Environmental Science: Research Starts Here

Paul Fleischman offers teens an environmental wake-up call and a tool kit for decoding the barrage of conflicting information confronting them. We're living in an Ah-Ha moment. Take 250 years of human ingenuity. Add abundant fossil fuels. The result: a population and lifestyle never before seen. The downsides weren't visible for centuries, but now they are. Suddenly everything needs rethinking -- suburbs, cars, fast food, cheap prices. It's a changed world.  This book explains it. Not with isolated facts, but the principles driving attitudes and events, from vested interests to denial to big-country syndrome. Because money is as important as molecules in the environment, science is joined with politics, history, and psychology to provide the briefing needed to comprehend the 21st century.  Extensive back matter, including a glossary, bibliography, and index, as well as numerous references to websites, provides further resources.

Humanity's impact on the natural world can have disastrous effects. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch shines a light on the giant accumulation of garbage in the Pacific Ocean. With abundant charts and diagrams and large-format photos, this title explores the science behind ocean currents and plastic's chemical composition to explain the threat trash, especially plastic, poses for the world's oceans, and considers actions people and governments can take to try to improve the situation. Features include a flow chart showing the disaster's causes and effects, a glossary, references, websites, source notes, and an index.

No other species in Earth's history has been able to disregard the natural laws that govern population size quite like humans have. And as a result we have experienced an unfathomable population explosion: a nearly 7-fold increase in three centuries and from 3 billion to 6.6 billion in just 45 years (1961 to 2006). But population growth has come with an increase in resource consumption, which has created a number of environmental problems: Farmland is being degraded, fresh water is becoming polluted, fish are being overharvested, forests are being flattened, fossil fuel emissions are driving global warming, and the list goes on. Many scientists suggest that society must now develop sustainably, improving the current economic and social circumstances while protecting the environment for future generations.

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Natural Resources and Sustainable Development explores the impact that overconsumption has had on natural resources as well as possible alternative strategies.

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Opening with a chapter describing the ecosystem of humans, animals, plants, and other life, this new full-color guide provides an overview of ecology and the philosophy of living for the environment rather than taking from it. Includes a Sustainable Agriculture chapter.