An accessible introduction to themes and issues within the field of environmental geography, to some of the human practices and systems that sustain the anthropocene. This book combines accounts of the carbon cycle, global heat balances, entropy, hydrology, forest ecology, and pedology, with theories of demography, war, industrial capitalism, urban development, state theory, and behavioural psychology. Beyond the broad focus of this volume on human-environmental relations, the book is primarily devoted to understanding the particular role that geographers, and a geographical point of view, can play in the critical analysis of the anthropocene.

Mark Whitehead is a professor of human geography at Aberystwyth University. His research interests include the politics of sustainable development, urban geography and environmental citizenship. He is the author of several books including Spaces of Sustainability: geographical perspectives on the sustainable society (Routledge, 2006) and State Science and the Skies: governmentalities of the British atmosphere (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). He is the Managing Editor of the journal Environmental Values.

Chapter 1: Introduction - Geography in the Anthropocene Section 1: Environmental Transformations Chapter 2: Resources - Oil and Water Chapter 3: Air - Science and the Atmosphere Chapter 4: Soil - The Political Ecology of Soil Degradation Chapter 5: Forests - Jungle Capitalism and the Corporate Environment Chapter 6: Cities - Sprawl and the Urban Planet Section 2: Living in the Anthropocene Chapter 7: Governing the Environment Chapter 8: Greening the Brain: Understanding and Changing Human Behaviour Chapter 9: Conclusions: Misanthropy, Adaptation and Safe Operating Spaces