Environmental Change: The Human Factor

Abstract

A substantial literature from a variety of subfields that study the interaction of nature and society documents the human influence on the physical environments of the Earth. The evolving character of this influence can be traced through a series of major syntheses from Man and Nature (Marsh 1864) to La biosphère (Vernadsky 1929) to Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth (Thomas 1956) to the most recent effort, The Earth as Transformed by Human Action (Turner et al. 1990a). Virtually every corner of the biosphere, these works show, has been touched in some ways by human action. The long history of human occupance has left few, if any, ecosystems in a pristine or fully natural condition. So large has our overall impact been that we may speak of an Earth transformed.