Human Footprints on the Global Environment

Abstract

no abstract Copyright Information: All rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. Contact the author or original publisher for any necessary permissions. eScholarship is not the copyright owner for deposited works. Learn more at http://www.escholarship.org/help_copyright.html#reuse Review Human Footprints on the Global Environment. By Rosa A. Eugene, Andreas Diekmann, Thomas Dietz, and Carlo C. Jaeger, (Eds.) Reviewed by Enzo Ferrara Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, Torino, Italy. Rosa A. Eugene, Andreas Diekmann, Thomas Dietz, and Carlo C. Jaeger, (Eds.). Human Footprints on the Global Environment. MIT Press, 2010. xi + 329 pp., 11 illus. ISBN: 978-0-262-01315-4. US $27.00 paperback, alkaline paper. Environmental sociology explains that societies are at the same time collective human enterprises and complex ecosystems, each one depending upon the other. Societies cannot function without ecosystem resources as well as ecosystems cannot remain viable indefinitely if humankind stands unmindful of its own impact on the environment that surrounds its extension. Yet, most theories of ecological impact dogmatically assume that exploitation of the environment provides in any case benefits to human well-being. As a result, while the colossal human footprint actually threatens the sustainability of the entire planet, the conventional indicators of human development – such as GDP – still inform policy on the base only of economic growth, which has proved to be largely inadequate to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Thus, new meters of human well-being should be favoured along with instruments to evaluate how far we are from achieving sustainable and socially inclusive economies, and to let the welfare provided with human activities fit with a healthy planet in our days and in the future. Although it is the subject to much empirical discipline, the question of how to assess the concept of sustainability remains vexing. One point is clear: scale matters, and scientists, policymakers, and other observers know that any understanding of the causes of the ecological decay is a function of appreciating the range of human choices and actions that affect the environment. “Human Footprints on the Global Environment”, tackles this challenge and offers a state-ofthe-art assessment of research on the human dimensions of the global risks. After reminding how the concept of human footprint emerged – from the “Brundtland Report” (1987) and the foundation of the IPCC (1988) to the novel notion of “Coupled Human and Natural Systems” (2007) –, the introductive chapter, “Global transformations”, defines the book rationale, i.e. assessing knowledge about the dynamics of coupled human and natural systems with an emphasis on their human dimension. Five major social variables are identified as key human forces affecting the environment, namely population change, economic growth, technological choices, political-economic institutions, attitudes and beliefs. Subsequent contributions offer interpretive frameworks for appreciating the global crisis. For example, the “Progress in the study of land use change” (Ch.4) reviews such notions as population, consumption, institutional actions, and culture about land cover and use with an outlook for the next decades. “The effectiveness of Ferrara: Human Footprints on the Global Environment