Poverty, environmental degradation and people's despair, an "unholy trinity," can destroy societies and nations, he says in a commentary that the UN publication Our Planet elicited for a special edition that will be distributed at the conference on sustainable development opening in Johannbesurg later this month. The Earth Times will be producing daily newspapers for the duration of the conference and supplying coverage also on its Web site.

"Despite the stories and images on trouble we read in our newspapers and view on our television screens, this is a time of great opportunities to extend peace, prosperity and freedom," Powell writes, striking an upbeat note.

"The spread of democracy and market economies, combined with breakthroughs in technology prompts us to dream of a day when, for the first time in history, most of humanity will be free of the ravages of tyranny and poverty."

Writing also in Our Planet, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the conference host, foresees a downside to development. If every citizen of China were to use oil at the rate that Americans consume "black gold," the Chinese state would require 80 million barrels a day, he estimates. That's 6 million barrels a day more than the current daily world production of oil, 74 million barrels, Mbeki notes.