Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species Book

	Preface
	Introduction	1
1	First things	17
1.2	Biological origins	19
1.3	Life on a restless planet	26
1.4	Future prospects	34
2	The ecological framework	39
2.1	Environmental and ecological perspectives	39
2.2	Non-linear systems	47
2.3	Ecological ideas in human culture	50
3	The health of populations	56
3.1	Persons, populations and public health	56
3.2	Health, wealth and environment	66
3.3	Human health within an ecological framework	72
3.4	Estimating the effects upon population health	75
4	System overload: ancient and modern	82
4.2	The decline of ancient civilisations	84
4.3	The human diet: 'evodeviation' and health	87
4.4	Energy use: environmental sources and impact	95
4.5	Acid rain	98
4.6	Environmental pollutants and ecosystems	102
5	Population increase, poverty and health	108
5.2	Human ecology and population growth	113
5.3	Controlling population and alleviating poverty	122
6	Greenhouse warming and climate change	132
6.1	Climate change	132
6.2	Climate change and human health	143
6.3	Politics of climate change	167
7	The thinning ozone layer	174
7.1	The ozone layer	174
7.2	Direct health effects of increased ultraviolet radiation exposure	181
7.3	Indirect effects upon human populations	194
8	Soil and water: loaves and fishes	203
8.1	Soil: source of sustenance	203
8.2	Intensive agriculture	212
8.3	Food: hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition	215
8.4	Agriculture, food and health: other aspects	222
8.5	Water resources	225
8.6	Fewer fish for food?	231
9	Blodiversity: forests, food and pharmaceuticals	238
9. 1	The benefits of biodiversity	238
9.2	Biodiversity and human health	243
9.3	Destruction of the world's forests	252
10	The growth of cities	259
10.1	Urbanisation and social change	259
10.2	Urbanisation and human health	266
10.3	The future: designing cities for healthy living	283
11	Impediments 1: conceptual blocks	294
11.2	A lack of distance vision	295
11.3	The limitations of neoclassical economics	298
12	Impediments 2: relationships	313
12.1	Relations between rich and poor countries	313
12.2	Power relations and the Global Commons	318
13	The way ahead	326
13.1	Science: dealing with uncertainty	326
13.2	Policy initiatives	332
13.3	Social and political relations	334
	Glossary	339
	Index	342