I've been working in this area for about 7 years now (environmental law/ land use/ sustainability). Keep in mind that:
1) All environmental "problems" are not created equal -- e.g. what's a bigger problem, the environmental footprint of making a solar panel or the impact of burning the fossil fuels that would be burned but for the solar panel? Most of the current analysis says that, for now at least, the bigger problem is the fossil fuel impact (GHG emissions, fly ash storage/ disposal, disposal of contaminated water from fracking, high water demand from fracking, mountaintop removal, health impacts -- asthma, etc and etc.). That might change at some point, that it's the current consensus.
Example: In the early 1970's polluted water was a river-on-fire screaming problem in the U.S. Thus, the Clean Water Act in 1972 which has been a tremendous success (not that it couldn't be better, but overall, policy goals were achieved). This is no longer an urgent problem and we can, and should, focus on more urgent problems.
2) It's ALL a trade off. The question is -- what are we willing to compromise right now to achieve a goal with greater urgency?
It's not a scientific book, but "Green to Gold" lays out the business case for sustainability.