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Major international, interdisciplinary research programmes arenow underway to increase our understanding of how the Earth Systemoperates and how it is changing through the effects of humanactivities. Although understanding and predictive capacity are stilllimited, scientists already agree that significant global changes mustbe expected in the next 50 years that will affect the capacity of theEarth to sustain life. Governments, business and industry have, therefore, come to recognizethat scientific knowledge about the changing global environment-- as yet incomplete but rapidly evolving -- is becomingindispensable for wise long-term policy making, the goal being todesign preventive, adaptive and remedial measures. Thus global change science and policy making are engaged in a processof forming a new partnership that is taking shape as further insightsevolve. Effective continuous interactions between the partnersrequires mutual understanding: decision-makers need to understand theunique potential but also the limitations of the results of scientificresearch in progress while scientists must take into account thepriorities and constraints of policy-makers in designing andimplementing policies that will promote long-term sustainability oflife on this planet. This book contributes in a unique manner to this mutual understanding:It gives an overview of the ongoing relevant research focusing on thetwo major international programmes, the InternationalGeosphere-Biosphere Programme and the World Climate ResearchProgramme. These are described in terms understandable to theinterested lay reader. The results of the latest review of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are included. This isfollowed by an analysis of the response process that is in progresswith respect to governments -- singly and multilaterally-- by business and industry and by public interest groups. Thisprocess is leading to interactive structures, assessment proceduresand legislation, nationally and internationally. Business and industryare changing from mere watchfulness to recognition of newopportunities for products and processes. Six interviews withprominent figures from business and government circles in theNetherlands provide a vivid illustration of the questions at issue.The appendices provide overviews of methods for incorporating theresults of global change science into policy-making and development oflong lasting projects. Adaptation to climate change serves as anexample. Thus, for the first time, one book describes both ongoingresearch work in global change and the response processes that theresearch results are evoking. It is of interest to all stake-holdersin the scientific community as well as to decision-makers in industry,business and government. ... Read more

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This is a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of approaches for evaluating and monitoring the health of large-scale ecosystems. The examples drawn from a range of large-scale systems - desert to marine - provide the reader with a clear understanding of the meaning and practical implications of the ecosystem health paradigm for integrated natural resource management. Further, tools and approaches for evaluating large-scale systems from the use of biomarkers to remote sensing are described in detail.The book is an invaluable source for environmental managers, scientists, students and institutions working in the fields of ecosystem evaluation and management. ... Read more

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Soils will play a central role in mediating the impact of climate change on natural and managed ecosystems. The book addresses the various responses of soil processes and properties to environmental change and highlights their contribution to the proper understanding of ecosystem behaviour.Topics include: Soil hydrology; landscape evolution; salinisation; desertification; soil nitrogen dynamics; soil carbon; soil microbiology; soil erosion; crop modelling. ... Read more

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In regard to global change, emphasis is generally placed on the increase in global temperature, but large changes in the distribution of precipitation are also likely to occur. Such changes have been redorded in the past by paleoclimatological studies or in the field of climatology. Different approaches to monitoring and forecasting the evolution of climate-scale precipitation are reviewed by paleoclimatologists, hydrologists, satellite meteorologists, and climate modellers. ... Read more

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Globally, forest vegetation and soils are both major stores of terrestrial organic carbon, and major contributors to the annual cycling of carbon between the atmosphere and the biosphere. Forests are also a renewable resource, vital to the everyday existence of millions of people, since they provide food, shelter, fuel, raw materials and many other benefits. The combined effects of an expanding global population and increasing consumption of resources, however, may be seriously endangering both the extent and future sustainability of the world's forests. About thirty chapters cover four main themes: the role of forests in the global carbon cycle; effects of past, present and future changes in forest land use; the role of forest management, products and biomass on carbon cycling, and socio-economic impacts. ... Read more

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Fifty million years ago, the Arctic Ocean was a warm sea, bounded by lush vegetation of the warm-temperate shores of Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska and the Northwest Territories. Wind and storms were rare because Atlantic weather systems had not developed but, as today, polar day length added a hostile element to this otherwise tranquil climate.With the aid of scientists from all the countries close to the Arctic Circle, this book describes the palaeontology, the statistical analysis of vegetational features, comparisons with atmospheric, marine, and geological features and some of the first models of plant migration developed from newly constructed databases. ... Read more

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Climate is the most important component of the Earth's environment and climatic fluctuations have a strong impact on water supplies, vegetation, energy use etc. Thus our understanding of the climatic system is of utmost importance. Leading experts in the field of climate modelling and paleoclimatology present the most recent methods for reconstructing past climatic variations and for modelling the climatic system and its evolution. The first of three parts is devoted to the climatic system and the physical basis for its modelling; the second summarizes the evolution of the global atmosphere, the ocean, the continents, the biosphere, and the ice sheets during recent climatic cycles; the last part focusses on the understanding of past and future climatic changes. ... Read more

