Human Footprints On The Global Environment

The chapters, by prominent North American and European authors, offer perspectives on population, consumption, land cover and use, institutional actions, and culture. They discuss such topics as risk, the new Structural Human Ecology approach to analyzing anthropogenic drivers of global environmental change, recent progress in understanding land use change, international environmental regimes, the concept of the commons, and the comparative vulnerability of societies around the world"--Pub. desc.

For the first time in history, humans have exceeded the sustaining capacity of Earth's global ecosystems. Our expanding footprint has tremendous momentum, and the insidious explosion of human impact creates a shockwave that threatens ecosystems worldwide for decades-possibly centuries. Walter K. Dodds depicts in clear, nontechnical terms the root causes and global environmental effects of human behavior. He describes trends in population growth, resource use, and global environmental impacts of the past two centuries, such as greenhouse effects, ozone depletion, water pollution, and species extinctions and introductions. Dodds also addresses less familiar developments, such as the spread of antibiotic resistant genes in bacteria and the concentration of pesticides in the Arctic and other remote ecosystems. He identifies fundamental human activities that have irreversible effects on the environment and draws on recent social science and game theory results to explain why people use more than their share. Past behavior indicates that as resources grow scarce, humans will escalate their use of what remains instead of managing their consumption. Humanity's Footprint paints a lively but ultimately sobering picture of our environmental predicament. Dodds calls for a consilient approach to socioenvironmental restoration that draws on new thinking from across disciplines to develop sustainable solutions to global environmental problems.

The Human Footprint: A Global Environmental History, Second Edition, presents a multidisciplinary global history of Earth from its origins to the present day. Provides a comprehensive, global, multidisciplinary history of the planet from its earliest origins to the present era Draws on the most recent research in geology, climatology, evolutionary biology, archaeology, anthropology, history, demography and the social and physical sciences Features the latest research findings on planetary history, human evolution, the green agricultural revolution, climate change, global warming and the nature of world/human history interdependencies Offers in-depth analyses of topics relating to human evolution, agriculture, population growth, urbanization, manufacturing, consumption, industrialization, and fossil fuel dependency.

Emissions and resources are typically allocated to national territories. There has been increased interest in allocating environmental flows to the final consumption of goods and services. The resulting "environment footprints" are particularly relevant for global environmental problems in a globalised world. Developed countries generally have larger environmental footprints than their national territorial flows, and the gap has tended to increase over the last two decades. Consequently, some have argued that environmental policies should address the environmental footprint. Despite the potential policy relevance, there has been relatively little research on policy applications. While environmental footprints have many advantages, policy applications are limited by estimation and interpretation uncertainty, and by the lack of a clear policy motivation.

An authoritative desk-top reference work for students of geography, the environment and sustainability, which through a series of 101 interconnected questions and answers spanning ten thematic sections, provides a comprehensive survey of humankind's impact on the global environment from the Late Stone Age to the present day.

Dodds warns that as resources grow scarce, humans will escalate their use of what remains instead of managing their consumption.

Our Ecological Footprint presents an internationally-acclaimed tool for measuring and visualizing the resources required to sustain our households, communities, regions and nations, converting the seemingly complex concepts of carrying capacity, resource-use, waste-disposal and the like into a graphic form that everyone can grasp and use. An excellent handbook for community activists, planners, teachers, students and policy makers.

The Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Governance and Politics surveys the broad range of environmental and sustainability challenges in the emerging Anthropocene and scrutinizes available concepts, methodological tools, theories and approaches, as well as overlaps with adjunct fields of study. This comprehensive reference work, written by some of the most eminent academics in the field, contains 68 entries on numerous aspects across 7 thematic areas, including concepts and definitions; theories and methods; actors; institutions; issue-areas; cross-cutting questions; and overlaps with non-environmental fields. With this broad approach, the volume seeks to provide a pluralistic knowledge base of the research and practice of global environmental governance and politics in times of increased complexity and contestation. Providing its readers with a unique point of reference, as well as stimulus for further research, this Encyclopedia is an indispensable tool for anyone interested in the politics of the environment, particularly students, teachers and researchers.