Brian Lange, age 11, of Coventry, Rhode Island, for his question:

Why do people pollute the world?

As a rule, a boy does not notice until his room gets into an unlivable mess. The clutter and stuff accumulates step by step, except in those rare cases in which a young person tidies and clean the place, day by day. Families strive to keep pace with the clutter in the home, but as a rule they tend to leave environmental housekeeping to others. People do a lot of whacky things, but they did not pollute their planet on purpose.

Actually, mankind has been polluting the world for ages. People paid no attention because nature seemed to dispose of their trash. However, things intensified during the past decade or so. Industry advanced at a great rate, science invented conveniences to give us lavish life styles. This created surplus waste material. At the same time, a population explosion produced more people to use more goods and create more waste. Pollution became noticeable when nature could no longer cope with our enormous human and industrial waste materials. Now its up to us to catch up with a major job of planetary house cleaning.