Reddit mentions: The best environmental engineering books

Hmm, that's the thing, how to plan for... collapse? extinction? I mean, maybe some parts of the developed world can muddle through for a few decades, a little warming we can handle, but it's not a little warming we're in for- we're talking about changes that will awaken the sleeping dune seas in the American heartland- see those? A few thousand years ago, when the global average temp was about 1 degree higher than today, those dunes were alive, marching blindly across the heartland.

When we start talking about 4 degrees C average global temp, which its likely that we'll reach in maybe 5 or 6 decades barring radical GHG reduction, that's more like 9 C over land, or 16 degrees F slapped across average temperatures- here's what summer highs look like across the US as we go through the 21st century: imagine that Fargo, North Dakota is like Phoenix. Do you think they are making this up for shits and giggles? They are trying their damned best to warn us of what's coming down the pike.

Many of the coastal cities will be wrecked. Maybe you don't care about coastal liberal elites or whatever, but the fact is those blue states generate the vast majority of GDP that American power rests on. A diminishment of one is diminishment of all. American security will be further threatened as rising seas cripple American naval bases: take a walk with Rear Admiral Jonathan White down to Norfolk

Outside the borders of America, the world's economies and societies will be facing greater and greater pressures. An increase in the global average temperature of 4 degrees C has been described by scientists as "beyond the limits of adaptation" and "incompatible with organized global society." Like it or not, when America's trading partners are suffering chaos and instability, America's economy will not be immune. I personally doubt that America's constitutional order would survive the turmoil- I think America would devolve into authoritarian dictatorship under the economic strain in an attempt to guarantee a semblance of stability. As we've seen across the world and across the 20th century, once that happens, all bets for civil rights and human rights are off.

And it doesn't stop at 4 degrees- a 4 degree world has a very high chance of not being stable, because numerous feedbacks that add more and more carbon to the atmosphere will begin to engage the higher in temperature we go. There are vast stores of carbon locked away in the soil- as it warms, that carbon will be released to the air through accelerated metabolism. We will lose the Amazon, as it dies back to savanna and scrub, as well as countless other species and ecosystems absolutely unique in this universe. Dying forest will pour their carbon into the air, along with methane from the melting permafrost and shallow arctic seas- we will lose the arctic polar ice cap and its stabilizing influence on the Northern hemisphere's weather. All told these feedbacks, once engaged, are calculated to push average global temps inescapably beyond 5, 6, 7, 8 degrees C after 2100- and remember, the rise will be higher over land, 12 degrees F ? 20? There were once palm trees and alligators in the Arctic, millions of years ago, before humankind awoke. Earth's been there before, we can certainly go back.

We might revisit the ecological collapse of the End Permian extinction, when global average temperatures rose 6 degrees C. It's also called "The Great Dying"- nearly 95% of all species were wiped out, including all terrestrial vertebrates larger than about 100 lbs.
Any humans who survive the intervening chaos would watch the sun rise over stagnant, anoxic oceans largely devoid of multicellular life, outgassing toxic hydrogen sulfide.

If you think your descendants might admire that view and if you want to get a head up on your neighbors and plan for dangerous global warming I encourage you to check out Mark Lynas' Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. He did the work of reading through several hundred scientific research papers on the subject and collected them into a well referenced summary. Here's an incomplete synopsis: A degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms.
Try and read it soon, though- at current rates, we are closely approaching ambient CO2 concentrations that negatively affect human cognition.

So what's all this for? I mean, it must be something really precious to sacrifice our planet and our species' future for, right? Material wealth? The American way of life? What do we really want? To sit in traffic in the latest model automobile? To spend our lives accumulating imaginary points in a game where all we have to trade away is the future of the planet? Is this wealth, or is it profound poverty? Maybe it is possible, perhaps quite common actually, to live an impoverished life of material affluence, and it is quite possible, and necessary actually, for us to live rich lives of material simplicity, with ample free time to flourish in the things that make a life truly rich- love, community, friendship, knowledge, and health.

\>>> I tried to compile the rest of the books.

​

But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz

by Geoff Dyer

(can't find the same edition)

"May be the best book ever written about jazz."—David Thomson, Los Angeles Times

In eight poetically charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skillfully evokes the music and the men who shaped modern jazz. Drawing on photos, anecdotes, and, most important, the way he hears the music, Dyer imaginatively reconstructs scenes from the embattled lives of some of the greats: Lester Young fading away in a hotel room; Charles Mingus storming down the streets of New York on a too-small bicycle; Thelonious Monk creating his own private language on the piano. However, music is the driving force of But Beautiful, and wildly metaphoric prose that mirrors the quirks, eccentricity, and brilliance of each musician's style.

​

The Tide: The Science and Stories Behind the Greatest Force on Earth

by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Half of the world’s population today lives in coastal regions lapped by tidal waters. But the tide rises and falls according to rules that are a mystery to almost all of us. In The Tide, celebrated science writer Hugh Aldersey-Williams weaves together centuries of scientific thinking with the literature and folklore the tide has inspired to explain the power and workings of this most remarkable force.

Here is the epic story of the long search to understand the tide from Aristotle, to Galileo and Newton, to classic literary portrayals of the tide from Shakespeare to Dickens, Melville to Jules Verne.

​

Return of the Sea Otter

by Todd McLeish

A science journalist's journey along the Pacific Coast from California to Alaska to track the status, health, habits, personality, and viability of sea otters--the appealing species unique to this coastline that was hunted to near extinction in the 18th and 19th centuries. These adorable, furry marine mammals--often seen floating on their backs holding hands--reveal the health of the coastal ecosystem along the Pacific Ocean. Once hunted for their prized fur during the 1700s and 1800s, these animals nearly went extinct. Only now, nearly a century after hunting ceased, are populations showing stable growth in some places. Sea otters are a keystone species in coastal areas, feeding on sea urchins, clams, crab, and other crustaceans. When they are present, kelp beds are thick and healthy, providing homes for an array of sealife. When otters disappear, sea urchins take over, and the kelp disappears along with all of the creatures that live in the beds. Now, thanks to their protected status, sea otters are floating around in coves in California, Washington, and Alaska.

​

Why Women Will Save the Planet

by Friends Of The Earth, Jenny Hawley (Editor)

Women's empowerment is critical to environmental sustainability, isn't it? When Friends of the Earth asked this question on Facebook half of respondents said yes and half said no, with women as likely to say no as men. This collection of articles and interviews, from some of the leading lights of the environmental and feminist movements, demonstrates that achieving gender equality is vital if we are to protect the environment upon which we all depend. It is a rallying call to environmental campaigning groups and other environmentalists who have, on the whole, neglected women's empowerment in their work.

