Promotional Information

John Harte previous book, "Consider a Spherical Cow", became a landmark text in the field. He is also the author of "The Green Fuse" and co-author of "Patient Earth" and "Toxics A to Z".

Table of Contents

Chapter I  PROBABILITY
Introduction
Background
Problems
1. Pick Your Poison
2. Infanticide in China?
3. Caesar's Last Breath
4. A blot from the Blue?
5. On the Street Where You Live

Chapter II    OPTIMIZATION
Introduction
Background
Problems
1. Advice for Farmers
2. Efficient Censusing
3. Blowing in the Wind
4. Haste Makes Waste
5. Biting the Hand that Feeds Us

Chapter III    SCALING AND DIMENSIONAL CONSISTENCY
Introduction
Background
Problems
1. How Tall Can a Mountain Be?
2. Sleeping Bears
3. Little Green Men?
4. What a Drag
5. Saving the Species: The role of Reserve Shape

Chapter IV     CORE MODELS OF CHANGE IN TIME AND SPACE
Introduction
Background
Problems
1. Pollutant Stock-and-Flow: Reconstructing CO2 Emissions
2. Population: Limits to Growth
3. Climate: Influence of Solar Variability
4. Community Ecology: Origins of Cycles
5. Biogeochemistry: Nitrogen Fertilization and the Carbon Sink

Chapter V    STABILITY AND FEEDBACK
Introduction
Background
Problems
1. Stability of the Core Models
2. Some Say in Ice
3. Biting the Hand that Feeds Us (II)
4. Sagebrush World
5. Will the Seas Go Flat?

Appendix: Useful Mathematical Expressions and Approximations

About the Author

For more than two decades, JOHN HARTE has taught courses on the quantitative aspects of environmental science at University of California, Berkeley, where he holds the Distinguished Class of 1935 Professorship in the Energy and Resources Group. His previous book, Consider a Spherical Cow, became a landmark text in the field. He is also the author of The Green Fuse and co-author of Patient Earth and Toxics A to Z. He has published numerous articles on ecology and biodiversity, water and other resources, climate change and its effects, acid precipitation, and environmental policy.