"In time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return." Bertrand Russell Environmental degradation takes many forms, has many facets, and produces a diversity of kinds and degrees of consequences. Attitude changes due to information inputs followed by goal-oriented actions would seem to be the sequence of events necessary to facilitate thoughtful progress. Major questions are how this can be accomplished efficiently, economically, and rapidly, and what effects and sacrifices are to be expected of an informed citizenry. The United States has shown in its current and past space programs that it can set and attain a goal it deems important by concentrating manpower, time, and financial resources towards that end. Can this country and its global neighbors set a goal more important than sustaining the integrity of the environment which nurtures and sustains us? I think not. Pointing the finger of accusation at previous generations may pinpoint the origin of the problem, but the solutions must come from the present generation. To solve a problem you must first define it. To define it you may need to obtain substantial background. In a word, you and future generations must become educated about the problem. Your assignment is as follows: You have been given the opportunity to educate future generations about environmental problems and potential solutions. You have been asked to join a citizens' advisory committee whose job is to provide input to the Environmental Protection Agency about environmental problems and potential solutions to those problems.      You are to provide background information for ONE (1) of three possible environmental problems and challenges facing either (a) the atmosphere, (b)the land masses, or (c) the water (either fresh or salt).      You must find a total of six (6) articles dealing with one of the areas of concern - three of the articles should deal with the problems and three should deal with the solutions. It should be clear as to which area you are working in. Specific solutions do not have to match the specific problems you have identified. Write an abstract of each of those six articles - see attachment on " How to Write an Abstract". The articles must come from journals and magazines no earlier than 2001 - no Ladies Home Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, Reader's Digests, newspapers or encyclopedias. The articles must be at least a full page in length and I MUST APPROVE THE SOURCE OF EACH ARTICLE BEFORE YOU WRITE YOUR ABSTRACTS!      The abstract MUST be typed or word processed. It should be double spaced, and margins may be no more than 1 inch on the top, bottom, and both sides (these are standard settings for all word processors). Font size should not exceed 12 and font type may be Times New Roman, Courier New, Lucinda, Georgia or Bookman Old Style.      . The abstracts, with an attached XEROX copy of each of the articles, are due Monday, June 23, 2008. They may be turned in earlier! Writing an Abstract An abstract is a summary of an article. Readers use abstracts to determine whether or not an article contains information of interest to them. Therefore, abstracts have to be well-written, informative, and concise! 1. Your abstract should be as short as possible and grammatically correct. It must also be legible. 2. By reading the abstract, the following should become apparent: a. the subject or problem being investigated; b. the hypothesis or proposal being tested (if any); c. the methods used in these types of investigations; d. the results and conclusions of the investigation. 3. Abstracts should contain 100 words or less unless the article being abstracted is over 6 to 8 pages in length. In that case the abstract may contain more than 150 words. Definite and indefinite articles and numbers count as full words. A hyphenated word counts as just one word. Words in the title are not counted in the 100 word limit. YOU MAY TAKE A MAXIMUM OF 150 WORDS WHEN YOU WRITE YOUR ABSTRACT. EXCESS VERBOSITY WILL BE PENALIZED. 4. The title should contain the following information: a. the author's name (last name first) b. the date (year) of the article or book c. the title of the article d. the name of the journal or book e. the volume number, if a periodical f. the pages on which the article is found g. YOUR NAME SHOULD APPEAR IN THE TOP LEFT CORNER OF THE PAGE. Examples: Dupuis, E.M. and C. Geisler. 1988. Biotechnology and the small farm. BioScience 38(6):406-411 Marx, J.L. 1988. Cell growth control takes balance. Science 239:975-976 INCLUDE A XEROX COPY OF THE ARTICLE BEING ABSTRACTED WITH YOUR ABSTRACT. STAPLE THE ARTICLE TO THE REAR OF THE ABSTRACT. ABSTRACTS MUST BE TYPED OR WORD PROCESSED TO BE ACCEPTED. FALL Assignment