By Mikhail Gorbachev

I am honoured to address this audience on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the Lamont-Dotherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, which has contributed in so many ways to scientific evaluation of the environmental status of our planet. Unfortunately, I could not join you in person but my thoughts are with you and I wish the conference very fruitful discussions.Man has long thought of himself as the master of nature and felt that he could make use of it in any possible way. As a result, the entire natural environment that evolved over billions of years, and which led to the emergence of mankind and human society, is now under serious threat.The environmental crisis is global: deforestation, desertification, natural resources depletion, and air, water, and soil pollution. Mankind has the power to transform Nature, to alter the Biosphere with environmentally destructive technologies and to destroy the Planet with weapons of mass destruction.It is a fact that today only one-third of the world's population enjoys good, normal or acceptable living conditions whereas two-thirds suffer malnutrition, hunger, poverty and backwardness. This means that the economic choices and way of life adopted in recent history have only served to lead us to a dead-end: a global ecological crisis.

With the accelerated growth of the global population, which started at the beginning of this century with 1 billion and will certainly reach 10 billion by the middle of next century, and the over-consumption of natural resources, scientists all around the world confirm that Humanity is headed towards an unpredictable future.

Through his activities, Mankind disrupts the global ecosystem to such an extent that irreversible disruptions can create extremely serious ecological and human catastrophes. It is still impossible to quantify them exactly, but we cannot wait until then to undertake real preventive measures. For the first time in the history of Humankind, we are able to elaborate

scenarios about the evolution of the planet which become real forecasts based on scientific data and analysis. The knowledge of the planet's physical limits gives new responsibilities to Mankind, leading to deep social, economical, scientific, technical and political adaptations.

The need to stabilize the pressure out on the biosphere by the growth in population and natural resources over-exploitation, does not mean stabilizing poverty and backwardness, which is what the global market will do if left to its own devices. If we have a situation where only a few live at the expense of the many, we cannot expect anything good to come.

As President of Green Cross International, I believe one of the most important things is the shaping of a new value system, because Nature can live without us but we cannot without Nature. Instead of a hedonistic approach, we should promote an approach that reasonably limits consumerism and which promotes the virtue of "enoughness". If we insist on consumerism as the new utopia, nature will reject such a system as surely as cultural diversity rejected the totalitarian system. It is also a question of protecting Nature for ourselves. After all, many of us already live in urban zones with noxious air; and, already, one out of two people on the planet does nothave access to clean water.

Some question the existence of such a crisis situation, but from the knowledge of ecological problems I have gained over the past few years it is important to state that this crisis really does exist. It represents a real danger for the survival of Humankind. If we manage to settle the global ecological crisis and live in harmony with nature, we can deal with other issues; if we fail to do so, it will be senseless to take up any other matters. This is the number one problem for the next century and the centuries beyond.We must learn to live at one with nature. Nature does not bear grudges but it must not be brought to the point where it can no longer sustain human society and the continuance of humankind on earth.Our generation has to face a difficult challenge but, as recent history has proved, walls of difficulty, like the Berlin Wall, can fall.Let me wish to the participants of the State of the Planet conference a great success, and Green Cross International, the global environmental non-governmental organization that I represent, is always open for cooperation in the future.