EARTH DAY 2000.

A 30-YEAR REPORT CARD

On the first Earth Day in 1970, experts warned that the planet's natural systems were being dangerously destabilized by human industry. Here is how we have fared on some key fronts since then:

As our growing population increased its burning of coal and oil to produce power, the carbon locked in millions of years worth of ancient plant growth was released into the air, laying a heat-retaining blanket of carbon dioxide over the planet. Earth's temperature increased significantly. Climate scientists had predicted that this increase would disrupt weather. And indeed, annual damages from weather disasters have increased over 40-fold.

Solution: A faster shift to nonpolluting, renewable solar, wind, and hydrogen energy systems.

Our consumption of chemicals has exploded, with about three new synthetic chemicals introduced each day. Almost nothing is known about the long-term health and environmental effects of new synthetics, so we have been ambushed again and again by belated discoveries. One of the most ominous chronic effects: as pesticide use has increased, so has the evolution of pesticide-resistant pests.

Solution: A large-scale shift to organic farming; a shift away from excessive consumption of synthetic chemical products; and application of the precautionary principle to the chemical industry.

Population has increased by as much in the past 30 years as it did in the 100,000 years prior to the mid-20th century. And as the number of people has grown, the amount of land used by each person--either directly or through economic demand--has also expanded. As a result of this double expansion, incursions of human activity into agricultural and forested land have accelerated.

Solution: Stabilize population, especially by improving the economic and social status of women; design cities in ways that reduce distances traveled between home, work, shopping, and school; and in urban transit systems, shift emphasis from cars to public transportation, bicycling, and walking.

The global economy has more than doubled in the past 30 years, putting pressure on most countries to increase export income. Many have tried to increase revenues by selling more ocean fish--for which there is growing demand, since the increase in crop yields no longer keeps pace with population growth. Result: overfishing is decimating one stock after another, and the catch is getting thinner and thinner.

Solution: Stabilize population growth; stop subsidizing fishing fleets; and end the...