Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
academics on nuclear winter and the depletion
of the ozone layer, have become available.
Although often quite technical, they have
contained material of sufficient general interest
that it could be abstracted and disseminated
widely by the media. Other issues have been
developed at the popular level from the outset.
The interest in African drought, for example was
to a large extent an emotional response to
television coverage of events in Ethiopia and the
success of the Live Aid concerts of 1985, although
excellent academic studies of the problem have
been carried out (Bryson and Murray 1977;
Glantz 1977).
As more information becomes available on
these global environmental issues, it is clear that
the present problems have existed undetected for
some time. It is also clear that the activities which
produced them were entered into with the best
of intentions—to improve the quality of human
life—and society might even be seen as suffering
from its own success. That, of course, does
nothing to reduce the seriousness of the problems,
but it indicates the need for extreme caution when
initiating schemes which promise major
advantages. The linkages in the earth/
atmosphere system are such that even local or
regional changes can be amplified until their
impact is felt system-wide and in the modern
world schemes which might conceivably alter the
environment, whether immediately or ultimately,
cannot be entered into lightly. Unfortunately, even
in the present era of high technology, predicting
the eventual reaction of the environment to a
specific input is seldom possible, and changes
already initiated may well be expanding and
intensifying undetected to provide the makings
of some future problem.
The global environmental topics to be
considered in the following chapters are those
which currently enjoy a high profile. They include
global warming and ozone depletion—presently
the leading recipients of research funding—
together with acid rain and atmospheric turbidity,
which now receive less attention than they did
5-10 years ago, but remain significant
environmental issues. In keeping with its recently
reduced status, nuclear winter is incorporated in
the section on atmospheric turbidity, where it is
considered as an example of the consequences
of macro-scale air pollution. In contrast to these
modern, high-tech problems, there is drought, a
problem which has plagued mankind for
centuries, causing millions of deaths and large
scale environmental degradation, yet remains
essentially unsolved. It deserves consideration in
its own right, but as a well-established, recurring
problem, it also provides a useful contrast with
those of more recent origin.
Since society experiences the impact of these
elements or induces change in them by way of
the atmosphere, an understanding of the
workings of that medium is important also.
Although many processes are involved, in any
discussion of global environmental issues
questions of the composition of the atmosphere,
its general circulation and its role in the global
energy budget appear with some regularity. These
topics will therefore be considered as a necessary
introduction to the issues.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Kumar, R. and Murck, B. (1992)
On Common
Ground: Managing Human—Planet
Relationships.
Toronto: John Wiley and Sons.
Mungall, C. and McLaren, D.J. (1990)
Planet
under
Stress,
Toronto: Oxford University
Press.
Nisbet, E.G. (1991)
Leaving Eden: To Protect
and
Manage the Earth,
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Starke, L. (1990)
Signs of Hope: Working
towards our
Common Future,
Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
