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
Results 1-5 of 66
Page 7
... producing global consequences . We can use these statistics to predict the probability of an impact over any given time frame - for example , we can say that the chance that you will die as a consequence of a meteoroid impact is almost ...
... producing global consequences . We can use these statistics to predict the probability of an impact over any given time frame - for example , we can say that the chance that you will die as a consequence of a meteoroid impact is almost ...
Page 8
... produced fertile lands along the river floodplains and on the delta . These conditions supported the great Egyptian civilization that began 7,000 to 8,000 years ago . However , natural annual fluctuations in discharge produced unpre ...
... produced fertile lands along the river floodplains and on the delta . These conditions supported the great Egyptian civilization that began 7,000 to 8,000 years ago . However , natural annual fluctuations in discharge produced unpre ...
Page 14
... produce them . Volcanologists are challenged to try to understand what the precursors to such rare and large events might be and how we should respond to them . Certainly , the eruption of Mount St. Helens elevated the collective con ...
... produce them . Volcanologists are challenged to try to understand what the precursors to such rare and large events might be and how we should respond to them . Certainly , the eruption of Mount St. Helens elevated the collective con ...
Page 15
... producing the Hawaiian type of volcan- ism . Others store their recharging magma for a very long time and release it in one or a few huge eruptions . Our understanding of volcanic behavior has grown enormously over the past few decades ...
... producing the Hawaiian type of volcan- ism . Others store their recharging magma for a very long time and release it in one or a few huge eruptions . Our understanding of volcanic behavior has grown enormously over the past few decades ...
Page 19
... produced mountains would have tilted the red conglomerate , not to the verti- cal , where it stood now , but to something like forty - five degrees . That mountain range wore away from peaks to hills to nubbins and on down to nothing ...
... produced mountains would have tilted the red conglomerate , not to the verti- cal , where it stood now , but to something like forty - five degrees . That mountain range wore away from peaks to hills to nubbins and on down to nothing ...
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