Part 3 – Basic Principles of Environmental Science

Lecturer: John Michael Allaby

Biography

John Michael Allaby is an Aventis Junior prize-winning author. He was born on 18 September 1933 in Belper, Derbyshire in England.

He was a police cadet from 1949 to 1951. After that he served in the RAF from 1951 to 1954, becoming a pilot. After leaving the RAF, he worked as an actor from 1954 to 1964, including “The Keys of Marinus” Doctor Who storyline. He married Marthe McGregor on 3 January 1957.

From 1964 to 1972, he a worked as an editor for the Soil Association in Suffolk, England, editing Span magazine from 1967 to 1972. He was a member of the board of directors for Ecosystems Ltd. in Wadebridge, Cornwall, England and was an associate editor of Ecologist from 1970 to 1972. He became a managing editor in 1972. In 1973, he became a freelance writer.

He has written widely about science, particularly about ecology and weather. He edits and writes dictionaries and encyclopaedias for Macmillan Publishers and Oxford University Press. He co-authored James Lovelock’s rst two books: The Greening of Mars (1984, Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-32967-3) and Great Extinction (1983, Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-18011-X). His book, The Food Chain (André Deutsch, ISBN 0-233-97681-7) was runner-up for the Times Educational Supplement Information Book Award in 1984. The New York Public Library chose Dangerous Weather: Hurricanes as one of its books for the teenage in 1998. He won the Aventis Junior Prize for Science Books in 2001 for How the Weather Works. He is a member of the Society for the History of Natural History, the Planetary Society, the Society of Authors, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Association of British Science Writers.

Works

• • Discovering the Earth: Exploration. Facts On File.
  • Discovering the Earth: Ecology. Facts On File.
  • Discovering the Earth: Oceans. Facts On File.
  • Discovering the Earth: Atmosphere.Facts On File.
  • Discovering the Earth: Earth Science.Facts On File.
  • Discovering the Earth: Animals. Facts On File.
  • Discovering the Earth: Plants. Facts On File.
  • Makers of Science(with Derek Gjertsen).
  • Biomes of the World. Nine-volume set: Polar Regions; Deserts; Oceans; Wetlands; Mountains; Temperate Forests; Tropical Forests; Temperate Grasslands; Tropical Grasslands.
  • The Gardener’s Guide to Weather Climate.
  • Dangerous Weather: A Change in the Weather.
  • Dangerous Weather: Fog, Smog Poisoned Rain.
  • Dangerous Weather: Floods.
  • Dangerous Weather: A Chronology of Weather.
  • Dangerous Weather: Droughts.
  • Dangerous Weather: Blizzards.
  • Dangerous Weather: Tornadoes.
  • Dangerous Weather: Hurricanes.
  • The Facts On File Weather and Climate Handbook.
  • How It Works: The World’s Weather.
  • Encyclopedia of Weather and Climate(2 vols.)
  • Megabites: Tornadoes and Other Dramatic Weather Systems.
  • DK Guide to Weather.
  • How the Weather Works. Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Science Guides, 1995.
  • Living in the Greenhouse.
  • Plant Love.
  • Plants and Plant Life. 5 volumes of a 10-volume series: Plant Ecology; Plants Used by People; Conifers; Flowering Plants: The Monocotyledons; Flowering Plants: The Dicotyledons.
  • How It Works: The Environment.
  • A Pony’s Tale (with Jane Burton).
  • A Dog’s Life(with Jane Burton).
  • Nine Lives(with Jane Burton).
  • Animal Artisans.
  • The Curious Cat(with Peter Crawford).
  • Le Foreste Tropicali.
  • Wildlife of North America.
  • Animals That Hunt.
  • The Woodland Trust Book of British Woodlands.
  • I-Spy Green Britain(with Ailsa Allaby).
  • The Ordnance Survey Outdoor Handbook.
  • Out in the Country: Where you can go and what you can do.
  • The Changing Uplands.
  • A Year in the Life of a Field.
  • Making and Managing a Smallholding.
  • Home Farm(with Colin Tudge).
  • The Survival Handbook(with Marika Hanbury Tenison, John Seymour, and Hugh Sharman).
  • Robots Behind the Plow(with Floyd Allen).
  • World Food Resources, Actual and Potential.
  • Who Will Eat?
  • Elements: Fire, the Vital Source of Energy.
  • Elements: Earth, Our Planet and Its Resources. Facts On File, 1993. 1-85697-064-7
  • Elements: Air, the Nature of Atmosphere and Climate.
  • Elements: Water, Its Global Nature.
  • Earth: A Visual Guide.
  • Children’s Encyclopedia of Earth.
  • Countries of the World: India.
  • Basics of Environmental Science.
  • Planet Earth: A Visual Factfinder(with Neil Curtis).
  • Ecology Facts.
  • Ecology.
  • The Dictionary of Science for Gardeners.
  • Collins Pocket Reference Biology(with Michael Kent).
  • The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Ecology.
  • The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Botany.
  • The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Zoology.
  • The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Earth Sciences.
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Natural History.
  • A Dictionary of the Environment.
  • Facing the Future.
  • Into Harmony with the Planet.
  • Guide to Gaia.
  • Conservation at Home.
  • 2040: Our World in the Future.
  • Your Child and the Computer.
  • The Greening of Mars(with James Lovelock).
  • The Food Chain.
  • The Great Extinction(with James Lovelock).
  • The Politics of Self-Sufficiency(with Peter Bunyard).
  • Inventing Tomorrow.
  • The Eco-Activists.