Discusses how many people the earth can support in terms of economic, physical, and environmental aspects.

This book focuses on the Earth’s carrying capacity to service the needs of its human populations as well as preserve the ecosystems that provide natural resources that sustain life and support human activities in 2020 and later in the century (2050 and beyond). It addresses the two principal factors that challenge the limits of the carrying capacity: growing populations/demographic moves and global warming/climate change. It also covers the effects that these factors have on water availability, food security, sanitation and natural resources. The status of these basic needs that sustain life and societal activities with respect to population increases and global warming driven climate changes are discussed on two time frames. One with respect to the 2020 and the other with measured and computer guided projected future impacts later as the century progresses to 2050 and later, Attention is given to Africa, Asia, and somewhat for South America because of their projected increases in population. The purpose of the book is to provide those in decision-making roles and those that advise them with a sound set of facts and figures to think about to support their decisions/actions. A secondary purpose is to present data that stresses the need to act now, firmly and with investment to plan to adapt to changing conditions rather than wait until forced to do so. The book also discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world’s societies and how they have reacted. The book will be of use to students in first/second year of college/university programs in Environmental Sciences/Studies, demographics, and ancillary fields such as agriculture science, urban/land use planners, political science, public health, and consultants at academic and professional levels.

Black & white print. Concepts of Biology is designed for the typical introductory biology course for nonmajors, covering standard scope and sequence requirements. The text includes interesting applications and conveys the major themes of biology, with content that is meaningful and easy to understand. The book is designed to demonstrate biology concepts and to promote scientific literacy.

Our Ecological Footprint presents an internationally-acclaimed tool for measuring and visualizing the resources required to sustain our households, communities, regions and nations, converting the seemingly complex concepts of carrying capacity, resource-use, waste-disposal and the like into a graphic form that everyone can grasp and use. An excellent handbook for community activists, planners, teachers, students and policy makers.

Eloquent, practical and wise, this book by one of the world’s most important scientists—and two time Pulitzer Prize winner—should be read and studied by anyone concerned with the fate of the natural world. It "makes one thing clear ... we know what we do, and we have a choice" (The New York Times Book Review). E.O. Wilson assesses the precarious state of our environment, examining the mass extinctions occurring in our time and the natural treasures we are about to lose forever. Yet, rather than eschewing doomsday prophesies, he spells out a specific plan to save our world while there is still time. His vision is a hopeful one, as economically sound as it is environmentally necessary.

Examines the factors which limit human economic and population growth and outlines the steps necessary for achieving a balance between population and production. Bibliogs

In Abundant Earth, Eileen Crist not only documents the rising tide of biodiversity loss, but also lays out the drivers of this wholesale destruction and how we can push past them. Looking beyond the familiar litany of causes—a large and growing human population, rising livestock numbers, expanding economies and international trade, and spreading infrastructures and incursions upon wildlands—she asks the key question: if we know human expansionism is to blame for this ecological crisis, why are we not taking the needed steps to halt our expansionism? Crist argues that to do so would require a two-pronged approach. Scaling down calls upon us to lower the global human population while working within a human-rights framework, to deindustrialize food production, and to localize economies and contract global trade. Pulling back calls upon us to free, restore, reconnect, and rewild vast terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, the pervasive worldview of human supremacy—the conviction that humans are superior to all other life-forms and entitled to use these life-forms and their habitats—normalizes and promotes humanity’s ongoing expansion, undermining our ability to enact these linked strategies and preempt the mounting suffering and dislocation of both humans and nonhumans. Abundant Earth urges us to confront the reality that humanity will not advance by entrenching its domination over the biosphere. On the contrary, we will stagnate in the identity of nature-colonizer and decline into conflict as we vie for natural resources. Instead, we must chart another course, choosing to live in fellowship within the vibrant ecologies of our wild and domestic cohorts, and enfolding human inhabitation within the rich expanse of a biodiverse, living planet.