What’s New in This Edition?

Google Earth™ Placemarks

Throughout this book we’ve identified interesting and important geographical places that help in understanding environmental issues. Icons in the text identify these places and direct the reader to placemarkers on our web page that take you directly to those places in Google Earth™. You can zoom in for a close view or up to a higher altitude to gain an overall perspective. We believe the exercises we’ve created around these placemarkers will help students gain a global perspective and will be useful for concept review, class discussion, and lecture enrichment.

Active Learning Exercises

Active Learning exercises encourage students to practice critical thinking skills and apply their understanding of chapter concepts to propose solutions.

Learning Outcomes

Each chapter opens with a list of learning outcomes that will help students organize study priorities. Rather than being imperative requirements, these outcomes have been changed to more friendly questions that lead rather than command.

End-of-Chapter Study Tools

For this edition, we’ve changed the review questions to practice quizzes to help students prepare for exams. This edition also has a number of new Data Analysis exercises, critical thinking and discussion questions, and conclusions that draw together key ideas in each chapter.

New Chapter Content

• Chapter 1 has been reorganized to engage students more quickly with a major emphasis on environmental problems and progress. A revised presentation of environmental history puts issues in context while a strengthened discussion of critical thinking and sound science helps students analyze information.
• Chapter 2 has improved presentations on systems, nutrients, isotopes, and ecosystems. A new Data Analysis box invites students to explore nutrient flow in a wetland.
• Chapter 3 has a new Exploring Science box on evolution of cichlids in Lake Victoria and a new What Can You Do? box on working locally for ecological diversity. It also has a revised section on human-caused ecological disturbances. A new Data Analysis box on the classic species competition studies of G. F. Gause gives students some historical background and invites them to learn to read graphs.
• Chapter 4 opens with a new case study on successful family planning in Thailand. The chapter goes on to a new discussion of ecological footprints along with updated world population and demographic data. It ends with a new Data Analysis box on communicating with graphs.
• Chapter 5 includes a modified introduction to biodiversity, an updated discussion of the Endangered Species Act, and a new Active Learning box on climate graphs.
• Chapter 6 has a new case study on British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest, a major new section on world parks and preserves, and a new Exploring Science box on rangeland conservation in New Mexico.
• Chapter 7 has been extensively revised to include a section that emphasizes dramatic changes in food production and hunger in the past 40 years, an individual’s relationship to food production, a new discussion of cheap food policies in the U.S., a new section on locavores, and other sustainable activities. It also includes a new Data Analysis exercise and two new Active Learning exercises.
• Chapter 8 opens with a new case study on successful Guinea worm eradication. It has an added section on the role of environmental factors in global disease and a revised section on conservation medicine including recent disease outbreaks. New information about methicillin-resistant Staph A has been added together with a new section on hormesis and epigenetics.
• Chapter 9 is among the most completely updated in the book. It has a new case study on ocean stabilization (geoengineering) as well as a new discussion of data from ice cores in correlation with historic climate shifts. It also includes a new Active Learning box on calculating carbon reductions, an updated section on clean air legislation, and a new Data Analysis exercise on graphing air pollution.
• Chapter 10 opens with a revised case study on saving the Chattahoochee. It also has a revised section on water availability correlating with the drought in the southern United States. A new box on China’s South-to-North water diversion project has been added as well as an updated section on water privatization and the conflict over water resources. Also included is a new Exploring Science box on the Gulf “dead zone.”
• Chapter 11 opens with a revised case study about the problems associated with coal-bed methane wells. This chapter also provides a brief overview of the flooding in June 2008 that occurred in the Midwest. It ends with a new Data Analysis box on exploring recent earthquakes and evaluating erosion on farmland.
• Chapter 12 has a new emphasis on personal energy use and costs, as well as a new Active Learning box on the costs of driving. It includes a new table on energy use and an expanded discussion of Hubbert’s peak and peak oil. The energy-efficient building and design section has been expanded and a new section on biomass fuels has been added to reflect changes in policy and technology.
• Chapter 13 has a new section on landfill methane and an expanded discussion on the export of e-waste to poor countries. This chapter also includes a new section on disposal problems for the 300 billion bottles of water consumed annually worldwide.
• Chapter 14 has a revised introduction to urban environments and economics. It also has a new Active Learning box on microlending.
• Chapter 15 opens with a new case study on greening in China. It contains a new section on the emerging grassroots movement to find solutions to global warming and a new section on sustainability that is tied to the opening story on economic development in China.