This introductory text explains the fundamentals of the chemistry of the natural environment and the effects of mankind's activities on the earth's chemical systems.Retains an emphasis on describing how natural geochemical processes operate over a variety of scales in time and space, and how the effects of human perturbation can be measured.Topics range from familiar global issues such as atmospheric pollution and its effect on global warming and oz...

There is a growing need for cooperation between disciplines, not only to deal with the burning problems of the present, but to study the interaction of societies and their ecosystems in the past. In the 1970s studies in Environmental History were largely confined to North America. Recent years have brought about a vast increase in the "amount, the quality and the scope of scholarship on historical interactions between human (social and economic) de velopment and the biosphere in Europe, bo...

First published in 1987, Peter Brimblecombe's book provides an engaging historical account of air pollution in London, offering a fascinating insight into the development of air pollution controls against a changing social and economic background. He examines domestic and industrial pollution and their effects on fashions, furnishings, buildings and human health. The book ends with an intriguing analysis of the dangers arising from contemporary pollutants and a glimpse of what the future m...

Episodes of air pollution throughout the 20th and 21st centuries have had a huge influence socially, economically and politically. From the Great Smog of London to the Kuwait Oil Fires, and from the ashes of Mount St Helens to air pollution in Beijing, this book chronicles their enduring legacies in medicine, science and public policy. Using technical information and insight from witnesses directly involved in the incidents, ten key episodes are brought together to allow comparison and ana...

Pollution damages materials, but it has changed dramatically in the past century, with a reduction in the concentration of corrosive primary pollutants in urban atmospheres. At the same time, architectural styles and types of materials have changed, as we have moved to more organically rich, photochemically active atmospheres. Contemporary pollutants have a greater potential to degrade organic coatings and polymers, which are of great importance to modern structures.Urban Pollution and Cha...

A National Bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book, and an Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year from the author of Extra Life**“By turns a medical thriller, detective story, and paean to city life, Johnson's account of the outbreak and its modern implications is a true page-turner.” —The Washington Post“Thought-provoking.” —Entertainment Weekly**It's the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging...

Led by Erasmus Darwin, the Lunar Society of Birmingham was formed from a group of amateur experimenters, tradesmen and artisans who met and made friends in the Midlands in the 1760s. Most came from humble families, all lived far from the centre of things, but they were young and their optimism was boundless: together they would change the world. Among them were the ambitious toy-maker Matthew Boulton and his partner James Watt, of steam-engine fame; the potter Josiah Wedgwood; the larger-t...

The sweeping true story of how the steam engine changed the world, from the acclaimed author of Miracle CureIf all measures of human advancement in the last hundred centuries were plotted on a graph, they would show an almost perfectly flat line—until the eighteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution would cause the line to shoot straight up, beginning an almost uninterrupted march of progress.In The Most Powerful Idea in the World, W...

This is the changing story of Britain as it has been preserved in our fields, roads, buildings, towns and villages, mountains, forests and islands. From our suburban streets that still trace out the boundaries of long vanished farms to the Norfolk Broads, formed when medieval peat pits flooded, from the ceremonial landscapes of Stonehenge to the spread of the railways - evidence of how man's effect on Britain is everywhere. In The Making of the British Landscape, eminent historian...

This edition does not include illustrations.‘Dry Store Room No. 1’ is an intimate biography of the Natural History Museum, celebrating the eccentric personalities who have peopled it and capturing the wonders of scientific endeavour, academic rigour and imagination.Behind the public façade of any great museum there lies a secret domain: one of unseen galleries, locked doors, priceless specimens and hidden lives.Through the stories of the numerous eccentric individuals whose...

‘Trees are wildlife just as deer or primroses are wildlife. Each species has its own agenda and its own interactions with human activities …’Written by one of Britain’s best-known naturalists, Woodlands offers a fascinating new insight into the trees of the British landscape that have filled us with awe and inspiration throughout the centuries.Looking at such diverse evidence as the woods used in buildings and ships, and how woodland has been portrayed in pictures and photo...

From its earliest origins to the present day, this award-winning, beautifully written book describes the endlessly changing character of Britain's countryside.'A classic' Richard MabeyExploring the natural and man-made features of the land - fields, highways, hedgerows, fens, marshes, rivers, heaths, coasts, woods and wood pastures - he shows conclusively and unforgettably how they have developed over the centuries. In doing so, he covers a...