Goudie, Andrew. The Human Impact on the Natural Environment . The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1986.

Andrew Goudie was a Geography Professor and Hartford College from 1984 to 2003. He speaks for all man kind in terms of environmental issues, and gives specific examples to how nature and man have impacted each other. Also, he pin points big companies for causing harm to the environment. We believe his audience is the general public who to learn of the impacts we have on our planet. We chose his book because of the ties our research papers will have relating to global warming, green technologies, and proper agricultural ethics. The issues Goudie introduces is the human impact on vegetation, human influence on wildlife, human impact on the soil, human impact on water, and the human impact on climate. Goudie “crops out” the economic side of farmers who use pesticides. Leaving out this side, we do not see the positive motives of why farmers use pesticides and repellents. Another issue left out by Goudie is the possible solutions that may have been researched and tested. If he had included this, he could of helped us see what progress has been reached in the past twenty years. Goudie goes into great detail about the affects humans have on soil erosion. He lists four subchapters about certain activities humans do. Examples are burning, cut down trees, and spraying soil. This is helpful in finding technologies that we used for our personal good, which caused environmental harm. Also, Goudie explains what he believed to be the three effects of global warming. For a researcher in the 1900’s, I can compare his information to today’s researchers. This source can help compare research from the past and today to evaluate the progress we have made.

Ayers, et al. Environmental Science and Technology Handbook. Government Institutes, Inc. Rockville, Maryland. 1994

Ayers, Deb, Fisher, Hattemer-Frey, Kelly, Kester, Knowles, Krieger, Little, Middel, Puszcz, Silka, Slavin, Tumulty, Vajda, and Young are a select group with a variety of backgrounds like James W. Little is a senior air quality consultant with Dames & Moore and Dr. Perry W. Fisher is a Principal and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Chicago. These two writers both see the perspective of an air quality specialist and also explore the technologies that pollute the air. The purpose the writers are trying to get across is the importance it is to have clean air on earth and also the harm some technologies are having on our air. Little and Fisher present an abundant amount of information about the types of air pollutants and the sources that emit the poisonous gases.
James Little uses his chapter to describe air quality, for example the different types, emission control methods, and a regulatory approach to air quality protection. Little uses a great amount of information to help his readers get the full understanding of how important air quality is for everyday life. Perry Fisher’s chapter is strictly limited to air pollution control technologies. He brings up technologies in vehicles that could limit the poisonous emissions that vehicles produce.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. Transportation and Air Quality. 30 March 2009. www.epa.gov/OMS/

The United States Environmental Protection Agency is an agency in the United States government to protect the environment. Jobs for this agency include making regulations, give grants, study environmental issues, and other environmental saving procedures. The agency represents the government’s voice in the issue of vehicles and air pollution. The audience would have to be listed again as the general American public. The EPA gives information regarding air quality and also the stats on other environmental issues. The EPA’s website is set up with subcategories about on-road vehicles, off-road vehicles, fuels, and research being done with transportation. The EPA puts in information they want the public to know. Things left out could possibly be technologies that are currently being tested like vehicles and fuels. They may leave them out because they don’t know the exact details yet about such things like cost and environmental impact.
The EPA has a large amount of information about vehicles and its effects on the environment. This could be a good source because it comes straight from the government and its top researchers. The EPA is constantly updating its website and keeps things up to date, which will contrast nicely towards my other sources.

The sources I found helped me expand on my question, how have vehicles effected the environment in specific air pollution and global warming. The three sources I found all had different views. The three stakeholders hold the morals of the general public (drivers), environmentalist, and the government. I feel finding different perspectives helps clear any questions my reader may have when reading my essay. I intended to use just large vehicles like trucks and SUVs for this project, but the limited amount of sources led me to change to all gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. The questions that are starting to arise from my research is trying to find the auto makers perspective when trying to engineer new technologies.