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Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life

by George Monbiot

This book explodes with wonder and delight. Making use of remarkable scientific discoveries that transform our understanding of how natural systems work, George Monbiot explores a new, positive environmentalism that shows how damaged ecosystems on land and at sea can be restored, and how this restoration can revitalize and enrich our lives. Challenging what he calls his “ecological boredom,” Monbiot weaves together a beautiful and riveting tale of wild places, wildlife, and wild people. Roaming the hills of Britain and the forests of Europe, kayaking off the coast of Wales with dolphins and seabirds, he seeks out the places that still possess something of the untamed spirit he would like to resurrect.

He meets people trying to restore lost forests and bring back missing species—such as wolves, lynx, wolverines, wild boar, and gray whales—and explores astonishing evidence that certain species, not just humans, have the power to shape the physical landscape.

​

To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface

by Olivia Laing

To the River is the story of the Ouse, the Sussex river in which Virginia Woolf drowned in 1941. One midsummer week over sixty years later, Olivia Laing walked Woolf's river from source to sea. The result is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape - and how ghosts never quite leave the places they love. Along the way, Laing explores the roles rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through literature and mythology alike. To the River excavates all sorts of stories from the Ouse's marshy banks, from the brutal Barons' War of the thirteenth century to the 'Dinosaur Hunters', the nineteenth-century amateur naturalists who first cracked the fossil code. Central among these ghosts is, of course, Virginia Woolf herself: her life, her writing and her watery death. Woolf is the most constant companion on Laing's journey, and To the River can be read in part as a biography of this extraordinary English writer, refracted back through the river she loved. But other writers float through these pages too - among them Iris Murdoch, Shakespeare, Homer and Kenneth Grahame, author of the riverside classic The Wind in the Willows.

I sent this to someone over DM, but I figure this would be a good place as any to post it. Sorry ahead of time for the wall of text!!

"Just a few questions. What have you done so far to prepare? Do you have any books or study materials?

I actually took the exam twice, passed the second time around. I took the first one after studying for about 2 months or so, and I was woefully unprepared. I used several books, the first of which was a Kaplan book:

https://www.kaplanengineering.com/fe-exam/environmental


I have an older version. While I found the book comprehensive, it lacked depth and was often too broad. It didn't give good strategies for taking the exam, and the way it would show you example problems were usually the "long and hard" way. It gave me an intro to ENV engineering, and also had some topics I couldn't find anywhere else.


Second book I used: FE Review Manual: Rapid Preparation for the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam


This was a great resource. It was practical, helped me develop methods for taking the exam, and was easy to understand. It has all the topics, so I didn't use about half the book. Rent this or buy this or borrow, but get it.


Lastly,

http://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Discipline-Specific-Review-EIT-Exam/dp/1591260183/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450802552&sr=1-1&keywords=fe+environmental


This book is very expensive relative to size, but it is seriously the only book that has problems similar to the exam. There is no instruction in the book, just practice problems and a brief explanation of the formulas.


Next thing you really need to spend time on is MEMORIZING ALL THE FORMULAS!


Just kidding! They give you all the formulas.

http://ncees.org/exams/study-materials/download-fe-supplied-reference-handbook/

If you don't already have this, download it (it's free) and print out the environmental section. Print out several copies if you want, and mark them up as much as you can, explaining the formulas, when to use them, when to not. Knowing the reference manual will easily make the difference between you passing and not passing.


You have, give or take, 3 minutes per question on the exam (110 of them, 10 of which do not count, but they don't tell you which). If you know the manual inside and out, you will know right where to go, plug in the formula and move on. You should also be familiar with sections of the civil engineering section (especially the parts about drawdown, the charts using Reynolds number, fluid dynamics etc.) There is also a section on fluid dynamics if I'm not mistaken. Fluid dynamics was central to a lot of the problems. The most difficult parts for me were about well drawdown, aquifers, some parts about activated sludge and mass, and a hard problem with thermodynamics. The math section was not difficult (I haven't even taken calc 3 or diff eq yet)


If you haven't already done so,

http://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/FE-Env-CBT-specs.pdf

become very familiar with this list. Love it like it was your own child. Depending on your background, some parts may be more difficult than others. I struggled with groundwater, water and wastewater, and some thermo and the fluid mechanics. I have a background in biology and chemistry, so the science/bio parts were a breeze.


Once you feel comfortable with the formulas, know where to find them, and feel like you are good with the material, start slamming out practice exams.

http://www.tamuk.edu/engineering/PDF/FE%20F14.pdf

The last page of that pdf has some good resources.
The book I sent you the link to earlier (the one that is very small but not cheap) has two sets of practice exams. Try and take them without anything other than your reference manual. That should also give you a clue as to where your strengths and weaknesses are.

Some other practice exams are:

http://ppi2pass.com/fe-environmental-quiz-bank-feenqb.html


(not amazing, but will give some good questions, not cheap either)

Last, but not least, the NCEES has a practice exam, which is 50 questions, and cost 50$. I almost didn't do it, but I am so glad I did. The questions on this exam were VERY similar to the actual exam.


https://account.ncees.org/exam-prep/store/category/FE/product/fe-environmental-online-practice-exam-1

That being said, do not memorize them or spend ALL your time trying to focus on them. The actual exam has a bank of questions and both times I took the exam was different.

I would save the NCEES practice exam for last, and try to solve it without using ANYTHING other than reference manual. If you can solve them easily and pass around 80%, I would feel pretty good.

They even give you a freebie (its an errata report, but still) https://cdn.ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2013_FE_Env_practice_errata.v1.pdf

--Now on to the actual exam. Sign up for it as early as you possibly can, the dates will fill up quickly, especially after graduation times (May and January). Make sure you get there early or you can forfeit your spot. Also become familiar with what items you can have and not have. Here is a list of calculators you can have:


http://ncees.org/exams/calculator-policy/

I used the TI 36x pro because I use a ti-83 normally and it was comfortable. Use the same calculator the whole time you prepare, it will save you time and heartache. Bring a backup calculator or batteries if you want also.


http://ncees.org/exams/cbt/examinee-guide/

For the exam, you can mark problems you are having a problem with. I suggest doing this almost immediately if you don't know how to solve the problem or are spending more than a minute or two on it. The first time I took it, I ran out of time and didn't even answer the last 15 problems! Guessing doesn't hurt you, but not marking an answer is an automatic wrong. Like I said before, you have about 3 minutes per problem, so use your time wisely.


Skip problems that are too hard, mark them, and come back at the end when you have finished the easier problems. This does two things, first, it allows you to keep your mind fresh by not agonizing over one problem that you can't quite get. And second, it gives your brain the chance to reset and you might find the second time you look at it that you knew the right formula or where to find it all along. The test is in two sections, so you get a chance to try your flagged questions at the end of each. During the break, don't stray far, use the bathroom, drink some liquid (not too much! I had to leave because I drank too much and had to pee, and it hurt my time) and try and relax.

Good luck!!

> You seem to be forgetting the minor point of agriculture failing -- or is that no longer "your point"?