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A profound knowledge of the past climate is vital for our understanding of global warming. The past 2000 years are both the period which is of most relevance to the next century and that for which there is the most evidence. High-resolution proxy records for this period are available from a variety of sources. Five sections consider dendroclimatology, ice cores, corals, historical records, lake varves, and other indicators. The final two sections cover the histories of various forcing factors and attempt to bring together records from a variety of sources and provide explanations. ... Read more

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Some 115 thousand years ago the world as we know it todayshifted into amuch colder glacial mode which culminatedwith huge ice sheets reaching asfar south as New York,Berlin and St. Petersburg. The numerical climate models,used to predict the next century climate, were as yet unableto explain what happened.The reader of the book gains a detailed picture of what isknown on the most important episodes of the pastclimatehistory, what to expect during the transition into aglacialclimate mode, and which aspects and elements of theclimate system seem mostsusceptible to change. The climatemodelers will realize that the long term history of naturalclimate variations may hold important clues to the mechanismof climate changes which should be taken in account ifthenear future CO2 rich climate have to be predicted with anydegree ofreliability. ... Read more

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The current climatic changes mean increasing environmental stress on plants: gaseous pollutants such as carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone and oxides of nitrogen, together with the impacts of flooding and submergence, drought and cold. The physiological, biochemical and molecular biological bases of injury to plants and their adaptations to this stress are discussed in this volume. The importance of the combined effects of more than one type of stress is emphasized, e.g. increased ultraviolet (UVB) radiation exacerbating injury from drought or offsetting beneficial effects of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The prospects for improving tolerance to environmental stress by genetic engineering are assessed and some examples of recent progress described. ... Read more

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Presented here are authoritative and up-to-date assessments of the homogenous and heterogenous chemical and physical processes occuring in the troposphere and stratosphere, especially during the "ozone hole" event. The book begins with an overview of atmospheric chemistry, followed by reviews of relevant homogenous reactions in the gas phase and the microphysics and physical chemistry of heterogenous processes that occur on, or in aerosols, rain and ice. Low temperature laboratory studies are compared with related fieldwork measurements, particularly in relation to the formation and composition of polar stratospheric clouds. Also discussed are measurements in glacial ice. Finally chemical modelling of the troposphere and stratosphere, including heterogenous processes, is reviewed. ... Read more

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Polar ice cores have provided tremendous advances in our knowledge of past climate change. They also contain an archive of geochemical data, which can certainly delineate some of the forcing factors that govern climate change. However, our ability to interpret these data is severely curtailed by lack of knowledge of the processes governing the transfer of chemical species from the air to the snow. This book outlines the potential and problems of ice core chemistry and discusses the processes involved in air-snow transfer. It gives the state of current knowledge and an agenda for future research. ... Read more

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The ocean plays a central role for the climate of the earth.Storage andtransport by the oceanic circulation control thetemporal evolution ofclimate change resulting from theincrease of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and affectmagnitude and regional distribution of those changes.Oninterannual and longer time scales the ocean is furthermore,through interaction with the atmosphere, a source ofimportant natural climatevariability. Chemical andbiological processes in the ocean also arestrongly coupledto climate change, particularly through the global carboncycle. This book contains a series of lectures discussingthecomplex processes and interactions that link the oceanto the climate system, and covers topics from the fields ofphysical, chemical and biological oceanography as well asmeteorology. The focus is on modelingocean circulationdynamics, hydrological processes in the atmosphere, tropicalocean-atmosphere interactions, and the oceanic carbon cycle. ... Read more

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Key biogeochemical events in the ocean take place in less than a second, are studied in experiments lasting a few hours, and determine cycles that last over seasons or even years. Models of the controlling processes thus have to take into account these time scales. This book aims at achieving consensus among these controlling processes at all relevant time scales. It helps understand the global carbon cycle including the production and breakdown of solved organic matter and the production, sinking and breakdown of particles. The emphasis on considering all time scales in submodel formulation is new and of interest to all those working in global ocean models and related fields. ... Read more

