Global Environmental Governance. J. G. Speth and P. M. Haas. 2006. Island Press, Washington, DC. 180 pp. $40 cloth, $19.95 paperback.

In their 2006 text, Global Environmental Governance, James Gustave Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Peter M. Haas, a professor at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, attempt to deconstruct what they define as the ten major global environmental threats: climate disruption, loss of biodiversity, acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, deforestation, desertification, shortages of suitable fresh water, the overall decline of the fish population, toxic pollutants, and nitrification. The authors postulate that two “categories of change of enormous consequence for the natural environment” have occurred as a corollary to global economic expansion. The first is the dramatic increase in the consumption of natural resources, and the second is the “exponential” growth of pollution.