We must realize that we're all part of a web of life around the world. Anytime you extinguish a species, the consequences are serious.

Loads of chemicals and hazardous wastes have been introduced into the atmosphere that didn't even exist in 1948. The environmental condition of the planet is far worse than it was 42 years ago.

The most important environmental issue is one that is rarely mentioned, and that is the lack of a conservation ethic in our culture.

Every person has the inalienable right to a decent environment.

All economic activity is dependent upon that environment and its underlying resource base of forests, water, air, soil, and minerals. When the environment is finally forced to file for bankruptcy because its resource base has been polluted, degraded, dissipated, and irretrievably compromised, the economy goes into bankruptcy with it.

Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.

All nations are degrading and consuming their environment to a point beyond capacity. In the past 15 years in the U.S. we have added 1300 cities with populations over 100,000. When the environment is forced to file Chapter 11, the ecology collapses. Nations recover from war but not from a failed eco-system. The status of our environment is more threatening than all wars. It is forever.