The earth is our home. What sort of home it is depends on how we treat it, just as the houses we live in depend on how we take care of them. We all like to go fishing or swimming, to walk through the woods or to breathe fresh air. to watch birds and hear them sing, so we have to treat our Earth home in a different way. We do a lot of harm to nature; we are making lakes and rivers too dirty for fish to live in or for people to swim in. We are cutting down our forests too fast. We are making so much smoke that dirty air often hides the sky and even nearby things. The dirty air makes it hard for us to breathe, and it can cause illness, and even death, we are putting so much poison on the things birds eat, they are finding it hard to live. Every ten minutes one kind of animal plant or insect dies out forever. If nothing is done about it, one million species that are alive today will be dead twenty years from now. Everybody has seen smoke pouring out of tall factory chimneys, has smelled the gas fumes from the back of a bus and has noticed the smoke from a jet plane taking off. Many factories, power stations and motor vehicles pump large quantities of harmful substances into the air. Almost the first thing that meets the eye in every industrial city is the smoke clouds and grass covered with soot and dirt. In these cities thousands of automobiles add tons of poison to the atmosphere each day. In Cairo just breathing the air is very dangerous and equals to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. The same situation is in Mexico City and in 600 cities of the former Soviet Union. The sewage from the big cities pollutes, rivers and lakes and may even make them die. The pollution of water can influence harmfully our health, because we eat polluted fish and drink, polluted water. The seas are in danger. They are filled with poison. The Mediterranean Sea is already nearly dead; the North Sea is following. The Aral Sea is also on the brink of extinction. The Baltic Sea is also in danger. It is such a small sea that it becomes dirty very easily. Its water changes slowly through the shallow straits. As many as 250 rivers run into the Baltic. There are hundreds of factories on these rivers and millions of people live along them. Seven industrial countries surround the Baltic. Quite a lot of big cities lie on its coast. All of this combined with the active navigation of the sea naturally affects the state of the sea water and the shore line flora and fauna. Once we have polluted a sea it is very difficult to clean it. Fortunately all the countries in the Baltic area have realized the problem. They co-operate actively in solving the problems of the Baltic basin. Both international law and the national laws of the coastal states define the regime of environmental protection of the Baltic Sea. Their aim is to stop the pollution of the sea, to organize rational fishing and to preserve the sea life. Well, the ocean is falling ill like the seas. If nothing is done about it, one day nothing will be able to live in the seas. Rainforests, help to control global warming because they absorb carbon dioxide. In recent years, large areas have been destroyed, as the trees were cut down for wood or burned to clear the land for the farming. The burning releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Many rainforests grow on poor soils, and when they are cut down or burned, the soil is washed away in bythe tropical rains, so that the area may turn to desert, Many plant and animal species that live there could extinct. The petrol that is used by cars contains lead, which is very poisonous and can cause brain damage in children. Many people now prefer to use unleaded petrol. Some poisonous gases dissolve in water go to the atmosphere and then fall to the earth as acid rain. Acid rain damages plants and kills all forms of live in lakes and rivers. If we don't do anything about this our life isn't going to be so nice. But now more and more people get involved into all sorts of activities to preserve our planet. Factories clean their smoke, cars and planes are made so that their fumes do not add to the pollution. Sewage is also changed so that water becomes clean enough to be used again. The earth can be still covered with forests if the cutting of the trees is done with care. We must plant again where we have cut. There is no need to throw away things we do not want or can not use any more. Many things can be changed back into what they were made of. This process is called "recycling". About 60% of rubbish from homes and plants, contain materials that could be recycled. Recycling saves energy and raw mterials,and also reduces damage to the countryside. We should also learn not to litter. Our duty is to preserve the planet for future generations.. Today teenagers are not only concerned with the problems of their immediate environment but with the larger issues of society. They become interested and involved, form opinions and participate in discussions about the critical issues of the time - issues that may well shape their own future as well as that of humanity in general. They participate in such organizations as Greenpeace Movement that works to promote awareness of the dangers that threaten the planet. They publish an astounding variety of books on the state of the planet informing us how we need to change our ways to cope with the problem. There is also an increasing political awareness so that people put pressure on politicians to make them stop with the absurd things they are doing at the moment. I hope that working together we'll succeed in preserving our planet in all its beauty.