Energy, Environment, and Climate (Second Edition)

Emphasizes climate change as an energy-related environmental issue.

Energy, Environment, and Climate, Second Edition, is the most contemporary book for the energy course. Written for non-science majors, the text presents the physical concepts in easy-to-understand language and asks students to apply those concepts to contemporary energy issues. Students learn to analyze the important questions that face today’s citizens and deal with the answers both qualitatively and quantitatively. End-of-chapter questions provide an opportunity for students to practice what they’ve learned and provide instructors with questions that can be debated in class.

Richard Wolfson is the Benjamin F. Wissler Professor of Physics at Middlebury College, where he also teaches environmental studies. He holds a BA in physics and philosophy from Swarthmore College, an MS in environmental studies from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in physics from Dartmouth. His research involves solar astrophysics and terrestrial climate, and he has published nearly 100 papers in the scientific literature. Wolfson’s other books include several introductory physics texts, as well as Nuclear Choices: A Citizen’s Guide to Nuclear Technology (1993) and Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified (2003). He has five video courses for the Teaching Company’s Great Courses series: Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Nonscientists (1999); Physics in Your Life (2004); Earth’s Changing Climate (2007); Physics and Our Universe: How It All Works (2011); and Understanding Modern Electronics (2014).