They offer convenient sinks for each nations wastes, but uncontrolled levels of waste can produce pollution, decline of fish stocks, and climate change. The six articles in the special section, Our Global Commons, examine the environmental and political issues surrounding these precious resources, and also explore their impact on the human imagination through art. Whether or not human activity is causing warming of the earth, the debate about it has certainly been heated. We took a unique approach to the subject in Global Warming. There we had eight contributors taking part in four mini-debates on key questions covering the science, the economics, the politics, and the ethics, of the issue.
Readers can weigh the opposing arguments and draw their own conclusions.
Our Global Commons I. Our Global Commons Michael H. Glantz and Glenn Carroll Strait Preservation of these sensitive areas, ranging in size from oceans to estuaries, is in the common interest of nations around the globe. The Global Challenge Michael H. Glantz Circulating freely around the planet, the atmosphere and oceans are shared resources whose resiliency is being tested by ever-growing human demands. The solutions to global environmental problems are to be found through more international cooperation, not national demands. Trachtenberg International commerce's threat to the global commons can be managed by adopting a territorial approach to problems. The interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere affect our environment enormously.