About the Book
Unlike any other introductory environmental science text, Kaufmann/Cleveland takes a fresh approach to the subject in that they intertwine social science (i.e. economic systems and policy) with the natural sciences (i.e. energy) throughout the entire text. In other words, students are going to clearly see the relevancy between the underlying causes of environmental problems and how they are affected on a daily basis.
Table of Contents:
Part I. Introduction to Environmental ScienceChapter 1. Environment and Society: A Sustainable Partnership?Part II. Building a Framework to Study Environmental ProblemsChapter 2. The Laws of Energy and MatterChapter 3. Systems: Why Are Environmental Problems So Difficult to Solve?Part III. How the Natural Environment WorksChapter 4. The Physical Systems of Planet Earth: The Engine of LifeChapter 5. The Flow of Energy in Biological Systems: Why Does It Matter?Chapter 6. The Flow of the Matter in the Environment: Why Does It Matter?Chapter 7. Biomes: Where Do Plants and Animals Live?Chapter 8. Succession: How Do Ecosystems Respond to Disturbance?Part IV. How Human Systems WorkChapter 9. Carrying Capacity: How Large a Population?Chapter 10. An Ecological View of the EconomyChapter 11. The Driving Forces of Environmental ChangePart V. Global Environmental ChallengesChapter 12. Biodiversity: Species and So Much MoreChapter 13. Global Climate Change: A Warming Planet?Chapter 14. A Reduction in Atmospheric Ozone: Let the Sunshine InPart VI. Living Off the Land: Soils, Food Production, and ForestsChapter 15. Soil: A Potentially Sustainable ResourceChapter 16. Agriculture: The Ecology of Growing FoodChapter 17. Forests: So Much More Than WoodPart VII. Air and Water ResourcesChapter 18. Water ResourcesChapter 19. Air Pollution: Costs and Benefits of Clean Air?Part VIII. Energy and MaterialsChapter 20. Fossil Fuels: The Life Blood of the Global EconomyChapter 21. Nuclear PowerChapter 22. Renewable Energy and Energy EfficiencyChapter 23. Materials, Society, and the EnvironmentChapter 24. A Sustainable Future: Will Business As Usual Get Us There?
About the Author :
Robert K. Kaufmann is director and full professor in the Center for Energy & Environmental Studies at Boston University. Before coming to the Center, he was an economist at the WEFA Group and Chase Econometrics and a research scientist at Complex Systems Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. He received his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in 1988 and a BS from Cornell University in 1979. Professor Kaufmann teaches several undergraduate classes on energy and the environment, including Introduction to Environmental Science, Intermediate Environmental Science, and a course on environmental history. At the graduate level, he teaches classes on resource and environmental economics, ecological economics, and applied time series econometrics. In addition to Environmental Science, Professor Kaufmann has written two other books, several book chapters, and more than sixty peer review papers on topics ranging from world oil markets, global climate change, and land-use change to the global carbon cycle and ecological economics. Appearing in a variety of natural and social science journals, including Science, Nature, and Proceedings National Academy of Sciences, these papers have been cited more than 900 times and have won awards from the International Association of Energy Economists, Scientific American, and the US Wildlife Federation. Professor Kaufmanns research efforts have been funded by about one million dollars in grants from institutions such as the National Science Foundation, NASA, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation. In addition to doing consulting work for Nomura Securities, the European Central Bank, the World Bank, and the US Department of Energy, Professor Kaufmann has also served as a panel member for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the NASA Land-Use/Land-Cover Change Steering Committee, and the Project LINK Modeling Center, which maintains a global econometric model for the United Nations.
Cutler J. Cleveland is currently Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment and the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University. Dr. Cleveland is editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Energy, winner of an American Library Association award, editor of the Dictionary of Energy, and editor-in-chief of the journal Ecological Economics. Dr. Cleveland is chairman of the Environmental Information Coalition, the governing body of the Earth Portal. Dr. Cleveland has been a consultant to numerous private and public organizations, including the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, Charles River Associates, the Technical Research Centre of Finland, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A member of the American Statistical Associations Committee on Energy Statistics, he is also a participant in the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum, and part of an advisory group to the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Clevelands research centers largely on econometric models of oil supply, natural resource scarcity, and the relation between energy use, natural resources, and economic systems. The National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the MacArthur Foundation have all supported Dr. Clevelands research. Dr. Cleveland has published his findings in journals such as Nature, Science, Ecological Modeling, Energy, The Energy Journal, The Annual Review of Energy, Resource and Energy Economics, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, and Ecological Economics. Through the years, Dr. Cleveland has been the recipient of many awards. For his unique and innovative contributions to the field of energy economics, Dr. Cleveland was given the Adelman-Frankel Award from the United States Association of Energy Economics. In addition to receiving publication awards from the International Association of Energy Economics, and the National Wildlife Federation, he has also won teaching awards from the University of Illinois and Boston Universitys College of Arts and Sciences Honors Program.
