Environmental Studies
Selected resources for Environmental Studies.
Topic exploration and research
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The Conversation - Environment & EnergyShort, straightforward articles by expert scholars.
Includes topical areas for U.S., plus worldwide news coverage.
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Oxford Reference OnlineA peer-review encyclopedia, just as quick and concise as wikipedia but written by scholars. Covers all sorts of environmental (and other) topics. Good to bookmark on your browser.
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GreenFILEResearch database focusing on the relationship between human beings and the environment, with well-researched information on topics ranging from global warming to recycling and beyond.
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Textbooks:
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Something New under the Sun
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Our profligate, fossil fuel-based civilization is ecologically unsustainable and creates perpetual environmental disturbance, says Georgetown University history professor McNeill, but he remains undecided as to whether humanity has entered a genuine, full-blown ecological crisis. Nevertheless, the evidence he presents in this comprehensive, balanced survey is alarming. Soft degradation now affects one-third of earth's land surface, though intensive fertilizer use and genetic engineering of crops have masked the ill effects. From Mexico City to Calcutta, from China to Africa, megacities choke on air pollution as economic development takes priority over other concerns. Acid rain has decimated lake and river life, crops and forests across Europe and North America. International in scope, McNeill's kaleidoscopic, textbookish history hops from Soviet phosphate mining in the Arctic to deforestation by white settlers in southern Africa, documenting the pollution of oceans and seas; the unchecked "harvesting" of fish and whales; environmentally influenced, disease-producing shifts in human-microbe relations; disruptive invasions by new species (sea lampreys in the Great Lakes, rabbits in Australia); and the massive impact on ecosystems resulting from urbanization, population growth, wars, oil spills, nuclear power accidents. McNeill's study underscores the mixed consequences of environmental and political decision making. For example, the Green Revolution fed addition
Publication Date: 2000 -
Environment and Society
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A comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the conceptual tools used to explore real-world environmental problems Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction, Third Edition demonstrates how theoretical approaches such as environmental ethics, political economy, and social construction work as conceptual tools to identify and clarify contemporary environmental issues. Assuming no background knowledge in the subject, this reader-friendly textbook uses clear language and engaging examples to first describe nine key conceptual tools, and then apply them to a variety of familiar objects--from bottled water and French fries to trees, wolves, and carbon dioxide. Throughout the text, highly accessible chapters provide insight into the relationship between the environment and present-day society. Divided into two parts, the text begins by explaining major theoretical approaches for interpreting the environment-society relationship and discussing different perspectives about environmental problems. Part II examines a series of objects, each viewed through a sample of the theoretical tools from Part I, helping readers think critically about critical environmental topics such as deforestation, climate change, the global water supply, and hazardous e-waste. This fully revised third edition stresses a wider range of competing ways of thinking about environmental issues and features additional cases studies, up-to-date conceptual understandings, and new chapters in Part I on racializd environments and feminist approaches. Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction, Third Edition: Covers theoretical lenses such as commodities, environmental ethics, and risks and hazards, and applies them to touchstone environment-society objects like wolves, tuna, trees, and carbon dioxide Uses a conversational narrative to explain key historical events, topical issues and policies, and scientific concepts Features substantial revisions and updates, including new chapters on feminism and race, and improved maps and illustrations Includes a wealth of in-book and online resources, including exercises and boxed discussions, chapter summaries, review questions, references, suggested readings, an online test bank, and internet links Provides additional instructor support such as suggested teaching models, full-color PowerPoint slides, and supplementary teaching material Retaining the innovative approach of its predecessors, Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction, Third Edition remains the ideal textbook for courses in environmental issues, environmental science, and nature and society theory.
Publication Date: 2022 -
Down to Earth
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In this ambitious and provocative text, environmental historian Ted Steinberg offers a sweeping history of the United States - a history that places the environment at the very center of the narrative. Now in a new edition, Down to Earth reenvisions the story of America "from the ground up." It reveals how focusing on plants, animals, climate, and other ecological factors can radically change the way that we think about the past. Examining such familiar topics as colonization, the industrial revolution, slavery, the Civil War, and the emergence of consumer culture, Steinberg recounts how the natural world influenced the course of human history. From the colonists' attempts to impose order on the land to modern efforts to sell the wilderness as a consumer good, he reminds readers that many critical episodes in U.S. history were, in fact, environmental events. The text highlights the ways in which Americans have attempted to reshape and control nature, from Thomas Jefferson's surveying plan, which divided the national landscape into a grid, to the transformation of animals, crops, and even water into commodities.
