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Despite a general awareness of environmental issues, the overall situation is deteriorating rapidly. Standards and target control measures are, on the whole, neither agreed upon nor implemented. Industrialization, population growth, urbanization, economic growth, and inadequate control capabilities have all contributed to declining standards in this area. The unbundling of multinational companies and relocation of production facilities to low-cost countries have transferred some of the environmental risk to developing nations, making monitoring and rectification even more difficult. The world's environmental system is obviously enormously complex and already fully interconnected. Air pollution, water pollution, acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, chemical and other hazardous waste leaks and spills, deforestation, fish depopulation, and other destructive behaviors make a long and interrelated catalog of current concern and future risk. The current wave of species extinction is only one of many destructive trends that will disrupt the interconnected elements and overall balance of the planetary ecosystem. Although the Rio Convention and the Kyoto Accords have generated publicity and inspired some progress, they have achieved far from satisfactory results in almost every area of environmental management. The UN now predicts a shortage of fresh water in 20 years -- the beginning of a long list of inevitable future crises as the destructive behavior of the past creates a future of increasing shortages and accelerating risk of systemic crises. Abilities to stem the distribution of environmental pollutants, particularly those released into the oceans or the atmosphere, are limited. As an increase in the global population from 5 billion in 1990 to about 9 billion by the middle of the next century seems possible, unmanaged pressures on the global ecosystem may reach a breaking point early in this new century. You can explore strategies and solutions for addressing these environmental issues in the Plan section.
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