How is this not willfully obtuse, if not an outright misrepresentation?

I was the one suggesting that more northerly locations would be better situated to avoid temperatures driven to 45°C+, and you responded by pointing out that even Moscow "gets heatwaves" too.

I then demonstrated that Moscow has never experienced temperatures in the 40s. Ever.

A perfectly relevant refutation of your generalised exaggeration. That's all.

> water is going to vanish, everywhere?

Obviously not what I'm saying.

Some won't get enough, and some will get far too much. And some will even get just the right amount for some time - but at some point in a collapsing biosphere, not reliably enough in any one place to ensure sufficient crop survival and reliable harvesting to make agriculture viable.

No, I don't have a crystal ball, and can't tell you exactly where that point will be, but this extinction event is unfolding with unprecedented speed, and we are still accelerating it, so I really don't believe that ignoring uncomfortably pessimistic sources is a wise strategy.

> You're now blaming me for not engaging in threads I wasn't involved in?

Sorry, I was getting it confused with the other thread we're discussing similar matters in. I have to do all this on a crappy, broken smartphone since I don't use a computer, so no split-screen windows/advanced clipboard functionality/fancy keyboard for me.

It was referenced in this thread, not the other one.

> On the contrary, I've pointed out the "links" (really one link posted multiple times)

Since /u/Goochymayn posted the link to the projected effects here, I have posted a dozen different links that weren't this one in this thread.

> Man, you people are obsessed with this one website

Far from it, though a little stubborn in trying to encourage some sort of engagement with it on your part - it's sort of the opposite of cherry picking, to go on blithely claiming that it doesn't say what it does, and that the whole thing's just too silly to even acknowledge.

I read many websites, have read the book this summarises by Mark Lunas (FWIW, it won the 2008 Royal Society Book Prize and was turned into a National Geographic TV series, so it's not just some crappy little blog.)

And I agree it would be better if the summary had hyperlinked references. I don't post it here much/ever myself, precisely because of the lack of easy to follow hyperlinks to make it easier for people to check sources online. The book is better (books are always better than this internet rubbish.)

OK, you don't recognise it or any of its sources (though they've been bandied around here often enough,) - I will add some more links tomorrow when I've had some sleep, though it will be at the expense of speedily responding to your other posts (lots of busy-ness ATM.) I will come to them when time allows.

I accept that the descriptions of the effects at each temperature band may not be accurate. Which is why it would be interesting and useful to discuss what it actually predicts, and how much, if any merit there is to their arguments (it would be even better to discuss the book, but that's less feasible online in the temporary conversation cloud that is Reddit, given how few people have probably read it.)

It's less productive in the extreme, to only ever see it analysed by McPhersonite fanboys, too busy obsessing about the doom to look at it with a critical eye. But if they are accurate, then farming will self-evidently NOT be possible, because we will all be too extinct to practice it.

Other interesting topics exist of course, but they're pretty academic if we're looking anything like +7°C by the end of the century.

That too is an interesting topic in itself, and one I would like to see more people engaging in disputing, rather than just avoiding having to consider it at all on the one hand, or obsessively and unproductively doom-mongering about on the other.

They both seem like less productive (if understandably human) approaches.

I find it convincing enough to have committed to taking the measures I have anyway, though I try to keep an open mind.

> doesn't say what they claim it does. It literally doesn't say it.

It doesn't say exactly QUOTE farming will not be possible UNQUOTE, but FFS, it's predicting the sky effectively catching fire because of the methane content, superstorms at least as extreme as the ones that caused the Permian-Triassic extinction, with ""super-hurricanes” hitting the coasts [that] would have triggered flash floods that no living thing could have survived."

It says: "That episode was the worst ever endured by life on Earth, the closest the planet has come to ending up a dead and desolate rock in space.” On land, the only winners were fungi that flourished on dying trees and shrubs."

And you think agriculture will be possible in this?

It is true, this is at 5+°C, but they also state "Chance of avoiding five degrees of global warming: negligible if the rise reaches four degrees and releases trapped methane from the sea bed."

You've made no effort to refute any of this - you just refuse to engage with this source.

It explains the inexorable runaway temperature effect that will be (possibly has already been,) initiated, and so 4°/5°/6°/7°/+ is largely irrelevant - it's going up, up, up.

And the methane is already being released in observably huge quantities already at <1.5°C, so this does not look so unlikely that it's sensible to simply dismiss it to me, considering the fucktons of the stuff there is down there.

But hey, you've got potatoes and trees, so you'll be fine.

I (and probably other less optimistically- inclined folk here,) would be really interested in knowing why you, or other more optimistic folk, think this is not going to happen.

IF (and I freely admit that is not certain, but if) we're looking at anything like these projections coming to pass this century, then at some point this century, agriculture WILL fail.

And IF the runaway effect from all these tipping points we're burning through is real, then over some timespan, that's inevitable.

> A little emotional, aren’t we? The part where "the world" = "modern civilization"?

No. The part where everything bigger than a lystrosaur, including very probably humanity, is rendered extinct.

And actually I don't get emotional about it - I'm past that.

I get stubborn, and start building an Ark.

> The article they keep linking to doesn't say what they claim it does.

It claims unsurvivable, extinction-level conditions are coming, so yes - it does say what they claim (whether or not it's well-founded - that is a different argument. One you seem unwilling to engage in.)

> I've said that multiple times to them. They have no response for me. And neither will you, I expect. Read the goddamn article.

I have. And I can understand what it's saying. I'd like a reason to disbelieve it, but you're evidently unable to provide one.

I recommend reading the book (I ought to buy another one - lent it out, and never got it back.)

Twenty Hydrogen Myths by noted environmentalist Amory Lovins:
http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E03-05_TwentyHydrogenMyths

>Amory Lovins has received ten honorary doctorates and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1984, of the World Academy of Art and Science in 1988, and of the World Business Academy in 2001. He has received the World Technology Award, the Right Livelihood Award, the Blue Planet Prize, Volvo Environment Prize, the 4th Annual Heinz Award in the Environment in 1998, and the National Design (Design Mind), Jean Meyer, and Lindbergh Awards

>Lovins is also the recipient of the Time Hero for the Planet awards, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, and the Shingo, Nissan, Mitchell, and Onassis Prizes. He has also received a MacArthur Fellowship and is an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and an Honorary Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council. Furthermore he is on the Advisory Board of the Holcim Foundation.

>In 2009, Time magazine named Lovins as one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Hydrogen is not only clean and green when made from renewable energy, it's the fuel of the future.

Here's a book I haven't read yet but it is on my amazon wish list.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1855842408/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2Z1VAE60KJNSS&coliid=I1BEOAGVD147M0

And here is a series of great books about the elementals...

https://www.amazon.ca/Nature-Spirits-What-They-Say/dp/086315462X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484169874&sr=1-1&keywords=what+the+nature+spirits

Wolfgang has stated that they have material for many more books and the elementals have stated (through their human "medium" for lack of a better word) that since the publishing of these books they can feel the hearts and thoughts of people around the world streaming toward them. I think that is huge.

