Environmental Science & Sustainability

As humans, we are engaged in a wide range of activities that are causing serious damage to the ecosystems that sustain both our species and Earth’s life support systems. This is witnessed by pollution, climate warming, collapsing fisheries, deforestation, the degradation of agricultural soil, extinctions and endangerment of species, and other damages.

Nevertheless, we don’t approach these issues as pessimists. If we take constructive actions now, or at least soon, we can prevent or repair many of these environmental problems. Within limits, humans are prescient creatures, and our society is capable of implementing a sustainable economy that can support our livelihoods as well as healthy ecosystems.

It is clear, however, that any sustainable economy will involve ways of living that are different from the recent past. Ultimately, such socio-economic transformations must involve much less use of energy, materials, and other resources, in comparison with what many of us take for granted today. A more respectful attitude toward the natural world is also needed.

Achieving such a transformation will depend on citizens understanding environmental issues. I believe that people accept changes to their lifestyle if they understand the reasons for those changes in the context of the livelihoods of future generations and ecological sustainability more generally. With such an understanding, most people will support economic and social changes that conserve the quality of their own and future environments.

A broad-based environmental literacy will be a key requirement if a country such as Canada is to achieve the difficult transition into an ecologically sustainable economy. Within that context, this book was developed to help Canadian students in universities and colleges to have an objective and well-informed understanding of important environmental issues.

A Canadian Textbook, adopted for Trent

This textbook is intended to provide an introduction to environmental science and sustainability at Trent. The textbook is adapted from the well-known Canadian text Environmental Science by the late Bill Freedman, a professor at Dalhousie University. The book is about environmental issues that are particularly important in Canada, and the ways they are being dealt with by governments and society-at-large. This book was written from the ground-up to provide Canadian information and examples rather than adapting a U.S. textbook. This national context is integrated throughout the text, along with North American and global data that provide a broader perspective. Special Canadian Focus boxes illustrate important examples of environmental issues in our national context. At the same time, Global Focus boxes enhance the international context for learning about issues, while In Detail boxes examine particular topics in greater depth.

About Bill Freedman

This book is based on a textbook written by Bill Freedman. Freedman (1950-2015) was a widely admired and loved professor at Dalhousie University. His colleague David Graham Patriquin shared these words about him.

Bill authored or co-authored over 100 refereed research papers. Collectively they could be described as quantitative descriptions of natural and human-stressed habitats and their associated flora and fauna. Those studies continue to provide invaluable reference or baseline data on the state of a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial sites in a world changing ever more rapidly under the influence of humans. Many of the quantitative examples Bill provides in this book are drawn from those papers.

A lot of Bill’s earliest work focused on effects of acid rain on surface waters and forests and relationships of aquatic plants and amphibians to acidity. He ventured into assessment of carbon storage in forests well before it became an important topic, subject to international agreements related to GHGs, and he was one of the first environmentalists to highlight the potential of protected areas for carbon storage. In later years, he took an interest in urban ecology. He was especially passionate about the Canadian Arctic, Sable Island and birds.

Bill walked the talk as an environmentalist. He was a vegetarian for his last 30 years or so because of concerns about impacts of livestock on environment. He filled the small spaces around his house with native plants. He had a small Canadian built car. He volunteered for 25 years on the board of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, several as chair and conducted related field work as a volunteer. I frequently think about the story I was told by one NCC board member about the time they all wore horn rimmed glasses with Einstein-like moustaches to one of their meetings, an expression of their strong affection for Bill, who bore more than a little facial resemblance to Einstein.

Bill believed strongly that people are capable of rational action in relation to environmental issues if given “the facts” and given some options. He was also Canadian to the core. That’s what drove him to write Environmental Sciences, A Canadian Perspective. It was the first Canadian text on Environmental Science, and he updated it 5 times. The 6th edition was headed for publication by a prominent academic press, but delays and miscommunications following his passing led Bill’s spouse, George-Anne, to withdraw it and seek to have it published as a free online text available from Dalhousie.

It is a wonderful gift: 1097 highly readable, referenced, well-illustrated pages organized under five sections and twenty-two chapters. The literature cited goes up to mid-2015. With the information and references given, it would require little effort to assemble the more recent research on any particular topic, e.g., using Google Scholar. I think the book will be widely and well used by Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and thank George-Anne, Dalhousie University and of course my friend and much missed colleague Bill for it being so-available.

Acknowledgements from Bill Freedman

I am grateful for the help that many busy colleagues and other professionals have provided over the years and editions during which this book has been developed. These helpful persons offered an extremely valuable service by informally reviewing draft material and by making important ideas and information available to me. Inevitably, I was not able to incorporate all of the criticisms and suggestions, sometimes because they did not correspond with my own interpretation of the subject matter. However, the overwhelming majority of suggestions and criticisms offered by these people resulted in beneficial changes, and they improved the quality of the material.

These helpful colleagues are: Gordon Beanlands, Christine Beauchamp, Stephen Beauchamp, Karen Beazley, Marian Binkley, Chris Corkett, Ray Cote, Roger Cox, Les Cwynar, Roger Doyle, Peter Duinker, William Ernst, Peter Feige, Tracy Fleming, George Francis, David Gauthier, Chuck Geale, William Gizyn, Patricia Harding, Chris Harvey-Clarke, Owen Hertzman, Jeff Hutchings, Adrian Johnston, Joseph Kerekes, Allan Kuja, Roshani Lacoul, Patriia Lane, Brian Le, Judy Loo, Annette Luttermann, Paul Mandell, Moira McConnell, Ian McLaren, Chris Miller, Pierre Mineau, Gunther Muecke, Neil Munro, Ram Myers, David Nettleship, David Patriquin, Allan Pinder, Stephen Price, Nigel Roulet, Robert Scheibling, Tara Steeves, Donald Stewart, Kate Turner, Tony Turner, Torgney Viegerstad, Richard Wassersug, Peter Wells, Mary-Anne White, Hal Whitehead, Sheilagh Whitley, Martin Willison, Stephen Woodley, and Vince Zelazney.

In addition, the publisher asked instructors at universities and colleges in Canada to provide formal reviews of parts of the book, in each of its editions. I am grateful to the following instructors for providing that invaluable help and constructive criticisms. They are: Susan Bare, Linda Campbell, Daniel Catt, Danielle Fortin, Scott Gilbert, Jon Hornung Richard A. Jarrell, Trudy Kavanagh, Patrick Lane, Cindy Mehlenbacher, Stephen Murphy, Michael Pidwirny, Roberto Quinlan, Lawton Shaw, Sue Vajoczki, Frank Williams, and Carl Wolfe.

Several personal acknowledgements are also in order. I thank my spouse, George-Anne Merrill, for her patient and uncomplaining tolerance of my work habits and lifestyle, and for being my best friend in spite of everything I do and don’t do. Also, my grown children, Jonathan and Rachael, for mysterious motivations that succeeding generations engender in their parents.

Bill Freedman
Department of Biology
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia