Each volume in this series offers a lively take on a traditional area of anthropological study. Written explicitly for nonspecialists by top scholars, these concise books provide theoretically sophisticated yet accessible and engaging introductions. They will be invaluable to students and all those who seek pithy overviews on central topics.

My goal in this book, in its first edition and in this new second edition, is to introduce the reader to the evidence, both historical and contemporary, for how the reciprocal interactions between people and nature have developed, the urgency for action now to prevent truly disastrous consequences, and to make the reader reflect as to how we might go about doing so. While the book does not follow the usual organization for an introduction to human ecology, cultural ecology, or ecological anthropology text, it does cover much of this material in what I hope is a more engaging organization. In this second edition I have added a new chapter on Population and Environment that provides an up‐to‐date discussion of the challenge to sustainability coming from our growing population. There is a great deal of misunderstanding about the role of population, and population growth, that needs demystification and I hope this chapter begins to do that. In this book, all chapters have been substantially updated, and some topics have received expanded treatment such as sustainability, positive responses to the environmental crisis, more about climate change and changes in the mindset of some corporations that recognize the urgency of responding to climate change. I give priority to recognizing that this subject is not just of academic interest, but has to do with our very existence on this planet as biological and social entities. That having been said, the solutions must come from people as cultural and historical entities, and the solutions that people come up with will vary across the planet as a result of this rich human and biological diversity. There are no truly global solutions, no panaceas, to contemporary global environmental problems but, rather, a diversity of pathways to achieve sustainability.

Because the book is written to engage the reader from the outset, I hope it is of interest to the lay reader who wishes to be up to date on the evidence for our current crisis, and who is looking for possible ways to think and to act about this urgent problem. One of the important messages in the book is that changing business‐as‐usual (which has gotten us in this current environmental crisis) begins with individuals making choices to change their priorities. This means changing consumption behavior (i.e., to give priority to meeting human needs not our infinite wants); changing behavioral patterns (e.g., turning off the television, walking instead of driving); and sending a message to government and industry that we want a very different set of goods and services delivered to us consumers, products more attuned with the value of our natural world – of which we are an integral part.

I have tried to minimize the use of jargon, although in the interest of accuracy I have sometimes left technical terms in the text but tried to provide a clear sense of the meaning. Throughout the book I use the term “we,” in many cases referring to those of us who live in urban‐industrial societies of the West and North. Sometimes it is used to refer to us as members of the human species. I trust the difference will be clear in the context in which it is used. Because of the language in which this is written originally (i.e., English), and its distributor (i.e., WileyBlackwell), the text is written with a Euro‐American audience in mind primarily. There is a Portuguese language edition, Nos e a Natureza, published in São Paulo by Editora SENAC, 2008. The Portuguese edition seems to have communicated just as effectively as the English edition. I do not see why it might not communicate clearly to readers in other languages, but there would surely be some changes I would make if it were, for example, translated into Japanese or Chinese. For example, the discussion in Chapter 2 and thereafter with regards to the Western dichotomy between people and nature, or nature and society, addresses a particular problem in Western philosophy, which many other societies would find peculiar and interesting but less central to how they might go about addressing the current environmental crisis. I welcome readers to write to me with thoughts on how that discussion might be different in an Asian cultural and historical context.

This book owes a debt of gratitude to many, many people. If I were to name each and every one I am grateful to I am afraid this section would run for many pages. My thoughts have been influenced by many professors over the years, many colleagues who have read and commented on my work, many students whose ideas have inspired me and make me happier each year that I chose the academic path that I did. I have been particularly influenced by colleagues in the global environmental change community with whom I have worked over the past two decades, whether in scientific steering committees such as the Land Use and Land Cover Change Program and the Large Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia, or in the National Research Council’s Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change. Service on these committees brought me in close contact with some of the finest scholars in the world on these issues of the environment, and they have inspired and encouraged me to write a book that is not just academic but passionately engaged. I want to thank the many friends who provided encouragement, and family members who were not only patient with me, but gave me the love and sense of community that I see as fundamental to our future as a species on this planet.

In addition to the broad thanks I extended above, I want to thank my Wiley‐Blackwell editors, Mark Graney and Ben Thatcher, who were supportive of this project and who provided just the right amount of push to ensure that this second edition made its way into print in a timely manner. The input provided by Mark from a survey of users of the first edition was very helpful in making the revisions, as was the input of Professor Lorraine Aragon, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She had her students provide very detailed and useful comments and suggestions to make the book more compelling. Many of the video and supplementary materials come from their suggestions. My graduate research assistants Cristina Gauthier and Thania Cristina dos Santos, at Michigan State University, did a wonderful job of going after images, updating figures and tables, and obtaining the necessary permissions. I want to thank Indiana University, which over many years supported my scholarly endeavors, and my colleagues in anthropology, geography, political science, sociology, history, and environmental sciences who were valuable sounding boards for many of the ideas in the first edition. I want to thank in this second edition my new colleagues at Michigan State University for providing me with a warm welcome to my new academic home, for the excellent research facilities, and continued stimulation that makes this second edition possible, and I hope, even better than the first.

I welcome the thoughts from each of you, readers. Every book, and every idea, is a work in progress. I welcome you to send me your thoughts on how we might better meet the challenge that we all face as members of the human species on this beautiful planet.