Environmental Geology

"Focuses on the fascinating interaction between humans and the geologic processes that shape Earth's environment. Because this text emphasizes how human survival is highly dependent on the natural environment, students should find the topics to be quite relevant to their own lives and, therefore, more interesting. One of the key themes of this textbook centers on a serious challenge facing modern society: the need to continue obtaining large quantities of energy, and at the same time, make the transition from fossil fuels to clean sources of energy that do not impact the climate system. Environmental Geology provides extensive coverage of the problems associated with our conventional fossil fuel supplies (Chapter 13), and an equally in-depth discussion of alternative energy sources (Chapter 14). The two chapters on energy are intimately linked to a comprehensive overview of global climate change (Chapter 16), which is arguably civilization's most critical environmental challenge"--