Environmental Science, 11th Edition (Cunningham)

New to this Edition

Chapter 1 has a new opening case study: plug-in hybrid cars; updated list of environmental challenges and signs of hope; revised sections on development of environmental thought, social progress, and environmental ethics; new Data Analysis exercise on reading graphs; 7 new or revised figures.

Chapter 2 Opens with a new case study on biodiversity; the ethics section was moved to chapter 1; there’s an updated discussion of systems; and a new Data Analysis exercise on uncertainty in data analysis.

Chapter 3 Figure 3.6 (DNA molecular model) has been corrected so that the bonds between bases are accurate.

Chapter 6 has a revised discussion of population growth models, with new figures and graphs and a new Data Analysis exercise to build on the new text; the discussion of natality and fecundity were moved to chapter 7

Chapter 7 has new data on population sizes and growth rates throughout. The data analysis box at the end of the chapter has been revised with better questions. There are five new figures in this chapter.

Chapter 8 has a new discussion of climate change and emergent diseases together with the emerging threat of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, and controversy over the U.S. federal endocrine disrupter screening program.

Chapter 9 This chapter and chapter 10 have been extensively reorganized to make one chapter on food resources and hunger (chapter 9) and one on farming resources (chapter 10). New opening case study on local foods on campus; revised sections on nutrition and hunger, obesity, dominant food sources, environmental costs of protein, and sustainable food production; 9 new or revised figures; new Data Analysis exercise on examining relative values.

Chapter 10 is almost completely revised to combine the previous Pesticides chapter with soils and other resources for agriculture. Extensive new sections cover soil components, erosion and land degradation, energy, pests, pesticides. Pesticide section reorganized and updated to reflect recent changes in uses with transgenic crops; section on integrated pest management revised; new What Do You Think? box: Amazonian terra preta soils

Chapter 11 opens with a new case study based on the recently released Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan. This case study serves as a reference for much of the subsequent discussion in the chapter. For example, habitat destruction, endangered species recovery, captive breeding, invasive species incursions, and critical habitat designation all have bearing on spotted owl protection. The numbers of known and estimated species by major group has been updated with new data. This chapter has six new figures.

Chapter 12 has extensive revisions that present new information on world forest status as well as specific descriptions of the status of tropical and temperate forests. It has a brief introduction to the huge areas protected in new U.S. National Monuments in the Pacific. People use many different descriptions for relatively undamaged forests, including virgin, native, old-growth, or frontier forests. Although we sometimes use one of these terms to provide student familiarity with this vocabulary, we’ve adopted the terminology suggested by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, and use primary forest throughout the text. This chapter also has eight new figures.

Chapter 15 Substantially revised to reflect new data on climate change. New opening case study on climate wedge analysis; revised discussion of climate processes; revised discussion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , including several new figures from the IPCC’s fourth assessment report; new section discussing how we know climate change is human-caused; new or extensively revised sections on different greenhouse gases, on why we should care about climate change, and the observed effects of climate change, and on strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; 13 new or revised figures; new Data Analysis using IPCC data.

Chapter 16 New discussion of airborne mercury sources, with new figure.

Chapter 17 has a new case study on water sharing in the Klamath Basin of California. After years of bitterly contentious (and overtly political) controversy, it’s encouraging that the major stakeholders in this debate have finally found common ground and are working out ways to share the dwindling resource. This provides both a positive example of dispute mediation and also ties in very well with extensive new sections of the chapter on droughts, water shortages, shrinking rivers, and water conservation. It also connects with a new What Do You Think? Box on the benefits and problems associated with dam removal. It turns out that proposals for destruction of four dams on the Klamath provided a good share of the incentive for bringing together warring constituencies.

Chapter 18 has new material on wetlands protection, water pollution in developing countries (particularly India), and construction of rain gardens as something positive individuals can do. It also has a rewritten (and improved) Data Analysis box at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 19 has new sections on global oil imports, the problems and benefits of carbon capture and storage, oil and gas leases in the western U.S., and a new photo and brief discussion of the Trans Alaska Pipeline. The discussion of nuclear power has been significantly shortened. Because nuclear plants don’t release greenhouse gases (although the mining and processing of fuel is another issue) utilities are seeking permission to build new nuclear power plants in the U.S. for the first time in nearly 40 years. Recent economic analysis, however, shows that new nuclear plants have become far too costly to make sense. As the Economist magazine put it, “nuclear power has gone from too cheap to meter to too costly to matter.”

Chapter 20 has extensive new material on green buildings, plug-in hybrid vehicles, biomass energy, renewable-energy programs at colleges, ethanol production, biofuels from plant oils, cellulosic material, and algae, and plans to upgrade the electrical transmission grid. Altogether, about half the chapter is new or revised. There’s a new What Do You Think? Box on the sustainability of grain-based and cellulosic ethanol using recent analysis from ecologists and economists at the University of Minnesota that evaluate health effects and climate change costs from different fuel types.

Chapter 21 Updated section on e-waste and on marine plastic debris, with a new figure.

Chapter 24 Much of this chapter is rewritten to simplify and prioritize students’ understanding of major policies and policy formation. New opening case study: the Clean Water Act, with new figures; new discussion highlighting major environmental laws, new boxed reading on philosophical views about government size; revised section on law-making, case law, public action, courts, and mediation. New Data Analysis exercise: examining environmental laws on the EPA website; 5 new or revised figures.