Planet Under Stress: The Challenge of Global Change

Ron Goldsmith is a professor of Geography at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute.

The Royal Society of Canada sponsored this collection of research and
commentary to “inform the public as fully as possible on current
research into global change, on the significance of the results as they
are being interpreted, and on the social, economic, legal, and moral
aspects involved in coming to terms with the most serious threat ever to
have arisen to the healthy functioning of the plant.”

Thirty-three authors have contributed to the volume, either in the form
of chapters or brief individual commentaries. The book, as reflected in
the list of its contributors, is clearly a scientific perspective on
environmental change. But significant and largely successful effort has
been made to translate scientific discourse into a form accessible to a
more general public.

Individually, the components of this publication offer excellent
glimpses into current thinking on a host of critical environmental
issues. Collectively, Planet Under Stress suffers somewhat from a lack
of cohesion because of the breadth of its content. The volume, however,
refuses to create a simple focus for this complex set of themes merely
for the sake of “easy reading.” For the moderately serious lay
reader, this book is a valuable addition to the available literature on
global environmental change.