Introduction to Environmental Science

Reviewed by Engil Pereira, Assistant Professor, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley on 11/13/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 2

While, this book covers common topics suitable for environmental instruction of Introduction to Environmental Sciences, the comprehensiveness of the book would increase by adding chapters on: Agriculture, Economics, Biogeochemistry, as well as separate chapters for Oceans and Freshwater.
One major problematic departure from our coursework is on economics in environmental science and its strong associations with human energy usage. Excepting an occasional passing mention on cost often without the defining basis, it otherwise wholly ignores micro- or macroeconomics as a holistic lense to view energy and environmental decision-making.
For agriculture, the topic is mostly ignored, with the interest chiefly in the sector as a pollutant culminating in one page given to its major role in N2O emissions as the majority of their reference to perhaps the most intensive human efforts applying scientific ingenuity to managing the environment. Even agriculture’s notable pollution contribution to eutrophication is missed in this book’s cursory examination.
The book handles Population (i.e., growth rates) and Human demography well.
Regarding Environmental policy, relevant policies are mentioned throughout; however ,there is no formal approach to how environmental policies are formulated. Occasionally the authors do offer guidance on policy but appear to be derivatives of their personal ethical perspectives, rather than argued conclusions on compared equities.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

Core topics appear to be well related. As mentioned in the Comprehensiveness section, there are relevant discussion areas that should be covered, and some interjections, as mentioned for policy, that may be biased guidance.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

Due to the prospective nature of addressing climate change, graphs often are predictive for a near future and in danger of inaccuracies. Similarly references on energy-use will become dated.
There are references to websites for additional resources, a Youtube link for a coal powerplant description, and an Excel spreadsheet for a list of terms that may be subject to third party accessibility.
Most of the basic science and theories are pretty definitive.

Clarity rating: 3

Chapters begin with Learning objectives and chapter contents. The book is written with an accessible prose and examples on elk, cacti, and US energy-use are most familiar to a North American audience.
Unfortunately some terms, such as “natural selection” are used but not defined.
While more distracting than confusing, many times labelled terms are used prior to being defined (e.g., cells, sustainability, etc.). Or in the case of “competition”, made bold but never defined.

Consistency rating: 3

The first chapter does not follow the formatting or numbered headings of the succeeding chapters and could use subheadings.
The end-of-chapter prompts vary in formatting and title, e.g., “Study Questions”, “Practice Problems”, “Questions”. The end-of-chapter term lists vary in formatting, and in one chapter relegated to an Excel spreadsheet.

Modularity rating: 5

The differing formats hints that these chapters were separately written, which may be why they seem modular enough to address in any order.
Subheadings are present in most chapters aside from the first. Chapter contents are also given. There is a case when “Coal” is used as a heading twice, rather than for example, “Coal formation” and “Coal consumption for energy”.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The first chapter suffered from explaining biological molecules within cells, before defining cells. Understandably challenging because the flow was apparently to explain relevant science from physics to biology, then groupings in biology from cells to populations and ecosystems, but surprising to find the definition so late. Following the descriptions of the environment then the scientific method, the chapter then delves into sustainability, and other lenses to view environmental science without good transitions.

Interface rating: 4

Most pictures and graphs are helpful.
One graph of survivorship curves includes presumably data from the 20th century mixed with curves to the 22nd century. Mixing data with predictions is confusing and may age poorly.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

There are not many grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

It does not seem culturally insensitive, but the section on human demographics could have included racial, ethnic, or even regional breakdowns for greater relevance.

I would like to commend the authors for putting time and efforts towards developing this textbook and making it available for all.