Features

Our goal in this book is to provide an up-to-date, introductory view of essential themes in environmental science along with emphasis on details and case studies that will help students process and retain the general principles. We have had the good fortune in working on this revision to have more than one hundred reviews from colleagues at colleges and universities across North America. They've offered many useful criticisms and suggestions for improving the book. If you are one of those reviewers, you have our most sincere thanks. A number of features make this book stand out from others in the field; among these are the following:

How to Study
Our first chapter provides information that most students need but that is rarely discussed in introductory texts: how to study, how to prepare for tests, critical thinking, concept maps, and why environmental science is exciting and important. These topics are presented in the beginning of the book so students can begin to use them immediately. This is the kind of information that most of us cover in the first lecture of a class. No other book goes into the fundamentals of critical thinking theory and application found here.

Environmental Policy and Law
Our future on this earth depends on both good science and good decision-making. How is policy made? Why do we write our laws as we do? The chapter, "Environmental Policy, Planning, and Law," explains the policy cycle of agenda setting, problem definition, implementation, and evaluation by which public environmental policy is established. Statutory, case, and administrative law are discussed with a level of sophistication never before presented in an environmental science textbook. Also included are current concepts such as alternative dispute resolution, "wicked" problems, resilience in ecosystems and institutions, the precautionary principle, arbitration and mediation, and collaborative approaches to community-based planning. If our students are going to be educated environmental citizens, they need to know how these processes work.

Web Exercises
Each chapter includes one or two web exercises that challenge students to actively investigate data sources on the World Wide Web. In these exercises, students are given specific directions to guide them in mapping, graphing, or comparing trends in important environmental indicators.

Case Studies
Every chapter in this book begins with a case study designed to introduce the main topic and pique student interest. Five of these are new in this edition, including the IPCC report on climate change, the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the explosion of urban geese populations, and the recent earthquake in Gujarat, India.

Figures, Data, and Maps This edition has approximately 50 new photographs, 15 new figures, and 55 revised figures. The most current data available is used in graphs and tables, and in most cases, dates are provided so that students can consider whether the information might have changed and why. We also use dozens of current maps to show the global interconnections of resources and problems.

Ecological Economics Chapter 8, "Ecological Economics," has a new emphasis on sustainability and an added section on market-based incentives for environmental protection. There is also an expanded discussion of the WTO, IMF, and NAFTA, as well as protests against globalization.

Web Enhancement Every chapter in this book is enhanced with topics that link to web-based material. The introduction to each chapter gives the address to our Online Learning Center (OLC) where students can find career information, practice quizzes, animations, key term flashcards, text references, additional case studies, current environmental news, and regional examples of important environmental issues. This section also gives some representative examples of the active links to interesting and useful web pages found in the OLC. Each chapter also contains innovative web exercises designed for active learning using some of the vast resources available on the Internet.

End of Chapter Material As has been true for every edition of this text, each chapter ends with a concise summary of major chapter concepts, a list of selected key terms, questions for review of important objective information, and critical thinking questions that make excellent class discussion topics or essay questions for tests. A glossary in the appendix defines all key terms as well as other unfamiliar or technical terms.

Introducing a New Co-Author With this edition, a new author is joining Environmental Science, A Global Concern. Mary Ann Cunningham teaches physical geography, geographic information systems (GIS), and environmental studies at Vassar College. She is not entirely new to the book, having written and reviewed a variety of aspects of the book starting with the first edition in 1983, as well as creating the current Environmental Global Issues web page, found on the Online Learning Center for this book. Mary Ann's research and teaching interests include grassland environments and grassland birds, rural land-use policies, applying GIS and spatial data to landscape-level environmental problems, developing field experiences for students, and encouraging students to develop a sense of personal responsibility and opportunity in their environment.