An account and strategic overview of the major political changes underway in the face of global environmental issues. The book delineates a new era of planetary management, showing how national interests will have to adapt to recognize the imperatives of the global consequences of actions. the author argues that this is already beginning to happen in the negotiations over the ozone layer and climate change. but as pressures increase through loss of biodiversity, water scarcity and depletion of vital resources such as fish, forests and topsoil, so too will the politics of planetary management override other issues.