MA Anthropology and Environmental Policy

Today a variety of environmental specters threaten Earth s populations. Greenhouse-gas emissions are changing earth systems, global ecology, disease patterns, and land-use. Ocean fisheries and forests in many parts of the world, including Maine, are in precipitous decline. Loss of agricultural land in combination with population increases may well result in widespread famines in the near future. There are also growing problems associated with nutrient pollution, loss of wildlife and biodiversity, soil erosion, the depletion of non-renewable resources, and environmental degradation. These problems affect people, but people also cause them. Many, moreover, are global in origin but local in their effects.