Society and Its Environment An Introduction

First Published in 1998.People cannot live without changing nature. They do so by breathing, feeding and defecating, by dressing and heating and by creating barriers against wind and water, cold and heat. These forms of human-induced change of nature have been present since the dawn of mankind. People are constantly confronted by a malignant nature against which they have to defend themselves and whose resources they have to use in order to survive. However, the relationship between man and nature has dramatically changed during the past centuries. More than the word 'nature', the term 'environment' has become strongly associated with damage and decay caused by human beings. Hence, in practice 'environment' is mostly associated with problems. In this book the term 'environment' does not describe different 'environments' and the way they are changed by human activities in general, but focuses on those human-induced of it. What are the causes of these changes, when and where are these changes considered as environmental problems and how do people react to these changes are the main questions of this book. One of the possible reactions to environmental problems is the efforts to solve them. The ways in which individual citizens, private enterprises, public authorities, environmental organizations and others try to solve environmental problems is a main topic of this book.