ABSTRACT
In Chapter One, I noted the contemporary litany of environmental problems-to frame some concerns of this book. This chapter returns to some of these problems in more depth and begins to sketch their connections with humans and societies. As an obvious disclaimer, this chapter is not an exhaustive compendium of the state of the planetary resource system. If you need to know more, there are many other sources (texts and scholarly writings, and huge professional literatures) to which you may turn. Some of the more accessible of these are noted at the end of this chapter.