And finally here is my favourite water documentary and the place I discovered Schauberger...

https://youtu.be/3wl-Temag9E

It strengthens my heart to know that you are interested in investigating the mysteries of water. PM me if you want me to tell you more, I got lots!

This will give you some solid theory on ODEs (less so on PDEs), and a bunch of great methods of solving both ODEs and PDEs. I work a lot with differential equations and this is one of my principal reference books.

This is an amazing book, but it mostly covers ODEs sadly. Both the style and the material covered are great. It might not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's a great read nonetheless.

This covers PDEs from a very basic level. It assumes no previous knowledge of PDEs, explains some of the theory, and then goes into a bunch of elementary methods of solving the equations. It's a small book and a fairly easy read. It also has a lot of examples and exercises.

This is THE book on PDEs. It assumes quite a bit of knowledge about them though, so if you're not feeling too confident, I suggest you start with the previous link. It's something great to have around either way, just for reference.

Hope this helped, and good luck with your postgrad!

I'm an extreme water nerd.

I agree with all of geocurious' recommendations. For textbooks, those are the main ones for groundwater, especially. Fetter is another mainstay. I'm sure you can find the textbooks easily enough.

As for less academic, Cadillac Desert is good and goes into the policy behind U.S. dam building (which is long but interesting). Water: The epic struggle... is a history of the world with some interesting connections to water (though doesn't get enough into the water, from my perspective).

As for beautiful writing about water, I can't recommend Loren Eiseley enough. The Immense Journey has some really great chapters about water (and then goes on and on about human evolution, but still ok). A really neat excerpt book about geologic themes is Bedrock and that is how I found my pal, Loren.

I have also been amassing a public Spotify playlist of songs that have a hydro-theme. Message me if you want it. Sitting at a couple hundred songs right now, but definitely biased towards my musical interests.

Other books:

• Unquenchable: I thought this was a rather haphazard, sensationalized, and doomsday perspective on water [I have a phd in hydro].
  
  A good list by someone else: Aguanomics
  
  Quotes
  

Try to understand that the hearing you saw was political theater. It's a gimmick orchestrated by the majority party to try to drum up headlines on partisan media, galvanize the hardcore issue-followers from their base, and make snarky comments. The purpose of a hearing like this is most emphatically not to dig into the heart of an issue and try to come to a better understand of it. It's also an opportunity for trying to re-frame political discourse; bear in mind that a the very moment of this hearing, the ADP was convening to finalize the penultimate text of the COP21 and Paris Agreement.

It's very worrisome to me that you came away from this hearing with the impression that there are two sides to the climate change issue. There are not. There is not competing, alternative explanation of modern climate change, and there is no serious, scholarly debate about broad swaths of the field. What you saw at the hearing were manufactured controversies - misdirections which prey on the lay person's unfamiliarity with the science. For instance, Senator Cruz insisted - multiple times - that the satellite temperature record is the "gold standard" for recording temperatures and documenting potential climate change, and that we can't trust the surface temperature record because the data isn't available. That's, without any question or minimization whatsoever, absolute horseshit. In reality, all of the data and code necessary to reproduce the surface temperature record is available freely for anyone to download, and old records are archived in their original format. On the other hand, the satellite record is not freely available - it's privately maintained by both RSS and UAH. UAH has also - for two decades now - refused to release the code used to produce their dataset. That's a major problem, given the complexity of trying to infer temperatures from what satellites measure. In fact, it requires simplified atmosphere/climate models validated against the surface temperature record. So you can begin to see the problem here, and the insidious goal of this hearing - to invert the idea of which dataset is more reliable.

If you want to learn more about climate science, then stick to your textbooks. Some very good ones for geosciences students would be "Global Warming: The Complete Briefing" by John Houghton and "What We Know About Climate Change" by Kerry Emanuel. I'd be happy to recommend further resources from there.

But if you're looking for a head-to-head debate about climate science you won't find one, because there isn't a serious contrarian side on the issue.

Will you send me a copy?

Here are some more resources. Good luck finding info on cambium layers, but If you do find any, please message me! I'm highly interested to know what their value is, HIGHLY. You can PM me through my YT if you figure it out later on.

Might be limited for wild foods: https://nutritiondata.self.com/

Talks about eadibility, with ACTUAL experiments but doesn't discuss the amount of calories, and nutrition very much: http://www.eattheweeds.com/

Green Deen YT: https://www.youtube.com/user/EatTheWeeds/videos

A couple things here (the book is supposed to be good): http://www.foragingtexas.com/2007/06/foraging-for-calories.html

https://www.amazon.com/Subsistence-Gatherer-Hunting-Trapping-Foraging/dp/1479259667/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1479222444&sr=8-3&keywords=texas+foraging

All about the guts and grease (READ THIS!!!): http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/guts-and-grease-the-diet-of-native-americans/

Another good essay with a few calorie facts: https://woodtrekker.blogspot.ca/2013/09/living-off-land-delusions-and.html

List of edibles: http://northernbushcraft.com/guide.php?ctgy=edible_plants&region=on

I have another source on wild berries, but I can't find it right now, let me know if you want me to dig deeper and find it.

I would also recommend Samuel Thayer author of Forager's Harvest and Nature's Garden...but he does NOT talk about the nutritional contents of foods.

You should be able to make broad assumptions. If you can't find something on wapato for example, which is a tuber, you could compare it to a potato. Plantain, compare to other leafy greens like spinach, etc. Berries are fairly well known. They won't be exact, but neither are the store bought foods, they are rough estimates. So they should be sufficient.

Climate scientist Michael Mann criticizes several of the claims in the article as overstated in this facebook post, though like most scientists he agrees with the general point that the consequences of climate change will be dire unless we take serious action (he has a book for non-scientists outlining the dangers and the politicization of the issue, The Madhouse Effect). And if anyone's interested in a book focused specifically on the best scientific predictions about the consequences of various amounts of warming, you could check out Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (see this post from one of the climate scientists on the realclimate.org blog, which gives it a positive review and says it accurately reflects the scientific literature on future scenarios).

I think our best chance of avoiding disaster lies in some combination of moving over to renewables and/or nuclear within the next few decades combined with massive production of carbon capture devices in the second half of the century, which could allow us to keep the warming to around 2 degrees or less. One important point is that without such massive deployment of carbon capture we don't really stand a chance of keeping it that low--check out the graphs here where the first two graphs show how fast carbon emissions would have to go to zero without any carbon capture if we want to keep warming to 1.5 degrees or less, along with a third graph showing how the decline can be more gradual if we have negative emissions later. The graphs are based on the "carbon quotas" for different amounts of warming on p. 64 of this IPCC report, and the quota for 2 degrees is not that much larger than 1.5 degrees (2900 gigatons vs. 2250 gigatons, only 29% larger) so the corresponding graphs for keeping it under 2 degrees wouldn't look too different.

