Selected Readings

These textbooks, references, and websites have been recommended by faculty who teach Environmental Geology including participants in the 2012 Workshop. If you would like to recommend resources for the bookshelf, see the Contribute Materials page.

Jump down to: Textbooks | Other Books | Web Resources

Textbooks

Abbot, P.L. (2006). Natural Disasters , McGraw-Hill

Blatt, H. (1997). Laboratory Exercises in Environmental Geology, McGraw-Hill, 192 p.

Eby, G.N. (2004). Principles of Environmental Geochemistry, Independence, KY.: Thomson-Brooks/Cole, 514 p.

Foley, D., G. McKenzie, and R. Utgard (2008). Investigations in Environmental Geology, 3rd ed., Pearson Prentice Hall, 320 p.

Harrad, S. (2008). Student projects in environmental science. Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley.

Hudson, T. (2011). [Hudson, 2011] , Pearson Prentice Hall, 576 p.

Hyndman D. and D. Hyndman (2010). Natural Hazards and Disasters. Brooks/Cole, 592 p.

Keller, E.A. (2005). Introduction to Environmental Geology , Pearson Prentice Hall

Keller E.A. and D.E. DeVecchio (2011). Natural Hazards: Earth's Processes as Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes (3rd Ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall, 528 p.

Kump, L.R., J.F. Kasting, R.G. Crane (2004). The Earth System, 2nd Edition , Pearson Prentice Hall

Letcher, T.M. (Ed.), 2008. Future Energy: Improved, Sustainable and Clean Options for Our Planet. Elsevier: Holland, 376 p.

McKinney, M. and R. Schoch (2007). Environmental Science: Systems and Solutions. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 642 p.

Miller Jr., G.T. (2005). Sustaining the Earth, 7th Ed. Thomson; Benjamin Cummings, 384 p.

Montgomery, C. (2011). Environmental Geology 9th Ed. McGraw-Hill

Reichard, J.S. (2011). Environmental Geology. McGraw-Hill Publishers. New York, NY.

Other Books

Abbey, E. (1990). The Monkey Wrench Gang . Salt Lake City, UT: Dream Garden Press.

Abbey, E. (1990). Desert Solitaire . Salt Lake City, UT: Dream Garden Press.

Alley, R. (2002). The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 240 p.

Archer, D. (2008). The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 192 p.

Ashworth, W. (2006). Ogallala Blue: Water and life on the High Plains. W.W. Norton & Co.

Carson, R. (1962). Silent Spring. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Easton, T. (2010). Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Environmental Issues. McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 416 p.

Glennon, R. (2002). Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters. Island Press.

Harr, J. (1996). A Civil Action. Vintage, 502 p.

McPhee, J. (1990). The Control of Nature. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 288 p.

Meadows, D., J. Randers, and D. Meadows (2004). Limits of Growth: The 30-Year Update. Chelsea Green Publishing, 368 p.

Oreskes, N. (2010). Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Bloomsbury Press, 368 p.

Reiser, M. (1993). Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. Penguin, 608 p.

Robbins, P. (2007). Lawn people: how grasses, weeds, and chemicals make us who we are. Temple University Press.

Streever, B. (2001). Saving Louisiana? : The battle for coastal wetlands. University Press of Mississippi.

Ward, D.R. (2002). Water Wars: Drought, Flood, Folly, and the Politics of Thirst. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.

Web Resources

You can also check out the catalog of online resourcesthat On the Cutting Edge has accumulated that are related to Environmental Geology.

The 11th Hour Movie - trailer

Library of Congress Webinar: The Anthropocene
Historians David Christian and John R. McNeill, in a lecture at the Library of Congress, discuss how rapidly increasing human impact on the biosphere is changing the way scholars and experts view human history.

BrownfieldAction.org
Brownfield Action is a a web-based environmental science simulation that allows students to gain practice tackling the complexity and ambiguity of a large-scale, interdisciplinary science problem. Students explore and solve real-world, interdisciplinary problems in environmental forensics and learn the skills required to produce a professional level environmental site assessment.

Carbonnation - The Movie
Carbonnation is a documentary movie about climate change solutions. The film that illustrates how solutions to climate change also address other social, economic and national security issues. Directed by Peter Byck; Produced by Peter Byck, Craig Sieben, Karen Weigert, Artemis Joukowsky & Chrisna van Zyl

Center for a Better Life
The mission of the Center for a Better Life is to educate people about the importance of sustainability in their daily lives, to promote the idea of preserving resources for future generations, to assist knowledgeable individuals in getting their critical messages out and to create a nonbiased, non-political, fact-focused stakeholder communications infrastructure with which to deliver this vital information.

The Debunking Handbook
The Debunking Handbook is a guide to debunking misinformation. This resource from the creators of the Skeptical Science website boils down a wealth of psychological research on misinformation into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation.

Ghost Factories
This lesson from USAToday was designed for K-12 students who are in cities affected by long forgotten smelting factories with the goal of students' gaining expertise in hazards associated with lead in the urban environment, testing for the presence of lead in soil, and taking action to minimize the hazards of elevated lead levels.

Global Warming's Terrifying New Math
Bill McKibben (350.org) - Rolling Stone Magazine, July 19, 2012
This op-ed piece lays out in clear and broad terms where we have come with respect to carbon emissions, where we are likely to be by the end of the century and the remaining reservoir of fossil fuels that could potentially contribute to climate change. The author clearly has an agenda but the facts are a useful starting point for discussion of both the science and policy of future climate change.

What's in Your Water
This interactive feature from The New York Times allows users to see whether the drinking water in their area meets the legal limits on contaminants as well as the, typically stricter, health guidelines.