The Asia environmental correspondent for the "Guardian" delivers a fascinating, frontline account of the current environmental crisis in China, exploring how Beijing is balancing economic growth with sustainability and whether China will "emerge as the world's first green superpower" or tip our species "over the environmental precipice."

Explores the biological, geological, and cultural history of Western Australia. Includes black-and-white photographs and additional resources.

Explains the history of Antarctica, focusing on the explorers and sailors drawn to the continent, the scientific investigations that have taken place there, and the geopolitical implications of the landmass. For centuries it was suspected that there must be an undiscovered continent in the southern hemisphere. But explorers failed to find one. On his second voyage to the Pacific, Captain Cook sailed further south than any of his rivals but still failed...

Antarctica contains eons of secrets that scientists are just beginning to uncover -- from wildlife to scientific marvels, this continent may hold the key to the future of the planet.

Ice, snow and climate change are closely linked; this publication investigates those linkages. It also presents information on the trends in ice and snow, the outlook for this century and beyond and the consequences to ecosystems and human well-being of these changes. Written by more than 70 scientists from around the world, it covers all parts of the cryosphere (the world of ice): snow, land ice, sea ice, river and lake ice, and frozen ground.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Salton Sea resort area was a vacationer's paradise. People looking to go boating, swimming, and fishing flocked to California's largest lake. Homes, hotels, and shops sprang up as more and more people moved to the region. However, something was lurking in the lake's calm waters. Soon, swimmers began to pass by globs of green algae and breathe in a rotten-egg stench. Beachgoers had to step over piles of decaying fish on...

"'The authors make some very critical interventions in this debate and scholars engaged in the environmental pollution haven and race to the bottom debates will need to take the arguments made here seriously, re-evaluating their own preferred theories to respond to the insightful theorizing and empirically rigorous testing that Zeng and Eastin present in the book.' -Ronald Mitchell, University of Oregon. China has earned a reputation for lax environmental...