The cause for hope here is that prototypes for carbon capture devices that remove CO2 much more efficiently than trees have already been built, see this article and this one, along with this interview with a physicist involved in the research where he makes the following point:

>My hope would be that we then would have a device that can take out a ton a day of carbon from the atmosphere. If you take out a ton a day, you would need 100 million air capture devices to take out all the C02 that we putting into the atmosphere today. And I would argue that it would be a lot less than that because we would also be capturing carbon at the flue stack, and not making the C02 in the first place by developing solar and wind technologies. ... There are about 1 billion cars out there. We are building 70 million cars and light trucks a year. So that kind of industrial production is quite possible. Eventually we should be able to produce an air capture device for roughly what it costs to manufacture a car.

I also think that another reason to be hopeful is that we may in the not-too-distant future achieve full automation of the production process for most mass-produced goods, leading to the possibility of self-replicating robot factories (what Eric Drexler calls clanking replicators), and I think the effect of this would tend to drive down the prices of all mass-produced goods--including things like carbon capture devices and solar panels--down to barely more than the cost of the raw materials and energy that went into them, so large-scale production of any good would be much cheaper. I talked more about this idea here.

Girl on December 18th!

There's nothing I want that's even close to $40, but dude, thank you so much for making a contest about BABIES. All I've been doing lately is looking up pictures of cute, fat Chinese babies. THEYRE SO CUTE

My $40 prize equivalent

My $20 prize equivalent

By chemist, do you mean undergraduate or postgraduate? What year of study are they in? It'd be difficult to study statistical mechanics from scratch; make sure the following prerequisites are in order:

• Mathematical methods including multivariable calculus, vector calculus, differential equations and introductory (but still rigorous) probability theory. Combinatorial methods can and will help, too.
  
• Classical mechanics, including analytical mechanics. A lot of important results in statistical mechanics correspond directly to what you find in classical mechanics.
  
• Exposure to thermodynamics is essential. As a chemist, your friend will almost definitely have this.
  
• Quantum mechanics, the ideas of which are highly important for quantum statistical mechanics. Of course, if your friend would rather stick to classical statistical mechanics, this doesn't have to be deeply studied. I'd imagine that being a chemist, your friend has seen some quantum mechanics before anyhow.
  
  For an introductory level book, I quite enjoyed Bowley and Sanchez. They go through relevant ideas in probability already and the appendix covers up some of the mathematical prerequisites. Further down the line, Huang is an excellent book: it is significantly more advanced than the previous, but the contents is both broad and detailed (I still refer to it for topics like the 2D Ising model). At the same time, you could also consider Volume 5 of the famous Course of Theoretical Physics by Landau and Lifshitz. The Course is famously hardcore, but it imparts mastery like nothing else.

For a fun read, I love The Disappearing Spoon.

For a while, I've been meaning to read Salt which is another fun read.

I also just love the Periodic Table of Videos YouTube channel for other fun stuff.

Textbook-wise, you can't beat Stumm and Morgan or Metcalf and Eddy for your water chemistry/water treatment needs.

A few degrees warmer is about how much we can stand. So, with that few degrees comes at least a few feet of sea level rise, likely more. So coastal areas that tend to be the highest populated, are going to need to retreat from the coast. That's going to be a huge economic burden. How is that burden born? Best left to economists I suppose....

Also, California and the west will tend to get drier, which will affect agriculture and I would venture agricultural costs. The mid-west is also slated to become drier, this is at a time when the Ogallala aquifer is being sucked dry, so we are going to be running out of a pretty precious resource in large chunks of the US. Further abroad, with melting glaciers hundreds of millions may be left without water. The middle east is supposed to also dry up. This is likely to create a humanitarian crisis.

There could be significant changes in disease distributions as well. With things like malaria, Zika, etc. becoming more prevalent in the US because of a spread of their vektors (e.g., certain tropical mosquito species).

Depending on the severity, much of the Amazon rain forest may dry out, though there is some good debate around that topic. Coral reefs laregly won't be able to keep up, which could crash some fisheries and ecosystems. Forest diseases may be more prevalent (e.g., emerald ash borer in the eastern US that is wiping out ash trees), and extinction rates are thought to spike, with 20-30% of species at risk of extinction.

Check out a book 6 degrees. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my wish list - supposed to be a good run down of the catastrphe that 6 degrees of warming will bring - basically an end of civilization as we know it. Some respected scientists think that the population will end up crashing to 1 billion in the next century..... that will cause some chaos...

If you're going for a traditional old school textbook on vibrations and waves, maybe you want the book by A. P. French, or some of the books suggested below.

But if you want a more interesting look on the matter there was a book I loved to read as a physics undergrad called An Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Waves. It goes on for a while trying to define what is a wave, and what kinds of waves are there, then goes on with a mathematical description of a huge number of wave-like phenomena - from the good old waves on a string and d'Alembert's equation to traffic jams, solitons and non-linear waves.

It's a little heavy on partial differential equations, but it is kind of self contained.

I haven't read this book in a while, but I really loved it when I was an undergrad. Sometimes this means the book is really good, sometimes it just means I wasn't mature enough to judge the book. :P

Ok, here's a list of books that might interest you.

• [Introductory Mining Engineering] (http://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Mining-Engineering-Howard-Hartman/dp/0471348511/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412111081&sr=1-1&keywords=introductory+mining+engineering) as others have mentioned is a good, not too technical introduction to mining engineering and the industry as a whole.
  
  
• [Mining Explained] (http://www.smenet.org/store/mining-books.cfm/Mining-Explained%2C-11th-Edition/9041) is a good little overview of the industry, I believe it was written as an introductory guide for investors.
  
  
• [The Deep Dark] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Deep-Dark-Disaster-Redemption/dp/0307238776) is about the Sunshine Mine disaster. It is a well written book that reads like a novel. It gives a good overview of hardrock mining techniques in northern Idaho, but is more focused on the people, the disaster and the recovery efforts.
  
  
• [The World of Mining] (http://www.amazon.com/World-Mining-Richard-Woldendorp/dp/0415671892/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412111733&sr=1-1&keywords=the+world+of+mining) is more of a photography book, but it has a lot of great contemporary pictures from mines around the world.
  
  
• [Deep Enough] (http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Enough-Working-Stiff-Western/dp/0806125292/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412110097&sr=1-1&keywords=deep+enough) is the memoir of a man from an affluent New York family that decides to go to the western US in the early 1900's, where he ends up working in mining. This is a good one if you're interested the culture of a 1900's mining camp as well as the technical aspects.
  
  
• [Trapped] (http://www.amazon.com/Trapped-1909-Cherry-Mine-Disaster/dp/0743421957) is about the 1909 Cherry Creek mine disaster at a coal mine in Illinois.
  
  
• [The Making of a Hardrock Miner] (http://www.amazon.com/making-hardrock-miner-experiences-molybdenum/dp/0831071168/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412110431&sr=1-1&keywords=the+making+of+a+hard+rock+miner) is similar to Deep Enough, but written in the 1970's.
  
  
• [Mines, mules and me in Mexico] (http://www.amazon.com/Mules-Mines-Me-Mexico-1895-1932/dp/0816506264/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412110933&sr=1-1&keywords=mines+mules+and+me+in+mexico) similar in style to Deep Enough, it was written by a mining engineer that was working in Mexico before and during the Mexican Revolution.
  
  
• [Grasberg] (http://www.amazon.com/Grasberg-richest-deposit-mountains-Indonesia/dp/0965289001) is a historical account of the discovery and development of the Grasberg mine in Indonesia.
  
  
• [The Roar and the Silence] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Roar-And-Silence-Shepperson/dp/0874173205) is a historical account of Virginia City, Nevada which was the most advanced and affluent mining camp of its day. It follows Virginia City from a gritty mining camp, to a city whose influence rivaled some of the biggest cities of its day, through its slow fade into obscurity.
  
  
• [Out of the Fiery Furnace] (http://www.amazon.com/Out-Fiery-Furnace-History-Mankind/dp/027100441X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412110707&sr=1-1&keywords=out+of+the+fiery+furnace) is a look at how world history was shaped by mankind's discovery and utilization of different metals. It discusses how mining techniques have evolved over time.

This has been fun but I have some things to do. Here's a good book to read

Solar Hydrogen: Fuel of the Future

Renewable hydrogen produced using solar energy to split water is the energy fuel of the future. Accelerated innovation in both major domains of solar energy (photovoltaics and concentrated solar power) has resulted in the rapid fall of the solar electricity price, opening the route to a number of practical applications using solar H2...more
https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Hydrogen-Future-Mario-Pagliaro/dp/1849731950

I'm pretty sure these three books were what I used in my water engineering classes. They should help you out. Amazon has some pretty good textbooks, too, and there are plenty of places online to find a pdf version of textbooks, though I always got those from classmates so I can't help you find them.

​

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131409700/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Water-Wastewater-Engineering-Mackenzie-Davis/dp/0071713840

https://www.amazon.com/Hydraulic-Engineering-2e-John-Roberson/dp/0471124664?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_1#reader_0471124664

For an undergraduate approach I recommend Schroeder. However, this book starts with thermal physics which is, well, a bit boring ;). The math is not hard, but developing that 'physics instinct' can sometimes be challenging.

For a more advanced, but very nice and systematic text, I recommend Toda, Kubo, et al.. Another graduate text is Huang.

There are also the books by Feynman and Landau and Lifshitz Pt. 1 (Pt. 2 is quantum field theory, which at this stage you probably will want to avoid).

I can't give you numbers, although others have made such attempts. There is a book available called Six Degrees that attempts to describe the impacts of climate change over 100 years at different levels (1 degree C change; 2 degree C change; etc.). It has numbers, although I can't suggest how accurate they are (those kinds of numerical forecasting exercises are virtually impossible to do with accuracy in complex systems).

Another pop-science but seemingly sound exploration of likely effects (and current conditions) is Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Friedman. It definitely has a "position," but it is a good qualitative place to start if you want an entryway into global environmental change dynamics.

I have one chapter left in George Monbiot's Feral and it has really opened my perspective drastically. I visited Scotland for my first time last summer, and Wales just last month (I recently moved to Europe), and although something felt "off" to me, I couldn't put my finger on it. Now I understand that it is entirely the result of grazing and poor management requirements that are even set forth by the government (declaring that oaks, alders, birches, and other trees are "invasive" although they are natural is insane).

I was lucky enough in both Wales and Scotland to find some older forests, which were absolutely stunning. I have spent a lot of my life in New Hampshire (USA), and until the early 1900s something like 95% of the state was clearcut, and I had never been able to imagine that as possible until realizing why the UK looks like it does.

If you have not read Monbiot's book, I highly recommend it for his critique of the UK "wilderness," as well as his overall thesis on rewilding.

I really like the premise of your show, that is trying to "go back" in an objective way. Using measurements and developing metrics.

Before I get into it I have to say that I haven't seen all of your videos and maybe you covered my thoughts.

But I feel that you can not make comparisons to past humans or contemporary people who full time hunt and gather. Hunter gatherer landscapes were/are managed spaces that reflected human influence. A good example is controlled seasonal burns to increase grass productivity there by increasing grass eating game animals. Or by actively maintaining large wild fruit and nut orchards.

I agree that going deep into the bush can be an enlightening experience into the challenges hunting and gathering bring but full time hunter gatherers were playing a different game. A complex system of mutual reliance and exchange and environmental influence developed over thousands of years.

In a lot of ways It was never possible to "go back" to full time hunting and gathering. The amount and health of current biodiversity is much less than it has been for thousands of years. Its like going to an empty grocery store and trying to live. Thats not a perfect analogy but its along the lines of what I am trying to say.

You should check out this book. The guy breaks down and develops an optimal foraging strategy for south texas based on calories, time, knowledge, season and all kinds of other considerations.

Begich's diploma was from a shady place, but he openly says it's an honorary degree. It doesn't effect that he does great research and has the primary source documents of what he cites. I feel he should have not accepted the degree, as it's something "debunkers" can point at- albeit the only thing. He's an activist and has been called to testify about HAARP before the European Parliament.

I linked to a video of his here a few days ago, where he does cite and source all this material, but it didn't get much of a response.

It's really worth checking out. Bernard Eastlund, the scientist behind a lot of the HAARP technology, even teamed up with Begich at one point because he had concerns about how the tech would be used.

Here's a link to his book that the documentary below is based on. Check out the user reviews to see what it's all about.
http://www.amazon.com/Angels-Dont-Play-This-Haarp/dp/0964881209

Documentary covering material in book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLZcaItj70U

What have you graduated as? You can get some good basics by signing up to EduMine (no $) and get a few free online materials that are a good starting point for an absolute beginner. You question is probably too broad to get everything online though, I'd suggest that if you've got a few hundred bucks to splash out for a decent underground text like http://www.amazon.com/Underground-Mining-Methods-Fundamentals-International/dp/0873351932

I would recommend the hard rock miners handbook which is free. Underground mining methods is also a good book and easy to follow.

I also just saw this recently after never really hearing of it growing up. Weird. Anyway, respect; I really enjoyed this movie and think it's still an important message to this day.

Would you like to know more?

Yes! This.

Here's a paragraph from the summary to his book, Techno-Fix.

