The aim of this book is to present concepts relating to environmental impacts, their origins and methods for assessing the adverse effects that projects can have on the environment. These tools will prepare you, as an environmental professional, to be able to work with public and corporate environmental management, thus contributing to improving the environmental quality needed to sustain ecosystems. Global warming has been studied for more than 30 years - but it can be said that 1972 was the year when humanity became aware that the environmental crisis was real and that its effects were immediate. New scientific research has dispelled the slightest doubt that the sudden rise in the planet's temperature is due to human action, with little contribution from any other influence of nature. Even eco-skeptics now accept the frightening idea that the time available to avoid global catastrophe is dangerously short. There's really no ignoring the problem. Like an apocalyptic plague, climate change is already affecting the daily lives of billions of people in a way that is impossible to ignore.