Sustainability: An Environmental Science Perspective

ISBN-13: 9781498752657 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 333 str.

John C. Ayers

Opis

This book will present an earth science-based overview of the challenges to sustainability (climate change, energy, food, and water security, etc.) and offer potential solutions. It will show how to use footprint analysis to estimate the environmental impacts of human activities, which then allows us to prioritize problems and their solutions. Many examples will be given of how to sustainably use natural resources, with sustainable management of common pool resources such as the atmosphere, oceans, and groundwater receiving special attention. It will also address economics and society, as these topics are thoroughly integrated into sustainability practices, shown through real world applications.

Spis treści

Introduction. Sustainability and Human Well-Being. The Environmental ImPACT. Risk, Resilience, and System Dynamics.Sustainable Development: How to Avoid Collapse and Build a Better Society. Nonrenewable Resources: Oil and Minerals. Global Climate Change. Responses to Global Climate Change. Nonrenewable Energy Sources. Renewable Energy Sources. Sustainable Energy Plans. Water. Food. Waste and Pollution. The Biosphere. The Future.

O autorze

Dr. John C. Ayers is a Professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department at Vanderbilt University. John is a geochemist whose research focuses on what controls the movement of elements in natural systems. Current projects include identifying the sources of salts and arsenic in soil and water in the coastal zone of Bangladesh; the geochemistry of soil formation; and measurement of soil gas fluxes of methane in areas where natural gas is mined by hydraulic fracturing. John has published over thirty papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is a fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America. At Vanderbilt he has served as Department Chair and Director of Graduate Studies, and he teaches courses on Geochemistry and Sustainability Science.