For hard strength, as enterprises produce "negative values" (such as pollution and hazardous waste) as well as "positive values", the present GDP calculation should count the former out. Likewise growing desertification will no doubt lead to the "actual loss" of land and related economic losses and the "land" in national strength calculation therefore should be scored lower.

For soft strength, as environmental issues become commanding topics in the diplomatic arena, "environmental power" will surely gain importance as part of a nation's "diplomatic strength" and become a major factor in its "national image". Also, amid raging battles for talents among nations of the world a hard-to-miss reality is that the better a country's environment is the more attractive it is to professionals of science and technology.

An overriding precondition for dealing with environmental crises is a set of human ethics or international ethics, of which the essence is never profit at the expense of others, also known as "the law of coexistence". Environmental crises have brought different places and nations together to such an extend that profiting at others' expense only ends up hurting oneself as well as others. Therefore the human kind should unite as one to deal with the common crises. It is the common ethics of the whole human kind as well as its common interest.

Renowned American scholar Lester Brown suggested recently the world has reached a point when it must address environmental issues through "wartime mobilization" tactics. This writer would like to follow the train of thought by calling for the inclusion of a "UN green-keeping mission" in the international agenda the same way UN peacekeeping missions are.

(China Daily July 9, 2008)