AT WORK IN THE GREENHOUSE - ESRCS GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL-CHANGE PROGRAM

We are faced by many challenges today, but none is more important than that of global environmental change. Every journey we make, the technology we routinely employ at work, and the way we spend our recreational time all carry serious implications for the global environment. Our ability to anticipate the consequences of global changes, and to prevent or mitigate their effects will, ultimately, determine our ability to survive on this planet. The Global Environmental Change Programme of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which began in 1991, will address the human dimensions for these changes, providing a decade of funding (19 million Pounds) for social science research into some of the most urgent problems we face. It will also assure a central contribution from the social sciences, in collaboration with the natural sciences. A few examples serve to show how.