Call Number: Ebook availablePublication Date: 2018 -
The Great Acceleration
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Chapter ONE Energy and Population https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvjf9wcc.4
The Earth has entered a new age-the Anthropocene-in which humans are the most powerful influence on global ecology. Since the mid-twentieth century, the accelerating pace of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and population growth has thrust the planet into a massive uncontrolled experiment. The Great Acceleration explains its causes and consequences, highlighting the role of energy systems, as well as trends in climate change, urbanization, and environmentalism. More than any other factor, human dependence on fossil fuels inaugurated the Anthropocene. Before 1700, people used little in the way of fossil fuels, but over the next two hundred years coal became the most important energy source. When oil entered the picture, coal and oil soon accounted for seventy-five percent of human energy use. This allowed far more economic activity and produced a higher standard of living than people had ever known-but it created far more ecological disruption. We are now living in the Anthropocene. The period from 1945 to the present represents the most anomalous period in the history of humanity's relationship with the biosphere. Three-quarters of the carbon dioxide humans have contributed to the atmosphere has accumulated since World War II ended, and the number of people on Earth has nearly tripled. So far, humans have dramatically altered the planet's biogeochemical systems without consciously managing them. If we try to control these systems through geoengineering, we will inaugurate another stage of the Anthropocene. Where it might lead, no one can say for sure.
Call Number: Ebook availablePublication Date: 2016
Newspapers and Magazines
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Atlantic Monthly - PlanetBrowse recent Atlantic environment articles. Full-text of articles can be found in the "MasterFile Complete" database from the library.
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Nexis UniProvides full text of newspaper, magazine, and wire service stories, along with transcripts of radio and TV broadcasts. Tip: search "Document-type(opinion)" and limit to News, and then add your search topic in order to find Op-Ed resources.
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New York Times (Institutional Subscription)Subscription access courtesy Macalester College Student Government - MCSG. First time users will need to make an account while connected to the Macalester network. Link takes you to the library's FAQ page about the subscription. After subscribing, you can chose to search and receive NYT "Climate Forward" updates in your email.
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New York Times - Climate & EnvironmentMust be a subscriber to NYT (see above) .
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US Newsstream (ProQuest)
Current U.S. news content, as well as archives that stretch back into the 1980s. It features top newspapers, wires, broadcast transcripts, blogs, and news sites in full-text format. US Newsstream provides key national and regional news sources from the U.S. and includes exclusive and preferred access to top titles, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Newsday, and Chicago Tribune.
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Wall Street Journal - U.S. Climate & EnvironmentBrowse recent articles. Then use U.S. Newsstream database (see above) to search for article titles to obtain fulltext of WSJ stories.
Environmental News Outlets
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Canary MediaIndependent, non-profit news outlet focusing on clean energy
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E&E News (by Politico)Subscription required--7 day free trial option. Includes Greenwire, Climatewire, and Energywire.
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Energy News NetworkEnables public-private sector collaboration and investment in energy development; focus on Africa and Latin America
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FERN (Food & Environment Reporting Network)Multimedia journalism covering food, agriculture, and environmental health.
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GreenwireNow part of E&E news. Stories are included in Nexis-Uni one month after publication.
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GristLong-running climate reporting publication--Free.
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High Country NewsNews magazine focusing on Western U.S. Mostly subscription-based, with limited free articles.
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Inside Climate NewsNon-profit, non-partisan, climate reporting since 2007. Mac alum Dan Gearino '98 is clean energy reporter.
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Orion MagazineNature and culture publication--current issue available online.
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Yale E360Non-profit news magazine for global environmental issues. Content browsable by topic, or region of world. Has a "Policy" topic area.
U.S. Government
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Environmental Protection AgencyOfficial EPA site.
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Congressional Research Service (CRS) Environmental reportsOver 1000 reports from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.
NGOs and Think-tanks
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Breakthrough InstituteBTI is a global research center, working areas of climate and energy, development, regulatory reform, food and agriculture, and nuclear energy.
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CIAO - Columbia International Affairs OnlineDocuments and articles devoted to research, analysis, and scholarship on international politics and related fields, including security studies, global finance, diplomatic practice, humanitarian law, global governance, development studies, and environmental studies.
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Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable FutureThink-tank focusing on food systems and food equity.
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Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Bioshpere (MAHB)Think-tank addressing global challenges to humanity through a civil-society lens.
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OurEnergyPolicy (OEP)Clearinghouse for policy-related information from the energy industry. Includes library of aggregated publicly available energy policy and research information.
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Union of Concerned ScientistsNon-profit advocacy for science in support of a safer and healthier world.
Minnesota and region
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Minnesota Legislative Reference Library--MN Issues GuidesGuides produced on issues of interest to MN legislators.
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Minnesota Conservation Volunteer (MCV)Published by the MN Department of Natural Resources. 75-year archive is searchable.
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Minnesota Public RadioPublic radio news outlet - including "Climate-Cast" podcast from Mac alum Paul Huttner '85
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St. Paul Pioneer PressCurrent content as well as archives going back to 1948. Full-page digital images of the complete paper are available for the historical archive (1948 to 1987) as well as the most recent issues (2018 to present). Articles from 1988 to 2018 are available in full-text, but without page images.
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Star Tribune Archive
Searchable full text of the newspaper from 1986 to the present. Text only.
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Streets.mnIndependent volunteer-run organization covering land-use and transportation issues state-wide.
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AgateMagazine looking at nature, science, and conservation in MN and Great Lakes region. Free to subscribe.