ABSTRACT
Figure 1 shows the trend of the human population over the past 1000 years, in what is probably one of today’s most common pictures of the global scene: centuries of slow growth, with an explosion of numbers only in the past half century. The growth is closely associated with increasing environmental stress. The major trends in global environmental change include the following:
atmospheric changes that threaten to increase the global temperature through the accumulation of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse’ gases, and increase ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth through stratospheric ozone depletion;
pollution of the air, water and land through the release of toxic chemicals and waste materials;
ecosystem degradation such as deforestation, soil erosion and salinization, eutrophication of water bodies, loss of wetlands and erosion of coastlines;
loss of biodiversity through habitat destruction; and
the increased potential for global life destruction through nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction.
