 90 million are drawn and, despite global conferences and brave promises, human carbon emissions have increased to more than four times than that in 1970.

While problems of the global environment are firmly on the agenda of politicians, industries, and people all over the world, species are vanishing at a rate it has not seen in more than 65 million years, half the earth’s forests have disappeared, half its wetlands have been filled and drained, and all these trends are accelerating.

On this day, we are reminded that the well-being of the world is at risk until we can learn to use effective solutions to cure its adverse personal and global effects. The cure is readily available to those who care and want to help others learn to use it.