Envoronmental Science

Environmental Science integrates natural and social sciences to study how the environment and man-made processes interact with one another. It is an interdisciplinary field that incorporates ecology, chemistry, biology, hydrology, earth and soil sciences, atmospheric science, and natural resource management. In fact, almost every scientific discipline you can think of has a direct relationship to environmental science because the environment is all around us. Environmental scientists need this broad base of knowledge in order to analyze complex environmental issues across multiple perspectives.  These complex environmental issues include climate change, conservation, biodiversity, water quality, soil and groundwater contamination, natural resources, waste management, development, disaster reduction, environmental restoration, and various pollutions.[1]

Even though there may be some overlap and often used interchangeably, environmental science should not be confused with environmentalism or ecology. While environmental scientists certainly have the intention of helping to solve environmental problems, as a scientific discipline, it is primarily concerned with describing and explaining the “what and how” of the environment. Therefore, environmental scientists spend most of their time considering the scientific and quantitative aspects of a particular environmental issue. Environmentalism, on the other hand, is a broad philosophical and ideological social movement that intends to enact political, legal, and social change in order to solve environmental problems.[2] While ecologists study organisms and their interactions with each other and the environment, environmental scientists study purely chemical or public health issues that ecologists are unlikely to study.[3]

Silent Spring

While the environment has been studied for as long as science has been around, it is only in the last fifty years or so that it has become an active mainstream field of scientific investigation. The primary factor in the growth of environmental science was the growing public awareness of environmental issues and the need to take action.[4] This growth can be directly traced to the publication of the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carlson. Carlson, a nature author and former marine biologist with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, often wrote about the interconnectedness of nature and all living things.[5] In Silent Spring, Carlson wrote about the insidious effect that the pesticide DDT had on the food chain and, consequently, the world’s food supply. The overarching theme of the book, however, was to expose the negative effect that humans had on the environment. So Carlson made a radical proposal: that, at times, technological progress is so fundamentally at odds with natural processes that it must be curtailed.[6] One of the lasting legacies of Silent Spring was legitimizing the field of environmental science, along with ecology, conservation, and environmental protection. Anyone who has an interest in pursuing environmental science should start by reading this very important book.

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Citations

1. What is Environmental Science?com.
2. What is Environmental Science?com.
3. What is Environmental Science?com.
4. What is Environmental Science?com.
5. The Story of Silent Spring, NRDC.
6. The Story of Silent Spring, NRDC.