The climate and the Man who affects it, partially determining the transformations of the former, are the main characters of the story told in this volume. The story is a simple one: a number of behaviours relating to human choices (the use of fossil fuel and deforestation) contributes to the increase of green-house gasses concentration in the atmosphere, and consequently to the so called "green-house effect". As a result, planet average temperature is rising and, above all, extreme climatic phenomena are increasingly frequent. To counter all this, world's countries are agreeing on intervention strategies that, nevertheless, impose economic costs or might be incompatible with development programme in non-industrialised countries. The end of the story, as this clear and well-documented volume shows, depends by us, by how we will be able and willing to defend that common good called environment.

Alessandro Lanza, an economist and a specialist in economy of environmental resources, is to date Director of ENEA Research Department.