Planetary Overload

By Anthony J. McMichael

Book Overview

The human species faces a new threat to its health--perhaps to its survival. Our burgeoning numbers, the spread of technology, and our conspicuous consumption are overloading Earth's capacity to replenish and repair itself. Taking a unique perspective, Planetary Overload forcefully points out the consequences to human health of ongoing degradation of Earth's ecosystems. In a broad-based, accessible analysis, A.J. McMichael examines current ecological disruptions--land degradation, ozone depletion, temperature increases, and loss of genetic diversity through the extinction of species, among others--and compellingly demonstrates their potentially disastrous results, including food shortages, new and intensified disease patterns, rising seas, mass refugee problems, and cancers, blindness, and immune suppression from increased ultraviolet radiation. While other books on the subject analyze only the environmental impact of these problems, McMichael takes his analysis to an entirely new and disturbing extreme: he relates each of these insidious processes back to its ultimate impact on human health. He thoroughly considers these problems--and their scientific uncertainties--within a broad evolutionary, biological, social, and economic context. He also explores the underlying problems contributing to environmental breakdown, especially the relations between the world's rich and poor. This eloquent and alarming book will be of intense interest to environmentalists, public health professionals, policy makers, environmental studies and human ecology scholars, and anyone wishing a lucid, rational assessment of today's pressing ecological concerns. A. J. McMichael is the chair of the Australian Government's Environmental Health Committee and the co-author of The LS Factor: Lifestyle and Health (Penguin, 1987).

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521441382
• ISBN13: 9780521441384
• Release Date: October 1993
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 372 Pages
• Weight: 1.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Planetary Overload

One of the few text books that I actually chose to keep from one of my college classes. A.J. McMichael makes some keen observations on the shift to the battle over resources in days present and ever increasingly so in days to come. Puts in perspective the plight of the Third World and developing nations and how the interplay of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism and other isms affect our global commons. A must for policy makers, politicians and anyone seeking answers behind some of the sensationalized TV footage we tend to see these days.

A must for serious environmentalists and citizens

Dr.Tony McMichael, author of numerous IPCC and WHO reports on climate change, has here assembled an astounding array of information on the human species and how we have come to put our own health and the planet at risk. Designed for the general reader, though authoritative, Planetary Overload makes an ideal item for your personal bookshelf or for assignment in college classes.McMichael is particularly good at putting human health in a social context since many current threats are on a population basis and fueled (literally) by human consumption, production, and population.Planetary Overload presents a useful and interesting overview on human evolution, the connection between health and wealth in various countries,a section on global climate change and its direct and indirect health effects from heat, extreme weather events,the spread of infectious disease and the like. There are also startling summaries of the effects of urbanization and forest destruction, and, best of all, sane perspectives on the importance of politics and involvement for solving these growing health threats.A brilliant synthesis of biology and medicine, economics, and politics, Planetary Overload puts McMichael in the first rank of concerned scientists and public intellectuals.