ABSTRACT
Global environmental change is a major issue today. Owing to rather skewed perspectives of the work and debate on the subject (a result of overemphasis on the “systemic” type of changes as against “cumulative” changes — see chapter 1), however, the totality of the global environmental change — its processes, consequences, and possible remedial measures — are inadequately understood (table 9.1). In view of the greater certainty of issues involved and their regional disaggregation, a discussion focused on cumulative types of global change can prove very useful. Furthermore, to capture fully the cumulative type of changes, regions can be identified with ecosystems (e.g. mountain ecosystem) in the context of which nature-human interactions and their consequences can be more easily understood.
