Environmental Success Stories - by Frank Dunnivant (Paperback)

About the Book

Environmental Success Stories delves into the most daunting ecological and environmental challenges humankind has faced and shows how scientists, citizens, and a responsive public sector have dealt with them successfully. Frank M. Dunnivant explains how we might confront the world's largest and most complex environmental crisis: climate change.

Book Synopsis

Unlike many titles on environmental issues that portend a dark future, Environmental Success Stories delves into the most daunting ecological and environmental challenges humankind has faced and shows how scientists, citizens, and a responsive public sector have dealt with them successfully.

In addition to presenting the basic chemical and environmental science underlying problems like providing clean drinking water, removing DDT and lead from agriculture and our homes, and curtailing industrial pollution, this book also discusses the political actors, agency regulators, and community leaders who have collaborated to enact effective legislation. Sharing the stories of the people, organizations, and governments who have addressed these problems successfully, Frank M. Dunnivant explains how we might confront the world's largest and most complex environmental crisis: climate change. Now is the time for rededicated scientific exploration and enlightened citizen action to save our environment, and Dunnivant's book offers a stirring call to action.

Review Quotes

Dunnivant's book is a tonic for the societal malaise of environmental 'post-truth, ' the concept that facts are less important than emotion in the formation of public opinion. Currently, climate change seems positioned to topple into the maelstrom of post-truth, with ample disinformation to speed the drop. Environmental Success Stories effectively argues that our history of environmental problem-solving implies hope for the resolution of global-scale environmental damage. Approachable, optimistic, and science-based, it will appeal to a broad readership.--H. H. Shugart, author of Foundations of the Earth: Global Ecological Change and the Book of Job

Walking the narrow line between technological optimist and doom-and-gloom environmentalist by presenting cases where society has addressed major ecological challenges, Dunnivant shows how advances in environmental science and regulation have helped to solve some of humanity's biggest problems. Providing an excellent background to those who are interested in environmental issues and their solutions, Environmental Success Stories shows how science, in concert with social movements, can affect real change.--Walter Dodds, author of Humanity's Footprint: Momentum, Impact, and Our Global Environment

About the Author

Frank M. Dunnivant is professor of chemistry at Whitman College. He has worked at two U.S. Department of Energy laboratories. For the past twenty years he has taught an environmental science course to nonscience majors that seeks to inform and inspire action to save the environment.