Humanity's Footprint by Walter Dodds
For the first time in history, humans have exceeded the sustaining capacity of Earth's global ecosystems. Our expanding footprint has tremendous momentum, and the insidious explosion of human impact creates a shockwave that threatens ecosystems worldwide for decades-possibly centuries. Walter K. Dodds depicts in clear, nontechnical terms the root causes and global environmental effects of human behavior. He describes trends in population growth, resource use, and global environmental impacts of the past two centuries, such as greenhouse effects, ozone depletion, water pollution, and species extinctions and introductions. Dodds also addresses less familiar developments, such as the spread of antibiotic resistant genes in bacteria and the concentration of pesticides in the Arctic and other remote ecosystems. He identifies fundamental human activities that have irreversible effects on the environment and draws on recent social science and game theory results to explain why people use more than their share. Past behavior indicates that as resources grow scarce, humans will escalate their use of what remains instead of managing their consumption. Humanity's Footprint paints a lively but ultimately sobering picture of our environmental predicament. Dodds calls for a consilient approach to socioenvironmental restoration that draws on new thinking from across disciplines to develop sustainable solutions to global environmental problems.
A useful volume in the ongoing dialogue about humankind's impact on ecosystems and worldwide environmental problems.. Recommended. Choice
Walter K. Dodds is a professor of biology at Kansas State University and the author of Freshwater Ecology: Concepts and Environmental Applications. He researches water quality and aquatic biodiversity, is an investigator at the Konza Prairie Biological Station and leads the Kansas Ecological Forecasting Initiative.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780231139670 |
| ISBN 10 | 0231139675 |
| Title | Humanity's Footprint |
| Author | Walter Dodds |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Columbia University Press |
| Year published | 2008-02-06 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |