This Nation has realized significant environmental improvements over the last three decades.

I think we have grave problems. I am very much concerned about environmental questions even though in Finnish society we are not facing the most urgent problems.

I wanted to help raise awareness so I created an environmental foundation called Just Within Reach.

So to hope to be able to have peace to be able to have justice and environmental balance are consequences of our behavior not just our intentions.

Global markets must be balanced by global values such as respect for human rights and international law democracy security and sustainable economic and environmental development.

But as environment minister I am very interested in a thriving German automobile industry because I can only pay for the rising costs of environmental protection at home and abroad if there are people in Germany with jobs and who pay taxes.

On the environmental front there's concern about global warming and high levels of carbon dioxide and trees take in CO2 and store carbon.

And I know that the younger generation is doing things that are so ingenious. And for them it's not a matter of a political belief or an environmental stance. It's really just common sense.

I thought I was gonna be an attorney so I went to Dartmouth and I was a government major and I minored in environmental policy and I didn't do anything academically around the arts.

Some types of environmental restoration projects are well-known restored wetlands for instance or coal mine reclamation projects. Recently though larger dam removal projects have started a number of them in Washington state.

A fascinating challenge facing today's environmental movement is how to best approach the reversal of past decisions that altered once-pristine environmental spaces for the sake of urgent man-made needs.

If we talk about the environment for example we have to talk about environmental racism - about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica.

We created the Cabinet Committee on the Environment to review the environmental implications of all government initiatives. I think what made us successful was the fact that it was a sustained approach. We did something new every year.

We all recognize that in recent decades many important achievements have helped create a cleaner healthier environment yet our national needs in environmental health are not being fully met.

There's so many issues tied to the meat industry. I mean social environmental humanitarian - all of them. I know that when I'm eating that I'm not hurting the planet I'm not hurting other people on this planet I'm not hurting animals... and I'm not hurting nature.

More than ever before there is a global understanding that long-term social economic and environmental development would be impossible without healthy families communities and countries.

I reflect back 35 years ago and look how far we have come in America with our environmental policy to improve the conditions of our air and water and we have had some real successes.