A User's Guide for Planet Earth: Fundamentals of Environmental Science

A User's Guide for Planet Earth focuses on the fundamental components of Earth's environmental systems, their interactions, and the way society affects and is affected by alterations in climate, ecosystems, hydrology, and the many other factors that determine our environment. Rather than attempting to include an overwhelming series of environmental anecdotes and peripheral information, this text distills the essential concepts involved in environmental science into a readily understandable and easily digestible form. This will keep students and their professors up to date with the latest understanding of the processes that maintain environmental goods and services, that drive alterations in the earth system, and that control the ways that the environment behaves as an integrated system at all scales. Students will explore the role of scientific insight in environmental science, and how emerging ideas make it possible to solve problems rooted in the past.

A User's Guide for Planet Earth is written for introductory Environmental Science courses, with college freshmen in mind. The material is closely aligned with course content, and the clear, concise style of the text is designed to give students an excellent understanding of important concepts.

Professor Sahagian is an internationally recognized Earth and environmental scientist and shared Nobel Peace Prize winner. He earned his B.S. in Physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his M.S. in Geosciences at Rutgers, and his Ph.D. in Geophysics from the University of Chicago. He served as a NORDA Oceanographer at Dartmouth College; an Associate Research Scientist at Lamont-Doherty, Columbia University; and a Research Scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University. He was the Executive Director of The Global Analysis, Integration, and Modeling Task Force of the International Geosphere Biosphere Program at the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire before moving to Lehigh University to direct the Environmental Initiative, as well as develop and teach the introductory course in Environmental Science. Part of his research led him to coauthor the pivotal reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was jointly awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former vice president Al Gore. Professor Sahagian's areas of research include paleoclimatology, volcanology, global change, stratigraphy, geo-dynamics and tectonics, global hydrology, and sea level.