Environmental Science: A Global Concern, 15/e (IE-Paerback)

Description
Environmental science focuses on understanding challenges that affect our lives, and on finding solutions to those challenges. Your decision to study environmental science is an important step. This field can help you find answers to some of the most important problems facing us today, Environmental science is an integrative field. It draws on diverse knowledge bases and skills to address issues: For ecosystems preserving healthy ecosystems depends on strategies such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, developing renewable energy systems, reducing pollution, improving social and environmental justice, improving sustainable farming systems, and reducing resource consumption.

In many ways, environmental science is also an optimistic field. Although you will examine serious environmental challenges in this book, you will also explore many ways you can contribute to finding solutions. Understanding the nature of environmental problems is a first step to fixing them. Learning about new approaches gives you the power to help make a difference, no matter where you come from or what your interests are, For many of us, discovering ways to contribute makes this an exciting and engaging field.

As you will find in the "What Can You Do?" boxes in every chapter, there are countless practical opportunities to protect and sustain natural resources. It doesn't take a huge project to do important work for your local environment. Individuals and small groups have many opportunities to make positive change. As you read this book, look for ways to connect the issues and ideas to your other interests. Whether you are a biologist, a geologist, a chemist, an economist, a political scientist, a writer, or an artist or poet who can capture our imagination, you can find fruitful and interesting ways to connect with the topics in this book.

About the Cover
King penguins are one of the astonishing and exquisitely adapted species that inhabit our world. They are also among the many species urgently threatened by human activities, Climate change is expected to shift critical feeding areas far from breeding colonies, and rising seas will flood nesting areas; commercial fisheries capture a rising share of the marine food web to support fish farms far away; plastic pollution is growing in the world's marine environments. At the same time, hope for these and other species can be found in global policies and growing cooperation to protect marine reserves, to monitor fisheries, and to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding interconnections in environmental systems is critical to protecting the extraordinary diversity of life around us, and to protecting the ecosystem services on which we also depend. Environmental science helps you explore these interconnections and make sense of this amazing complexity, and the ways survival of these living systems is tied to the well-being of our own communities. Enjoy the journey.

What's New in This Edition?
This edition has thoroughly updated data, figures, and tables, as well as 16 new opening case studies that reflect new developments in the field, and over a dozen new 'Exploring Science" or "What Do You Think?'' boxed readings. We have enhanced our focus on climate action and environmental action, something students in our classes find especially valuable. Brief 'benchmark data" tables provide reference values or comparisons that reflect key ideas in the chapter. Systematic discussions review topics such as uncertainty, graphing, statistics, experimental design, model systems. At the end of each chapter, we conclude with a new section, 'Connecting the Dots,"' that draws together major themes of the chapt.

Table of Contents
1 Understanding Our Environment
2 Principles of Science and Systems
3 Matter, Energy, and Life
4 Evolution, Biological Communities, and Species Interactions
5 Biomes: Global Patterns of Life
6 Population Biology
7 Human Populations
8 Environmental Health and Toxicology
9 Food and Hunger
10 Farming: Conventional and Sustainable Practices
11 Biodiversity: Preserving Species
12 Biodiversity: Preserving Landscapes
13 Restoration Ecology
14 Geology and Earth Resources
15 Climate Systems and Climate Change
16 Air Pollution
17 Water Use and Management
18 Water Pollution
19 Conventional Energy
20 Sustainable Energy
21 Solid, Toxic, and Hazardous Waste
22 Urbanization and Sustainable Cities
23 Ecological Economics
24 Environmental Policy, Law, and Planning
25 What Then Shall We Do?