ABSTRACT
Environmental problems are more and more defined as global issues nowadays. They are felt and reacted upon everywhere on earth. The number of global environmental actions and global environmental agreements is growing. In chapter 3 we discussed the spatial scale of different environmental problems. However, this is a highly dynamic phenomenon. Nowadays we are witnessing a process of increase of scale of many environmental problems. Problems which were considered as local or regional problems in the past are now dealt with as global problems. Partly this happens because of the transboundary effects of these problems. Environmental effects which are caused in one place are felt and reacted upon in other parts of the world (see section 3.5). Another reason to redefine environmental problems as global issues is the impact of these problems on the complex interdependencies of the planet earth as a whole.
