Forsyth, Tim. Critical Political Ecology: The Politics of Environmental Science. New York: Routledge, 2003. A careful but often critical examination of environmental orthodoxy by a lecturer in environment and development at the London School of Economics. The text contains many important insights I have not seen elsewhere, including the consequences of the IPCC emphasis on computer models (as opposed to other forms of data) and the question of how many environmental effects are usefully regarded as "global." However, the author adopts much of the postmodernist critique of science, and thus refers to certain "laws" of science, when few scientists would grant them such status.
Freeze, R. Allan. The Environmental Pendulum: A Quest for the Truth about Toxic Chemicals, Human Health, and Environmental Protection. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2000. A university professor with on-the-ground experience dealing with toxic waste sites has written a cranky and highly informative book detailing his experiences and views. One of the few books by a person who is not only academically qualified but experienced in the field. His opinions are complex and sometimes seemingly contradictory. But that's reality.
Furedi, Frank. Culture of Fear: Risk-taking and the Morality of Low Expectation. New York: Continuum, 2002. As Western societies become more affluent and safer, as life expectancy has steadily increased, one might expect the populations to become relaxed and secure. The opposite has happened: Western societies have become panic-stricken and hysterically risk averse. The pattern is evident in everything from environmental issues to the vastly increased supervision of children. This text by a British sociologist discusses why.
Gelbspan, Ross. The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-Up, the Prescription. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 1998. A reporter who has written extensively on environmental matters presents the classic doomsday scenarios well. Penn and Teller characterize him in scatological terms.
Gilovitch, Thomas, Dale Griffin, and Daniel Kahneman, eds. Heuristics and Biases:The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Psychologists have created a substantial body of experimental data on human decision making since the 1950s. It has been well replicated and makes essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how people make decisions and how they think about the decisions that others make. The entire volume is compelling (though sometimes disheartening), and articles of particular interest are listed separately.
Glassner, Barry. The Culture of Fear. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Debunks fearmongering with precision and calmness.
Glimcher, Paul W. Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003.
Glynn, Kevin. Tabloid Culture. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 2000.
Goldstein, William M., and Robin M. Hogarth, eds. Research on Judgment and Decision Making. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Gross, Paul R., and Norman Leavitt. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. See chapter 6, "The Gates of Eden" for a discussion of environmentalism in the context of current postmodern academic criticism.
Guyton, Bill. Glaciers of California. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1998. An elegant gem of a book.
Hadley Center. "Climate Change, Observations and Predictions, Recent Research on Climate Change Science from the Hadley Center," December 2003. Obtainable atwww.metoffice.com . In sixteen pages the Hadley Center presents the most important arguments relating to climate science and the predictions for future warming from computer models. Beautifully written, and illustrated with graphic sophistication, it easily surpasses other climate science websites and constitutes the best brief introduction for the interested reader.
Hansen, James E., Makiko Sato, Andrew Lacis, Reto Ruedy, Ina Tegen, and Elaine Matthews. "Climate Forcings in the Industrial Era."Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95 (October 1998): 12753-58.
Hansen, James E. and Makiko Sato, "Trends of Measured Climate Forcing Agents." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98 (December 2001): 14778-83.
Hayes, Wayland Jackson. "Pesticides and Human Toxicity."Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 160 (1969): 40-54.
Henderson-Sellers, et al. "Tropical cyclones and global climate change: A post-IPCC assessment."Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 79 (1997): 9-38.
Hoffert, Martin, Ken Caldeira, Gregory Benford, David R. Criswell, Christopher Green, Howard Herzog, Atul K. Jain, Haroon S. Kheshgi, Klaus S. Lackner, John S. Lewis, H. Douglas Lightfoot, Wallace Manheimer, John C. Mankins, Michael E. Mauel, L. John Perkins, Michael E. Schlesinger, Tyler Volk, and Tom M. L. Wigley. "Advanced Technology Paths to Global Climate Stability: Energy for a Greenhouse Planet."Science 298 (1 November2001): 981-87.
Horowitz, Daniel. The Anxieties of Affluence. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.