"The authors explore the reasons for the uncritical acceptance of new technologies; show that technological optimism is based on ignorance and that increasing consumerism and materialism, which have been facilitated by science and technology, have failed to increase happiness. The common belief that technological change is inevitable is questioned, the myth of the value-neutrality of technology is exposed and the ethics of the technological imperative: "what can be done should be done" is challenged. Techno-Fix asserts that science and technology, as currently practiced, cannot solve the many serious problems we face and that a paradigm shift is needed to reorient science and technology in a more socially responsible and environmentally sustainable direction."

I love the part about how techno-optimism is based on ignorance.

A book about the history of fraud, treachery and thieves in the industry can be found here:A hole in the ground with a liar at the top

There's also another title that tells more stories about the workers in artisan diamond mining: Diamond a journey into the heart of an obsession

As far as books that get more technical, Introductory Mining Engineering would be a good start.

If the business and economics are more what you're interested in, a quick google search for "mining white papers" should yield a whole pile of results. Most of them being written by some consulting houses such as E&Y, KPMG, McKinsey, et al.

Let me know more what you're looking for. Mining Engineer here who loves to read. =)

Climate change is a matter of degrees, literally, and the big unknown is at what point do we really start to suffer negative consequences.

Scientists and world leaders so far have a consensus that 2 degrees Celsius is safe. Some scientists say it should be even lower, but that's what most of the negotiations are assuming. 3-4 degrees Celsius is likely what's going to happen unless we make some real aggressive moves soon, which will most likely exacerbate some of the things we see already, which are sea level rises, ocean acidification (leading to fish extinctions), melting of the ice caps and glaciers, and weather changes (drought, desertification, melting tundra). 6 degrees is where most people think we're headed if we can't get our act together and there are a whole bunch of hypotheses about what may happen then: http://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Future-Hotter-Planet/dp/1426203853 . Of course, then there's always the risk of runaway climate change, where we reach a point where warming begets more warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_climate_change and we eventually end up like Venus, although that particular outcome is still up for debate.

So to your point, is this all a futile exercise? I'm not sure we can hit 2 degrees, honestly, at this point. But if we hit 3, the earth our grand children (speaking as someone without kids yet) will live most of their lives in will most likely be similar to the one we live in and the one our parents live in. If we let it get to 5 or 6, then all bets are off. You might be right that they'll come up with some kind of Manhattan project to solve it, but there's no guarantee.

I'm a climate change natalist - I recognize that civilization is over and humanity might be too. Our grandkids won't have electricity and may not have agriculture. Our great-gradkids may not have enough oxygen. Anyways given the coming crash I had a kid that I'm raising to make it through the bottleneck with good wholesome values intact. I'm raising her competent and co-operative.

If you're feeling down about working retail you should read this book. It's about the expected results of each degree of climate warming. It's 10 years old. The changes predicted here are actually mild compared to the changes we've seen, suggesting that we may be on track for a 4° warmer world (mass extinction, complete desertion of the mid-latitudes, the amazon first burning then drying to a desert, human fight toward the poles, endemic drought throughout asia, most crop-land blowing away as dust). Capitalism can't survive that!!

Saw this post on /r/backpacking earlier today. In the thread someone mentioned this book, The Golden Spruce, about the of the area. I'm looking forward to reading it. I bet it will interest some of you too.

Great pics anvilman! I'm gonna have to make the trip up there some day!

Yeah, there is a $25 review book with over 100 practice problems and solutions on Amazon that I will be going over this week. I also really need to study some topics like statistics so I may look into getting some review booklets about that topic.

Check this review book out: https://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Engineering-Preparation-Questions-Solutions/dp/1532827237/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480357826&sr=1-2&keywords=environmental+engineering+fe

I found it on another post from this sub and it has good reviews. For $25 it can't hurt.

Applied Hydrogeology

I used it for a course in grad school - but I end up using it now while on the job. Not a tremendous amount in it about mineral deposition, but it still has a good bit on water chemistry, and explains carbonate equilibrium really well.

> The global temperature is increasing wildly

Define wildly. Since 1975 it's increased by an average of about .15 to .2 ^o C per decade and it's increased about 0.8^o C overall since 1880, with about 2/3 of that coming since 1975. It's probably increasing by a bit more than that now because global emissions keep increasing.

> in a few years many heavily populated areas will exceed "wet bulb" temperature, meaning they will become so hot that it would be impossible for human life to exist there

That doesn't seem to fit Wikipedia's definition of wet-bulb temperature, although I'll admit to being very unfamiliar with the term; do you know in what context McPherson used it?

It would help to know exactly what McPherson's temperature projections are. To me, the notion that the usual projections could render places currently supporting hundreds of millions of people uninhabitable within the next few years, or even decades, is tough to believe without hard numbers to back it up.

If you're curious for other sources, my impressions are based roughly on Six Degrees, by Mark Lynas and Introduction to Modern Climate Change, by Andrew Dessler. I think climate change is definitely capable of causing our extinction eventually, but it would require a lot of inaction on our part, and it would still take several centuries at least.

I recommend "What we know about climate change" by MIT's Prof. Kerry Emmanuel or "Global warming: understanding the forecast" by University of Chicago's Prof. David Archer (two prominent climate scientists). I think the first is more accessible to someone with just a high school science background and the second for someone with a college science background. The information on the NASA site is quite good. The best technical document out there is the most recent IPCC report on climate change science, but its several thousands pages long and quite dense.

Watch this video clip, based on actual facts.

My top book recommendation:

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas

It paints a picture in a real nice way and serves as a good guide for thinking about various degrees.

As mentioned by /u/extinction6 watch Kevin Anderson.

I liked this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Engineering-FE-Review-Manual/dp/1683380142/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480357826&sr=1-4&keywords=environmental+engineering+fe

After I finish it, I will work through this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Engineering-Preparation-Questions-Solutions/dp/1532827237/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480357826&sr=1-2&keywords=environmental+engineering+fe

Everyone in my class used the former, and I have heard good reviews of the latter on this page.

One of my sources is the book Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, who reviewed several thousand papers on the projected impacts of climate change, many of them based on geological evidence. That's the one that mentions the 500-year dustbowl. It's extensively referenced.

For a discussion of the paleoclimate evidence, that book is good but the best I've found is Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen. He goes into the geological evidence and the physical arguments in detail.

The claims I made are not projections of the future. They're simple accountings of the fossil record. Unless you're the type of person who thinks fossils are a hoax, there's no getting around it. Nevertheless I'm sure neither of these will qualify as "sound" since they don't agree with your opinions, but perhaps someone else will be interested.

I am pretty sure op is talking about the book by Mark Lynas.

SME Handbook

Hartman Book

Used both while getting my Mining Engineering degree. They are both really great for what you want but I would go with the Hartman Book. It's cheaper and does just as well.

It's the best I can do.

Came here to say MWH. If you're looking for a more undergraduate level type of book, look at Water and Wastewater Engineering, Principles and Practices. We used it in an undergrad class I was in, it explains processes and designs, as well as gives some generally used dimensions and values.

