Word: planet
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...more than 100 world leaders arrived for the grand finale of treaty signings, it seemed to dawn on participants from both rich and poor nations that the atmosphere had to change -- and fast. With the whole world watching a conference advertised as a last-chance meeting to save the planet, no one had anything to gain from abject failure...
...without destruction of the environment -- before hundreds of officials from developing countries, each of whom would impart those lessons back home. "Even if the conference had been an apparent failure on specific treaties, it would be a success," said Penalosa, "because for the first time we are alerting the planet that development is not necessarily good if it sacrifices future generations." Others took the line that the summit's battered compromise agreements represented first steps that could be built upon in the future -- just as the toothless 1985 Vienna Convention set the stage for later tougher agreements establishing timetables...
Most summit participants agree that the best hope for the future comes from changes in values prompted by grass-roots concerns. Said Spencer Beebe, president of the American environmental group Ecotrust: "Saving the planet has never been an issue of money but rather a matter of the resourcefulness and motivation of individuals...
...occasionally inspiring -- notions of how the world might correct its course. But deepening and widening concern may yet lead to a coherent ethic that guides people toward life-styles that minimize damage to the biosphere. The more than 300,000 pledges by children to do something for the planet that were posted on bulletin boards next to the Tree of Life in Flamengo Park raise hopes that the next generation may mature with a deep awareness of the perils of waste and pollution. The question is whether they will learn that lesson in schools, or whether it will be imposed...
...dream of environmentalists finally transformed into grand reality. After two years of painstaking preparations, the Earth Summit got under way in Rio de Janeiro with a global guest list of more than 100 world leaders and 30,000 other people concerned about the planet, from climatologists to tribal chieftains. The get-together's size is matched only by its ambition: to put civilization on a path that will sustain economic development without destroying the environment that supports all life. Canadian Maurice Strong, who organized the United Nations-sponsored meeting, set the tone of urgency: "We are either going to save...