Changing the Face of the Earth

This history describes the human impact on the biophysical systems of the Earth from earliest times to the post-industrial world. Access to energy sources determines the way in which human beings use the natural environment and the degree of access to the forces of energy conditions the rate of environmental change. Professor Simmons considers the impact on primitive man of fire, the advances made by hunter societies, the development of agriculture and the effects of industrialization, with the use of fossil-fuel energy and the population explosion. The author concludes with an assessment of current environmental change and the attempts to assess and control the effects of human activities on the climate and surface of the Earth.