The Earth Around Us: Maintaining A Livable PlanetRoutledge, 2018 M02 19 - 480 pages Soil contamination . . . public lands . . . surface and groundwater pollution . . . coastal erosion . . . global warming. Have we reached the limits of this planet's ability to provide for us? If so, what can we do about it?These vital questions are addressed in The Earth Around Us, a unique collection of thirty-one essays by a diverse array of today's foremost scientist-writers. Sharing an ability to communicate science in a clear and engaging fashion, the contributors explore Earth's history and processes--especially in relation to today's environmental issues--and show how we, as members of a global community, can help maintain a livable planet. The narratives in this collection are organized into seven parts that describe: Earth's time and history and the place of people on it Views of nature and the ethics behind our conduct on Earth Resources for the twenty-first century, such as public lands, healthy forests and soils, clean ground and surface waters, and fluctuating coastlines Ill-informed local manipulations of landscapes across the United States Innovative solutions to environmental problems that arise from knowledge of the interactions between living things and the Earth's air, water, and soil Natural and human-induced global scale perturbations to the earth system Our responsibility to people and all other organisms that live on Earth. Never before has such a widely experienced group of prominent earth scientists been brought together to help readers understand how earth's environment works. Driven by the belief that earth science is, and should be, an integral part of everyday life, The Earth Around Us empowers all of us to play a more educated and active part in the search for a sustainable future for our planet and its inhabitants. |
From inside the book
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Page xii
... allowed me to work almost exclusively on this project for four months during 1998 and the assistance of librarians at the college . A grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education under the direction ...
... allowed me to work almost exclusively on this project for four months during 1998 and the assistance of librarians at the college . A grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education under the direction ...
Page 2
... allow people with vision problems to see both near and far objects . In geology , a view of rare events far away in space and time gives us the ability and perspective to focus on their possible occurrence and impact in our nearby space ...
... allow people with vision problems to see both near and far objects . In geology , a view of rare events far away in space and time gives us the ability and perspective to focus on their possible occurrence and impact in our nearby space ...
Page 3
... allows us to look at the evolution of our planet at many scales of space and throughout all of geologic and astronomical time . We can think of geology as looking at the world through both a magnifying glass and a microscope . Because ...
... allows us to look at the evolution of our planet at many scales of space and throughout all of geologic and astronomical time . We can think of geology as looking at the world through both a magnifying glass and a microscope . Because ...
Page 7
... allow us to examine them in detail . Floods Whether about the Mississippi River in the United States , the Red River that crosses the border between the United States and Canada , or the Yangtze River in China , stories of flooding ...
... allow us to examine them in detail . Floods Whether about the Mississippi River in the United States , the Red River that crosses the border between the United States and Canada , or the Yangtze River in China , stories of flooding ...
Page 8
... allow year - round cultiva- tion of crops . For 5,000 years , the Nile was slowly modified by human influ- ence ; but this modification greatly accelerated in the nineteenth century with the building of the Aswan dams — a series of ...
... allow year - round cultiva- tion of crops . For 5,000 years , the Nile was slowly modified by human influ- ence ; but this modification greatly accelerated in the nineteenth century with the building of the Aswan dams — a series of ...
Contents
1 | |
Part II SCIENTIFIC JUDGMENTS AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS | 57 |
Part III RESOURCES RECONFIGURED | 121 |
Part IV LOCAL MANIPULATIONS | 197 |
Part V INVENTIVE SOLUTIONS | 255 |
Part VI WHOLE EARTH PERTURBATIONS | 307 |
Part VII GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES | 357 |
Source Notes | 410 |
Index | 443 |
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American aquifer Arctic atmosphere beach biological bluff Cape Hatteras Lighthouse carbon dioxide century City climate change coastal contaminated County desert dredged Earth ecosystems Edwards Aquifer effects energy Engineers environment environmental erosion example federal feet flood flow forests fossil future geologists geothermal global greenhouse groundwater habitat harbor Hawaii human Ibid ice age impact Island issues land landfill landscape layer living Lotus Bay material ment million mineral models National native Hawaiians North nuclear waste ocean Olmsted County Owens Lake ozone percent plants pollution population predictions problem processes protect radiation record region repository reservoir result River rock sand scale scientific scientists sediment shoreline soil species storm streams studies surface sustainable temperature tion U.S. Army U.S. Army Corps U.S. Geological Survey understand University USGS Valley volcanic water quality water supply watershed wetland York Yucca Mountain