Earth Wise: A Guide to Today’s Environmental Issues

In clear, non-technical language, this book explains how the world’s environment works and how it is affected by human activity. Readers can go behind the headlines to find out what’s really happening in climate change, energy use, pollution, access to clean air and water, biodiversity, and food production as they explore the problems, the potential solutions, and the role of careful and informed stewardship in moving toward a sustainable future.

Concise, readable, and comprehensive, this account of environmental issues communicates a new wisdom for a modern world.

Thomas G. Spiro is a chemistry professor who moved to the University of Washington after a career at Princeton University, where he was chair of the chemistry department. Helen Spiro, a lawyer, has extensive educational and legal writing experience. She directed an environmental health sciences institute at Rutgers University and served as assistant to the chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Alexandra Soldatova is on the University of Washington research staff, working on environmental chemistry projects, and is an experienced writer and illustrator of scientific papers.