Environment and Society - Couverture souple

The accumulating impact of environmental problems on our lives has created a public awareness that environmentalists could only dream about twenty years ago. Providing a comprehensive introduction to environmental problems and issues, this timely volume focuses on the connections between human societies, ecosystems, and the geophysical environment. In short, it examines how human connections are impacting the environment, and vice versa.

Environment and Society, 2/E, covers the connections between a range of easily-recognizable human and environmental issues such as:

• resource issues and pollution
• population growth, food, and consumption issues
• energy and technology issues
• climate change, uncertain risks, and "megaproblems"
• sustainability, inequality, and social change
• environmentalism and environmental movements
• environmental politics and policy
• globalization and environmental problems

To help readers further understand the effects of the "big issues," Harper includes questions and issues at the end of each chapter that attempt to make "macro-micro"links between large-scale issues and the lives of people. Truly multidisciplinary in approach, Environment and Society, 2/E, offers fascinating insight into important environmental concerns.

Charles Harper is a professor of sociology at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. As a member of the faculty there since 1968, he has developed and taught numerous courses in the sociology department. Dr. Harper’s teaching and scholarly interests inolve the study of social change, globalization, the sociology of religion, social theory, and environmental sociology. He has published papers in a variety of academic journals.

    Along with Environment and Society, Dr. Harper is the author of two other textbooks. Co-authored with Kevin Leicht, his book Exploring Social Change: America and the World (Prentice Hall, 2007) is now in its Fifth Edition. Another book, Food, Society, and Environment (Prentice Hall, 2003) was co-authored with Bryan F. LeBeau. .

    As an undergraduate, Dr. Harper studied biology and the natural sciences. He received a bachelor’s degree from Central Missouri State University, a Master’s degree in sociology from the University of Missouri, and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

    He and his wife, Anne, live close to Creighton’s campus near a “clan” of adult children, stepchildren, and grandchildren. He also enjoys traveling, bicycling, and reading.