ABSTRACT
The human race is utterly dependent on the natural environment. All the things that we can see, touch, need or desire are either part of the environment or have been produced from resources that were extracted from the environment. Without an environment capable of providing air, water and food, human beings could not even have evolved, and our evolution has been shaped by the environment and environmental change. The global economy, which at the time this book was published was sustaining almost seven billion human beings, is utterly dependent upon a stream of raw materials. Whether these are animal, vegetable or mineral in nature, their origin is environmental.