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The human species faces a new threat to its health--perhaps to its survival.Our burgeoning numbers, the spread of technology, and our conspicuous consumption are overloading Earth's capacity to replenish and repair itself. Taking a unique perspective, Planetary Overload forcefully points out the consequences to human health of ongoing degradation of Earth's ecosystems. In a broad-based, accessible analysis, A.J. McMichael examines current ecological disruptions--land degradation, ozone depletion, temperature increases, and loss of genetic diversity through the extinction of species, among others--and compellingly demonstrates their potentially disastrous results, including food shortages, new and intensified disease patterns, rising seas, mass refugee problems, and cancers, blindness, and immune suppression from increased ultraviolet radiation. While other books on the subject analyze only the environmental impact of these problems, McMichael takes his analysis to an entirely new and disturbing extreme:he relates each of these insidious processes back to its ultimate impact on human health. He thoroughly considers these problems--and their scientific uncertainties--within a broad evolutionary, biological, social, and economic context.He also explores the underlying problems contributing to environmental breakdown, especially the relations between the world's rich and poor. This eloquent and alarming book will be of intense interest to environmentalists, public health professionals, policy makers, environmental studies and human ecology scholars, and anyone wishing a lucid, rational assessment of today's pressing ecological concerns.A. J. McMichael is the chair of the Australian Government's Environmental Health Committee and the co-author of The LS Factor:Lifestyle and Health (Penguin, 1987). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Planetary Overload
One of the few text books that I actually chose to keep from one of my college classes. A.J. McMichael makes some keen observations on the shift to the battle over resources in days present and ever increasingly so in days to come. Puts in perspective the plight of the Third World and developing nations and how the interplay of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism and other isms affect our global commons. A must for policy makers, politicians and anyone seeking answers behind some of the sensationalized TV footage we tend to see these days.

Amust for serious environmentalists and citizens
Dr.Tony McMichael, author of numerous IPCC and WHO reports on climate change, has here assembled an astounding array of information on the human species and how we have come to put our own health and the planet at risk. Designed for the general reader, though authoritative, Planetary Overload makes an ideal item for your personal bookshelf or for assignment in college classes.

McMichael is particularly good at putting human health in a social context since many current threats are on a population basis and fueled (literally) by human consumption, production, and population.

Planetary Overload presents a useful and interesting overview on human evolution, the connection between health and wealth in various countries,a section on global climate change and its direct and indirect health effects from heat, extreme weather events,the spread of infectious disease and the like. There are also startling summaries of the effects of urbanization and forest destruction, and, best of all, sane perspectives on the importance of politics and involvement for solving these growing health threats.

A brilliant synthesis of biology and medicine, economics, and politics, Planetary Overload puts McMichael in the first rank of concerned scientists and public intellectuals.

Ok general reading
This volume is interesting but it tries to cover too much. The author also makes too many unsupported claims and over-generalizations.

An ok introduction to the complex topics in this field. ... Read more

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Biomass burning profoundly affects atmospheric chemistry, the carbon cycle, and climate and may have done so for millions of years. Bringing together renowned experts from paleoecology, fire ecology, atmospheric chemistry, and organic chemistry, the volume elucidates the role of fire during global changes of the past and future. Topics covered include: the characterization of combustion products that occur in sediments, including char, soot/fly ash, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; the calibration of these constituents against atmospheric measurements from wildland and prescribed fire emissions; spatial and temporal patterns in combustion emissions at scales of individual burns to the globe. ... Read more

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Global Trade and Global Social Issues challenges seeks a new understanding of the relationship between world trade and social issues. The authors examine ways in which we choose to understand world trade and the changes taking place within the industry. In the book, several points of view are presented by leading academics and NGO workers to offer a much-needed counterweight to the liberal consensus. ... Read more

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Few people today are unaware of the far-reaching effects of global environmental change, and it is now generally accepted that human activities are the root cause of the changes in climate."Global Environmental Change" provides a balanced overview of the problems associated with global warming. Commencing with a chapter on the evidence for global warming presented by Sir John Houghton, the book then goes on to discuss the many problems associated with air pollution. Subsequent chapters cover rising sea levels, the effect of climate change on human health and the role of environmental performance in industry.This readable and factually detailed book will have wide appeal but will be of particular interest to environmental scientists, industrial managers, policy-makers and students. ... Read more

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Methane plays many important roles in the earth's environment. It is a potent "greenhouse gas" that warms the earth; controls the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere (OH) indirectly affecting the cycles and abundances of many atmospheric trace gases; provides water vapor to the stratosphere; scavenges chlorine atoms from the stratosphere, terminating the catalytic ozone destruction by chlorine atoms, including the chlorine released from the man-made chlorofluorocarbons; produces ozone, CO, and CO2 in the troposphere; and it is an index of life on earth and so is present in greater quantities during warm interglacial epochs and dwindles to low levels during the cold of ice ages. By all measures, methane is the second only to CO2 in causing future global warming. The book presents a comprehensive account of the current understanding of atmospheric methane, and it is an end point for summarizing more than a decade of intensive research on the global sources, sinks, concentrations, and environmental role of methane. ... Read more