Human Impact on the Environment: Ancient Roots, Current Challenges

Judith E. Jacobsen is a writer, lecturer, and consultant on world population issues. John Firor is a senior scientist and director emeritus at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

• Introduction -- From Small Groups to Large: The Impact of Hunting, Farming, and Cities -- The Impact of Early People on the Environment: The Case of Large Mammal Extinctions -- The Impact of Food Production: Short-Term Strategies and Long-Term Consequences -- The Epidemiology of Civilization -- The Industrial Era: New Societies, New Technologies, New Problems -- The Revolution in the Family and the World We Have Made -- Pollution and the Emergence of Industrial America -- Exhaustibility of British Coal in Long-Run Perspective -- The Environment Goes Global: Issues of the Late Twentieth Century -- Global Climate Change -- Global Water Resources: The Coming Crises -- Tropical Forests and Human Society -- Designing the Future: Coping with the Crises -- Creating an International Process to Address Greenhouse Warming -- Human Impacts -- African Search for Solutions -- Transitions to a Sustainable Society