Since the end of the last ice age, humans have developed tools and machines and have modified the land for agriculture and long-term settlement. As the population has grown and new technologies have spread across cultures and continents, more and more of the planet’s resources have been pressed into serving the species. In the process, human activities have disrupted the natural order of the environment by depopulating and eliminating species and adding harmful chemicals to the air, water, and soil?activities that are changing the climate and the structure and function of ecosystems, as well as the biological communities they contain.?
Solving the critical environmental problems of global warming, water scarcity, pollution, and biodiversity loss are perhaps the greatest challenges of the 21st century.?
Will we rise to meet them?