ABSTRACT
Introduction Environmental problems are global problems: each week brings more news stories about the gathering environmental crisis across the world. Massive forest fires are fuelled by intense global warming, and the carbon from these fires makes global warming worse. Fish stocks are falling at an alarming rate. Species extinction continues apace. The melting of the ice at the Arctic is destroying the feeding grounds of the whales and walruses while polar bears and seals at the Arctic are in decline, and many parts of the UK have experienced severe flooding on an unprecedented scale. Most of these environmental problems have global causes. The overheating of the planet is the cumulative result of industrial processes in numerous countries. The holes in the ozone layer are the outcome of the accumulation of pollutants over many years across the world. When humanity disturbs the delicate and complex pattern of inter-relationships in the natural environment this has an impact in other parts of the world. Nowhere is this more clearly
seen than with the pattern of global warming which is producing the movement of the currents, thus affecting the climate of many countries.
