Challenged Earth: An Overview of Humanity's Stewardship of Earth

摘要

This is an ambitious book, attempting no less than an overview of humanity's interactions with the Earth. Unfortunately, it falls far short of its aspirations, providing a wide-ranging, yet surprisingly limited account of our place on the planet. Challenged Earth discusses a variety of topics: human population growth, agriculture, energy production, as well as selected environmental issues (water pollution, large dams, climate change, depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer), and, unexpectedly in an environmental text, genetics and human diseases. An introductory chapter provides briefer synopses of several topics, including ecological footprints, biodiversity, and natural disasters. The criteria employed in selecting these topics, while excluding others that might also be encompassed within "stewardship," such as waste management, urban issues, forestry and fisheries, transportation, or trade, are not explained. Nor is there an effort to identify common threads or to formulate generalizations. The book ends abruptly without a conclusion.