Environmental Geography: Science, Land Use, and Earth Systems

by John Grossa and William M. Marsh

Book Overview

Focusing on the use and misuse of the environment, this forward-looking book provides insights into where we seem to be headed as a species on the planet. Emphasizes the geographic aspects of problems, such as air pollution, locational factors, scales considerations, distributions and spatial associations. Provides an overview of the modern environmental dilemma and the factors that need to be examined in order to gain an understanding of the problem...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471482803
• ISBN13: 9780471482802
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 2.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.7" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

GEO

The book wasn't in perfect condition, but saved me a good pit of money for a same condition used book in my school bookstore. It was a good deal for me.

uses global environmental problems to drive the narrative

Maybe it is fitting that the book starts off by confronting a possible global environmental crisis of the 21st century. The limits to growth of the human population are studied. This leads immediately to the idea of a maximum carrying capacity of the globe. The authors use this to segue into the rest of the book. Discussing in part the notion of sustainable land use, and by trying to properly account, in a bookkeeping sense, for the pollution costs of industry and of individual lifestyles. We see that more efficient use of raw materials is necessary, along with expanded recycling. Later on, the book goes into important topics like human population trends and temporal and spatial variations in how people are scattered throughout the world. Energy generation is another key idea. Fossil fuels are the most important, but alternatives like nuclear and solar are mooted. If you compare this text to others on geography written in the 90s, what you'll find is that there is now a sharper focus on global environmental problems. Traditional texts in geography tend to take a more didactic approach. The appeal of the new book is that it can better grab the student's attention by its relevance.