Sustainable atmospheric management

Abstract

Sustainable atmospheric management today involves a complex set of issues arising from the deliberate or inadvertent use of the atmosphere as a repository for waste products arising from human activities. Urban pollution affects human health, building materials and vegetation. Acidic emissions and excess nutrients produce both acid rain and dry deposition that affect terrestrial, freshwater and ocean chemistry and ecosystems. The production and effects of atmospheric pollution can transcend national boundaries and thus mitigation will require cooperation on regional and global levels, as well as local action. Global pollution includes greenhouse gases and atmospheric particles which are changing the global climate and affecting human health. While technological solutions will play an important part, the large reductions in emissions necessary to achieve sustainability will involve adopting lifestyles that conserve energy and minimise pollution. These concerns were foreshadowed in the writings of Fritz Schumacher.

Citation

Pittock, B. and Dale Hess, G. (2009), "Sustainable atmospheric management", Saravanamuthu, K. and Lehman, C.R. (Ed.) Extending Schumacher's Concept of Total Accounting and Accountability into the 21st Century (Advances in Public Interest Accounting, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 193-224. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1041-7060(2009)0000014009