"Here's a riddle to keep you up at night," writes Andrew Goldstein. "How come, at a time when the environmental movement is stronger and richer than ever, our most pressing ecological problems just get worse?"

And then he twists the knife a little harder:

"Despite a record flow of financial resources (donations to U.S. environmental groups alone have risen 50% in the past five years, to more than $6.4 billion in 2001, according to the American Association of Fundraising Counsel Trust for Philanthropy)," he writes, "the planet's most serious challenges—global warming, loss of biodiversity, marine depletion—remain as intractable as ever, making environmentalists vulnerable to charges that green groups have prospered while the earth has not."

The arguments rumble on in Australia, with NGOs "slamming" it as a laggard state, while Environment Minister David Kemp counters by totally rejecting the notion that "Australia is not being entirely responsible in an environmental sense."

Meanwhile, according to Tim Blair, Australian economists are being urged to sign competing petitions - for and against Kyoto ratification.

"Our problems are of our own making, and so we can stop making them," says Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel.

According to Diamond, history teaches us four lessons.

First, environmental problems can cause societies to collapse. Second, some environments are more fragile than others and "it's no accident that a list of the world's most environmentally devastated and/or overpopulated countries resembles a list of the world's current political tinderboxes." Third, societies are vulnerable to the environmental problems of others, as well as their own. And finally, "conflicts between the short-term interests of those in power and the long-term interests of everybody else" can stop a society protecting itself by which time it's too late.

Diamond says he's cautiously optimistic:

"We face big problems that will do us in if we don't solve them. But we are capable of solving them," he concludes.

This from a jam-packed Time special issue on the summit...

In other news Daily Mail reports the BBC's cut in the number of staff being sent to the Summit (not on-line). Johannesburg homeowners cash in on the summit. The Civil Society Forum starts a week ahead of the main Summit. Staying online at the Summit. Australia's environmental slide. Jungle destruction worse than ever.