1. Go to the Global Overview section of the Executive Summary of the 1997 United Nations report, Global Environment Outlook-1.
   
   Summarize both the good news and bad news described in the report. After reading this section, are you optimistic or pessimistic about our environmental future? Why?
   
   
2. Go to the National Council for Science and the Environment web site with links to state of the environment reports.
   
   Follow one of the links to information about environmental quality in your area (your state, region, etc.). Summarize the information you locate. Based on the information you locate, do you believe environmental quality is getting worse or better in your area?
   
   

Note: If you cannot locate information about your area with these links, find your local government's web site. Each U.S. state has a website of the form www.state.ma.us where "ma" is replaced with the two-letter postal abbreviation for the state. Thus, the homepage for New York would be www.state.ny.us. You can then locate the state agency that deals with environmental quality, normally called something like the "department of environmental quality." These agencies should be a source of a significant amount of environmental information.