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Global Change Ecosystems Research (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Definitions and Implications of Global Change
Pages 8-10

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From page 8...
... These two features of human-induced global change accelerated charges end new kinds of changes act together to alter, impair, or eliminate many of the environmental amenities and services on which human societies are based. The motivation of global change research is to understand the kinds and magnitudes of global change caused by humans, to project the course of change and, where possible, prescribe intervention that would moderate its harmful effects or sustain beneficial effects.
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From page 9...
... As an example, the panel judges the conversion of natural landscapes to provide transportation infrastructure- mainly roads, but also railways, harbors, and airports to be globally significant. Even more significant are the greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles using that infrastructure; the conversion of natural landscapes, including coastal zones, to agricultural and urban landscapes; intensification of various biogeochemical cycles, including nitrogen and carbon; the growing concentration of human populations along coasts and in large urban areas, producing a global change in the distribution of human populations and a global change in the structure and functioning of coastal ecosystems; changes in the structure and functioning of natural ecosystems, including species extinctions and species introductions; changes in the frequency and severity of infectious human diseases; changes in the Earth's climate, both natural ones and those caused by human-caused changes in the
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From page 10...
... or whether it poses significant threats to the health, welfare, and well-being of humans and the other members of the biota. We need to understand the socioeconomic and biophysical forces affecting global changes and the socioeconomic and biophysical consequences of global changes.
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Key Terms

  • human populations
  • change research
  • including nitrogen
  • forces affecting
  • including coastal

  • includes changes
  • including climate
  • measure human
  • biophysical consequences
  • priorities ofthe

  • natural landscapes
  • species introductions
  • environmental amenities
  • various biogeochemical
  • appropriate topics

  • change accelerated
  • human diseases
  • accelerated charges
  • human population
  • frequently relevant

  • global scope
  • prescribe intervention
  • changes act
  • equally pressing
  • increasing human

  • prior change
  • biogeochemical cycles
  • human welfare
  • change includes
  • coastal ecosystems


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