Man And His Environment

Man and His Environment, Volume 2 covers the proceedings of the Second International Banff Conference of Man and His Environment, held in Banff Springs Hotel, Alberta, Canada on May 19-22, 1974. The conference addresses the broad environmental issues in relation to man and his natural environment. This book is organized into six sessions encompassing 17 chapters. The first session deals with the continuing development of the Canadian mineral resources and the role of the National Energy Board in the country's energy management. This session also provides an overview of the world hydrocarbon energy resources. The second session discusses various problems in overpopulated and industrially and technologically underdeveloped countries and developments in the environmental restraints on production practices to protect the environment. The subsequent two sessions look into the effects of human activities on his environment. Topics covered in these sessions include the use and misuse of technology; social, economic, and political impact of urbanization; and government environmental policies. The concluding sessions outline the ethical structure of Western Society and the development of a theoretical model of public morality. These topics are followed by discussions on the essential nature of the environmental problems and the systematic relations between the Western culture and Western environment.

When Artur Glikson died in July 1966 he was still comparatively unknown; yet paradoxically he had an international reputation that went beyond town planning and architectural circles. As far back as 1955, when he was forty four years old, he was an active participant in the notable Wenner-Gren Conference on "Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth," where he presented the first paper in the present book. Seven years later he was the only nonscientist represented in the even more selective Ciba Foundation conference on Man and his Future. Though Glikson attended many other important international conferences, notably the International Seminar on Regional Planning in The Hague in 1957, and the International conference of Landscape Architects in Amsterdam in 1960, he has yet to leave his mark on the thought and practice of architects and planners, his own professional group. The fact that Artur Glikson's activities as a pioneer in sociological plan ning are still relatively unknown, might seem a handicap from the point of this book's getting the public or professional attention that it deserves. But this is perhaps the best reason for bringing out the assembled papers and giving a picture of their background in his personal experience.