This book offers a readable and accessible account of the ways in which
the world's plant life partly controls its own environment. Starting
from the broad patterns in vegetation which have classically been seen
as a passive response to climate, the authors build up from the local
scale - with microclimates produced by plants - to the regional and
global scale. Coverage includes the influence of plants (both on land
and in the ocean) in making clouds, haze and rain, along with plant
effects on the composition of greenhouse gases in the earth's
atmosphere. The book explores broad global feedbacks that either
stabilize or destabilize the earth's environment, in the context of
environmental change in the recent geological past, and in the near
future. The book also reviews common contentions and misconceptions
about the role of vegetation or forest removal in the spread of deserts.