Water
A third of the world's population lives in a country that does not have easy access to clean water. By 2050 this will probably have risen to two-thirds as water scarcity is on the increase as there are more of us to share it.

Water is used primarily to grow food (70 percent), in industry (22 percent) and domestically (8 percent). People in rich countries use 10 times more water than those in poor ones.

The future predictions for water consumption and availability are scary - but one thing is certain - the world cannot increase its supply of fresh water all it can do is change the way it uses it. There is room for better management of water, and this is one area among many that campaigners lobby for, particularly in better farming practises. The issues surrounding water are complex and there are no easy solutions.

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Energy
Every year, we pump more than 6bn tonnes of carbon emissions into the air from burning fossil fuel.

The use of fossil fuels creates more carbon dioxide - a greenhouse gas which basically traps the sun's heat and makes the earth get warmer, and affects its natural cycle. To help the environment we need to change the way we use fuel, and fast.

Renewable energies - wind power, solar power, hydroelectricity, are all ways we can be sensible with our energy resources. And as more countries industrialise and the world's population increases, our energy consumption will only continue to rise.

As individuals, we can think about the way we use energy - from our heating at home and the rubbish we throw away which can be sent to fill landfills which creates even more carbon dioxide - to the way we travel.

There are loads of tips on how you can reduce your own energy consumption on the Green Days Going Green page.

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Climate Change
Gases like carbon dioxide and methane work as greenhouse gases.

This means that the more we release into the air, the more they act as a trap for the sun's heat, which is one of the causes of the current climate change we're experiencing. The world is starting to feel the effects of a warmer climate:

Temperatures in Alaska have increased by as much as 4.4 degrees Celsius over the last 30 years, glaciers are starting to melt, causing the sea levels to rise.

In some places in Iceland, the ice is melting at a rate of one metre per month. Icebergs are falling into the sea which may cause two things to happen - the sea-level will rise and the injection of freshwater could disrupt the ocean currents, including the Gulf Stream.

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Biodiversity and the threat to species

Many scientists believe we are going through 'the sixth great wave' - the sixth mass extinction to affect life on earth. The levels of population in Forest, Freshwater and Marine ecosystems, have all been falling since 1970.

Why are species under threat? We are taking their living room to grow our food, their food to feed ourselves. We are exploiting them, trading in them, squeezing them to the margins of existence - and beyond.

In 2003 the World Conservation Union's Red List said more than 12,000 species (out of 40,000 assessed) faced some extinction risk, including:

• one bird in eight
• 13 percent of the world's flowering plants
• a quarter of all mammals.

Many species keep us alive - purifying water among other roles, and trees absorb the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and produce oxygen.

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Pollution
Air: The World Health Organization (WHO) says 3m people are killed worldwide by outdoor air pollution annually from vehicles and industrial emissions, and 1.6m indoors through using solid fuel. Most are in poor countries.

Water: Diseases carried in water are responsible for 80 percent of illnesses and deaths in developing countries, killing a child every eight seconds. Each year 2.1m people die from diarrhoeal diseases associated with poor water.

Soil: Contaminated land is a problem in industrialised countries, where former factories and power stations can leave waste like heavy metals in the soil. It can also occur in developing countries, sometimes used for dumping pesticides. Agriculture can pollute land with pesticides, nitrate-rich fertilisers and slurry from livestock. When the contamination reaches rivers it damages life there, and can even create dead zones off the coast, as in the Gulf of Mexico.

Making some governments and industry responsible for the waste created from industry is a costly and difficult business.

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Food
One of the important questions facing us in our future is if our world can go on increasing its harvest to feed its ever expanding population.

Global population doubled to 6bn people in the 40 years from 1960, and global food production more than kept up. But as 75m people are born every year, and our resources for more farmland are mostly used up, will we be able to keep up with a growing world population?

At the moment we are not on course to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving world hunger by 2015. In 2003, hunger and malnutrition killed 10m people, 25,000 a day - one life extinguished every five seconds.

Issues around the farming of food include the use of pesticides, which are losing their effectiveness and polluting more rivers.

There will also be progressively less water for irrigation. Water and food are complex areas - to find out more about these issues, see the Further Links section.

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Kyoto
Through the Kyoto Protocol, 141 countries in the world have taken the first crucial step in an agreement to cut deadly greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.

The countries pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent by 2012. The world's biggest polluter, the USA, has not signed up to the agreement.

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