I haven't read it yet, but Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas is on my wish list.

Read a book like that a few years ago. Six Degrees. It's about global warming and its likely effects.

guitarrr: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link

I am surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet:

Angels Don't Play This HAARP - http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0964881209/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1374336059&sr=8-1&pi=SL75

The author, Nick Begich's brother, Mark Begich ended up becoming Senator of Alaska for some time. Side note, I went to the same highschool they did; granted many years apart.

1. The Golden Spruce - John Vaillant
   
2. 9/10
   
3. Non-fictional account of the story surrounding the only known golden spruce tree that grew on the Haida Gwaii islands.
   
4. A profoundly interesting and addictive read on the history of British Columbia, of pacific trade and logging, of indigenous west coast tribes and their traditions, and other related subjects.
   
5. book here

This is a good read on some back story of the explotation of the boreal forests.

https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Spruce-Story-Madness-Greed/dp/0393328643

Techno-Fix: Why Technology Won't Save Us Or the Environment

Pretty intriguing look on the effects of technology on the environment and society.

I am surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet:

Angels Don't Play This HAARP - http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0964881209/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1374336059&sr=8-1&pi=SL75

The author, Nick Begich's brother, Mark Begich ended up becoming Senator of Alaska for some time. Side note, I went to the same highschool they did; granted many years apart.

If you have a chance, checkout the book Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet takes an interesting look not only at what happens at four degrees, but also temperatures lower and higher. Essentially the book starts low and grows to the scenario of what would happen when we've reached six degrees by looking at evidence published in respectable journals such as Science and Nature

Did you use Kaplan's book to study for the Env exam?
https://www.brightwoodengineering.com/fe-exam/environmental
I found very helpful explaining water treatment and chemistry related concepts. I myself studied chemistry and hydrology and considered taking env FE but then after searching for study materials I found that there isn't much out there.
I also bought this one (https://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Discipline-Specific-Review-EIT-Exam/dp/1591260183) and returned it when I decided to study for the OTHER discipline instead.

What kind of wastewater?

For non industrial:
Get some modeling software like Biowin or GPSX and read about the Activated Sludge Model.

The EPA has detailed design documents from everything from activated sludge to the diffused aeration system which highlight best practices.

The Metcalf and Eddy text on wastewater is the best around. Ask your boss to get you a copy: https://www.amazon.com/Wastewater-Engineering-Treatment-Resource-Recovery/dp/0073401188

It's a huge process, but being a CHEG, all of the concepts will come naturally to you once you start piecing it together. Start with Secondary Aeration - it's the heart of the process.

I assume you are working under a PE (because design work frequently needs a PE stamp). You should not only have a boss to answer to but a mentor to bounce ideas off of when you find yourself struggling with concepts. It's one thing to struggle with a concept to achieve mastery, it's another to struggle with a sense of scope and understanding of the problem.

Try Nick Begich Jr.'s book (yes, the brother of the Senator).

https://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Future-Hotter-Planet/dp/1426203853

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming

Metcalf & Eddy is the bible of wastewater treatment

Of course. Have you ever read Silent Spring?

Botany of Desire
One River
Silent Spring
Basin and Range or most anything by John McPhee
Cadillac Desert

For the record, Canada's old-growth forests are disappearing staggeringly fast. You should read The Golden Spruce for a first-hand account of the logging industry in British Columbia. Most of it is gone, and what is left is in once inaccessible areas (such as the Queen Charlotte Islands, or rocky coastal areas) that is already being slated for logging.

I have absolutely no idea why you are criticizing the national park system in the U.S. I am a native Washingtonian and the fact that much of the old-growth forests will forever be protected in my nearby Mt. Rainier National Park, North Cascades National Park, and Olympic National Park (a very large percentage of the state) is something to be extremely proud of. I really think that the fact that Canada has fewer national parks than the U.S. is unfortunate.

I used the civil Lindbergh book for the fluid, hydraulic, environmental, ect. The naimpelly book (https://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Discipline-Specific-Review-EIT-Exam/dp/1591260183) and a NCEES practice exam.

Additionally, I worked extra problem out that people from this subreddit shared from their reviews.

Please pick up and read:

http://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Future-Hotter-Planet/dp/1426203853

Or watch it. Goodness... they made it into film:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1224519/

The cool thing about this book is that the focus is on what we can tell happened at these temps at various points in the past. This doesn't give us a clear picture of the future. Indeed, the rate of change today is practically unprecedented. But this look into the past is rather illuminating.

4 degrees is BAD! As others have stated, it's not a simple thing of every part of the world just magically being 4 degrees warmer all the time. It won't be that uniform. There will be parts that get larger average temp increases than others.

There are simply far too many people who think they've stopped being Climate Change Deniers while remaining in incredible ignorance of the related facts. Getting more informed will address the confusion, if not necessarily the fear. I'm not trying to advocate anything here related to vegetarianism, tap water or whatever. It just will be more conducive overall the more people have a better grasp of the issues/data here.

> Basically that things aren't great, but they aren't catastrophic either, and that we actually are kind of on the right path, or at least a path good enough that we'd 'only' heat the planet up another 2-3deg in the next 50 years instead of the near fatal ~8deg statistics I've seen. We could be doing a much better job as a species, but we'll still be OK.

There's a book on global warming, Six degrees. It has six chapters, one for each degree of warming. There's no need for a seventh chapter because there won't be any humans left in that scenario. According to the book, if we exceed +3°C, industrial agriculture will collapse (more or less quickly, depending on the region), and billions will starve.

We're currently on the trajectory for a warming of roughly +3.4°C. I imagine that the despair that comes with the early consequences will push down this path down to something like +2.8°C. Still, the lives of roughly five billion people are very insecure on that path. That's apocaplyptic enough for me.

Here are a few links that I've found interesting or useful.

this one is an animation of the decline of arctic sea ice over the last couple decades:
Ice Dream by Andy Robinson

The Representative Concentration Pathways- possible future greenhouse gas concentrations depending on what emissions path humanity takes, adopted for the IPCC 5th assesment report in 2014.

How the global average temperature is expected to rise based on the chosen RCP's.
global temperature rise projections for different emissions scenarios

Here is what those temperature rises translate into in the real world-
a degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms a very short synopsis of some of the effects we may expect in the coming yeara as global average temperatures rise. More detail can be found in the book,
Six Degrees- Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas

Antarctic sea ice has also begun to collapse in the last few months:
global sea ice area

From Climate Code Red, an article that contends there is no "carbon budget" left to limit warming to 1.5C under sensible assumptions of risk and potential damage-
Unravelling the myth of a "carbon budget" for 1.5C

Kevin Anderson argues in this presentationthat limiting warming to below 2C consistent with global fairness requires immediate and deep cuts in emissions in the developed world consistent with a revolutionary energy transformation.

Australians for Coal a insightful look at their corporate climate policy update.