Living in the Environment

FLEXIBILITY IN COURSE DESIGN. User friendly and extremely flexible, this textbook enables instructors to easily vary the order of chapters and sections within chapters.

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT FROM THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. Captivating photos, maps and illustrations sourced from National Geographic bring chapter concepts to life, giving students a visual and inspiring introduction to Environmental Science.

CENTRAL THEME OF SUSTAINABILITY. Three clearly explained scientific principles of sustainability (solar energy, chemical cycling and biodiversity) and three sustainability principles from economics (full-cost pricing), politics (win-win results) and ethics (responsibility to future generations) integrate environmental concepts and solutions and guide students in living more sustainable lifestyles. Icons highlight sustainability throughout the text.

THEMATIC FOCUS ON LEARNING FROM NATURE. Throughout the book, boxes on learning from nature (biomimicry) describe how scientists and engineers are mimicking nature to create solutions to environmental problems.

CORE CASE STUDIES. Threaded throughout each chapter, hands-on case studies explore current and relevant environmental topics and place them in the context of sustainability for the student. Core Case studies are supplemented by 70 additional case studies found throughout the book.

"INDIVIDUALS MATTER" BOXES. These inspiring stories include profiles of National Geographic Explorers, scientists and individuals who are making significant contributions to improving the environment.

"GOOD NEWS" ICONS. These icons mark areas in the text that present positive developments in efforts to deal with environmental problems and help offset the bad news about environmental dilemmas.

SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY. Trade-Off boxes present nonbiased advantages and disadvantages of various environmental technologies and solutions to environmental challenges.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES LISTED AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH CHAPTER SECTION. These preview the most important lessons to be learned from each chapter section, giving students a roadmap for reading, reviewing and studying each section’s material. They help prepare students for end-of-chapter Critical Thinking and other exercises, homework assignments, quizzes and tests -- maximizing their study time and course success. They are also useful to instructors for writing quiz and test questions.

INCREASED EMPHASIS ON CRITICAL THINKING. The importance and nature of critical thinking is introduced in the Preface to Students. Critical-thinking questions are integrated within chapters in small feature boxes and in the captions of several figures, and Critical Thinking exercises also appear at the end of each chapter. These exercises train students to question and think about what they are reading as well as what they hear and see on social networks and in the mass media.

NEW COVERAGE OF KEY TOPICS. Completely updated, the 20th edition includes the latest information on no-till farming, four laws of ecology, proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act, polyculture and sustainability, CRISPR gene editing, the phosphate crisis, controversy over genetically engineered foods, lithium supplies for lithium ion batteries, threats to U.S. recycling and the use of economics to slow climate change.