While the big chiefs from around the world meet to talk about our environment, they're often discussing ideas that we don't always get. While they talk about these big foreign concepts, they're really deciding our future. Here then are a few definitions and examples of the big environmental themes so you can participate actively in the environmental groups in your town, or at least impress your friends!

Sustainable development : Everybody wants a job. But if you knew that for you to have one, you had to wreck the water at your favorite beach, what would you do? If you wanted to buy some cheap running shoes, but you found out that a little kid would have to work instead of going to school, what would you do? If you wanted to take a walk in the woods but found out that to protect that forest a hundred loggers and their families would have to go on welfare, what would you do? Sustainable development is when you find the right balance between business (having a job), human development (things like the right to go to school), and the environment (preserving your favorite forest).

Ecosystems : In your life, everything is related. Imagine if you will (and you will...so there) that your alarm is broken and you wake up late. You miss the bus for school, you can't write your math test (that you actually studied for this time!), you get sent to the office where the principal calls your mom who tells you that you are grounded! And all that because your alarm was broken! The same sort of thing applies in the world around us. If a river gets polluted and the fish die, then the animals that eat the fish die too, and so on... Get it?

Climate change: Every day millions of cars, factories and other stuff fill our atmosphere (all of the air around you right now is part of our atmosphere) with gas. The gas creates a big thick blanket around the earth and stops the heat from escaping (just like the big cover on your bed). Over the last few years, the temperature of the earth has been going up much faster than before. Because you know what an eco-system is (you DO remember what an ecosystem is don't you?), you know that everything is inter-related and that a rise in the temperature has an effect on many things. Countries that are near the North and South poles (like us) could get a lot more rain (did you here about huge floods in Winnipeg this spring?) and countries that are already dry could get even more deserts (which means less land for farms!)

Clean water: OK. This one is easy. Every time you waste two litres of water in the bathroom, that's two liters less to drink On top of that, we are reducing the amount of water that exists on the planet! Plants (like trees) absorb pollution and turn it into oxygen and water. Because we're cutting down our forests, we're reducing an important source of clean water. It's like you had a bank account and you kept spending money, but you stopped making any deposits (sound familiar?) Eventually you'd have no money left! (For more tricks on reducing the water you use, click here!)

OK. That's not everything, but at least it gives you the framework. Now, go use your new expertise by participating in a community initiative. We talked a lot about how things are inter-related. It's the same thing when you get involved. By doing something in your town or city, you're affecting the world's environment. Start a recycling club! Clean a river bed ! Clean your room! (Sorry. Your Dad made me say that last one...)